Kiwanis Bike A Thon

This morning we got up at 4:45 a.m. and after dropping off Scott's Dad at the airport (he was on Island for some college work), headed over to Smith's Cove. We were met there by a bus that drove us out to the Blow Hole in East End some 22 miles from where we parked our car. On Friday we had dropped off our bikes with the event organizers in a trailer which met us out in East End. We were participating in the Kiwanis Bike A Thon a 22 mile bike ride from the Blow Hole near the eastern coast of the island back to Smith's Cove on the western coast of Grand Cayman. At least 50 bikers participated in the event with many of them the "super bikers" we often see out doing the East End loop on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Most of the super bikers had actually biked out to the blow hole earlier in the morning and were now biking back.

At 7:00 a.m. the organizers started the rally and we all headed out. Very quickly we moved to the rear of the pack and set our own pace much slower than the peloton well ahead of us. Biking from East to West on Cayman means you have a tailwind and is much easier than heading in the other direction. We had brought our camel backs for water and some energy bars. We stopped a couple of times to top up on food and made it to Smith's Cove around 8:45 a.m. having averaged a good 12 miles an hour. We hadn't done a ride this long since January so we are both very sore and will have some recovery time the next couple of days. Never the less we were both very proud of ourselves for getting up that early and for finishing the rally.

We are not going to be able to do the Half Marathon this year as we will be attending the Jazz Festival that weekend. It is a three day festival though right now we just plan to go on Friday and Saturday. We will be seeing among others, Peboe Bryson (he of Beauty and the Beast song fame) and Alicia Keys. We haven't been able to go to the Jazz Festival in years past because it always fell on Graduation weekend. This year our graduation ceremony is in January so there is no conflict. The Horns continue to win meaning Scott is in a good mood most Sunday's. Next week is the big game in Stillwater so cheer for Texas next week.

Wet, Cold and Dreary

Feels like Texas in March this week in Cayman. Normally we get some cloudbursts that are very localized (as in its raining here but not one block over localized), but right now we are getting sustained rain that has created low water crossings and lakes throughout the island. The temperature has dropped to the low 70's, don't laugh that's downright cold here and the days are just overall dreary. This is late for rainy season but since hurricane season still has about 45 days in it and since we are now in the part of the season where the storms form to our South and give much less warning (like Paloma last year) we are keeping a close eye on the weather.

Submarine Tour

By Scott: When we first moved down here we saw advertisements for the Atlantis submarine and as you drive along the water front in George Town it passes right in front of the storefront for the submarine operation so it isnt something that you see and then forget because you never drive by it again. But in the 2 plus years we have been here we haven't done the tour at first not wanting to spend the money to do the tour and later figuring we would do it some day just not that day. Well, today I had a chance to take the tour for free along with eight of our tourism apprenticeship training students who are doing a day time program with the college in partnership with the Department of Tourism. They are training to work in the tourism industry and this tour was set up to show them what they can talk to their customers about if they are asked about things to do on the Island. Our tour was set for 10:30 a.m. and we arrived at the dock at about 10:00 a.m. We had a chance to talk with the manager who described the history of the company and the different tours that they do.

To get to the submarine we rode a tender south out of the harbor about a mile down by the oil terminal by Sunset House. The tender pulls up next to the submarine off shore and we boarded the submarine. The submarine is assisted by a surface ship that follows it as it goes and gives it directional bearings since it doesn't have a GPS system. We went down to a depth of almost 100 feet and went out to the Cayman wall which dips almost 1500 feet. It was a pretty amazing sight looking over the wall and into the depths. We saw a number of very large fish you don't typically see on shore snorkels including a huge female hawksbill turtle, some Queen Angelfish and Blue Angelfish as well as hundreds of large black durgons and groupers. The entire trip dock to dock was about an hour and a half with almost an hour spent under the water. We did a morning trip which was amazing but were told that the evening trips are even more spectacular. Although it is a pricey trip, it is something worth the money and I definitely plan to take Katie for a trip the next time we do one of our vacation in Cayman weekends. Fortunately locals get a special rate so we just need to find a day when there aren't a bunch of cruise ships in town.

Our Cat the Huntress

The birthday box from Scott's Mom included a DVD for Gypsy called Kitty goes Hunting and Kitty goes Fishing. Gypsy at first didn't notice it but when we moved her scratch tower in front of the TV, something she was already on because of some catnip, she immediately took notice of the video and has been fascinated ever since when we put it on. She even gets angry when we turn it off and lays down in front of the TV and cries. She doesn't paw at the screen or jump at it she just lays there and watches intently so maybe calling her a huntress isn't the right term maybe its kitty couch potato. Either way she has absolutely loved her gift and we have taken some really funny pictures many of which are posted on Katie's face book page. Thanks to Maryanna for our gifts and for Gypsy's gift.

Speaking of packages to us in the mail, a lesson learned on Friday. The customs officers open all packages to residents at the post office checking for items that may be subject to an import duty. There was some very innocent catnip in our box that looked a whole lot like something else in its plastic baggie. It was a new and unique experience explaining to the very suspicious customs agent that it really was just catnip for our feline roommate and not something else. Fortunately all the other cat stuff in the box made our explanation sound very reasonable. It continues to be very hot and humid down here making our days consist of trying hard not to be outside after 8:30 a.m. and before about 6 p.m. Fortunately the storms have stayed away so it seems a fair trade off.

We are three weeks in to our fall quarter and basically settling in to our regular routine. Teaching and working during the week, watching the Horns on Saturday (64-7 over UTEP yesterday) and trying to get some exercise in. Yesterday morning we got up at 5:00 a.m. and went to the college to do a graduation banquet benefit walk of about 5 miles that raised money for the graduating seniors banquet tickets. We hadnt done a walk that long in a while and both of us were sore yesterday and are feeling the effects today. We head up to Miami and Orlando the first weekend in November so that is our next off-Island excursion.

Back from Texas

After a quick 54 hours in Texas, Scott is back on Island. The Horns won 34-24 over Texas Tech so he is in a good mood. We have a six week stretch now before we head up to Florida in early November for our fall seminar in Miami for two days and then to Orlando for a quick weekend getaway to see Scott's brother Kevin and his family along with Scott's Mom. Thanks to Gary and family for letting Scott stay with them.

Scott headed to Texas for UT-Tech game

This weekend I am headed back to Texas for my birthday present from Katie, getting to attend the Texas-Texas Tech football game Saturday night in Austin. We celebrated my birthday early here since I will be gone Saturday. Thanks to all the people who sent me cards and on line cards. We also want to thank everyone who sent us their condolences on Ginger.

Ginger RIP

Yesterday after several months of problems our cat Ginger had to be put to sleep. She had lost control of her bowels, was very sad and was just not able to control herself. After a talk with the Vet we made the decision that there wasnt any other option and went forward with the final procedure. We will miss her a lot.

Record numbers for our Fall quarter

When we first arrived at ICCI there were 92 students attending the school for the summer quarter of 2007. That fall, our first full quarter of work, we raised our enrollment to 138 students and set a goal of getting to 200 students by the fall of 2009. The fall is typically our largest quarter for the year. Each quarter for the past seven quarters we have steadily increased our enrollment seeing decreases in our overall numbers only in our summer numbers when a lot of students take a quarter off for holiday. Even in the summer quarters though we saw increases in numbers over previous summers and every quarter that we have been here since summer 2007 has seen at least a 5% increase over the same quarter the year before and in many instances 10 and even 20% increases over the previous year. Three days into the fall 2009 quarter and with late registration closing on Friday we are currently at 216 students, exceeding the goal we set two years ago and increasing our numbers over last fall when we had 162 students, by almost 30%. Of equal significance, our seat count is up dramatically. Seats are the number classes a student takes. One student may take three classes and therefore have 3 "seats". You would rather have 1 student in 3 classes than 2 student each in just one since you make money per seat not per student. So financially the important track has been on the number of seats and this fall we are looking at over 450 seats already registered for. In the fall of 2007 we had 304 seats so we have increased our seat count in two years by over 150 seats for the fall quarter. We are very proud of the increase and believe the college is on a great track as we head into the 2009-2010 calendar and as we head toward the 40th anniversary of the college next September.

Scott doing much better

After two weeks of PT, Scott is once again his old self and having no residual issues with his back. It seems now very likely it was his hip and not his back and with the hip now back in place all is right with the world.

Knock on wood but this storm season continues to be quiet.

Scott's back decides to throw a wrench in everything

By Scott: On Sunday morning I woke up and was feeling very stiff as if I had slept wrong. By Sunday evening it was a little worse and Monday it got progressively even worse until Monday evening I could barely walk. When I woke up Tuesday morning and still felt the same we decided to go to the hospital. They did a CT scan of my back and found a disc protrusion/herniation in my lower back at the base of my spine. I started Physical Therapy the same afternoon and found out that my left hip had also been knocked out of alignment. I had a biking accident about a week earlier and the physical therapist believes that when I landed on my left knee it knocked the hip out of place just slightly and over the course of the week it started impinging on the nerve. The hope is that by putting the hip back in that solves the problem. It could be that the protrusion is actually a coincidence having nothing to do with my pain. I have been off work for the last two days resting and tomorrow I see the therapist again for a follow up. I had been given a prescription for some pretty strong pain medicine and muscle relaxants but since the therapy session haven't needed them and am hoping not to have to use them at all. I will know more tomorrow and hopefully get released back to work. This was very bad timing as this week is final exams for the summer quarter. Katie has been very pleased about getting to order me around while on bed rest and not allowing me to do anything. She gets to take care of me this time.

Swimming in a warm bath

Yesterday afternoon we headed over to the far southern end of Seven Mile Beach where the Wreck of the Gamma is located. August is our hottest month of the year and we hoped that going for a swim would be a refreshing activity. With the water temperature in excess of 85 degrees though it was more like swimming in a warm bath. It is water temperatures like this that create the monster storms when they get into the Caribbean and one reason why everyone here breathed a sigh of relief when Hurricane Bill turned north and headed into the Atlantic. The Gamma is a ship that is beached in about 8-10 feet of water so a part of its structure is above the surface. It is just a few feet from shore so it is an easy swim to get to. You can actually swim into the structure of the boat and around its gutted open insides. The Sergeant major fish love to use the Gamma for laying eggs and it is not unusual at all to see the bright blue colored males swimming around a specific area protecting their eggs. Normally the Sergeant majors are yellow and black but when the males are protecting eggs they take on a blue hue. In the past we have seen several varieties of unusual fish at this location but yesterday it was mostly grunts, chubs and of course the Sergeant majors. We did see a southern ray swim past on his way into George Town but he never slowed to visit the wreck. The two pictures of the wreck are views of the front and rear of the boat. At left is one of the males protecting his eggs.

Swimming with a Turtle

With Katie in Beaumont for her Mom's graduation I went out this afternoon to do some snorkeling over at Eden Rock. As soon as I pushed away from the ladder I ran into a juvenile hawksbill turtle who was in a very playful mood. He swam very close to me and seemed to enjoy posing so I got several great shots and a neat minute and a half long video. Here are some of the shots.

Watching the Coast of Africa

Saturday the 15th is the official start of what is known as Cape Verde season. The Cape Verde Islands are located just off the coast of Africa where the monster storms tend to form from Saharan dust storms before crossing the Atlantic and hitting the warm waters of the Caribbean. Hurricane Dean two years ago was a Cape Verde storm as was Ivan in 2004. We have yet to get a named storm in the Atlantic basin this season so July and early August have been unusually quiet. As of today though we are tracking two storms that are coming off the coast of Africa. The first wave formed a tropical depression early in the week but looks like it will die in the Atlantic. The second storm is still near the Cape Verde Islands but seems likely to form the first named storm of the season later today and may have the strength to get across the Atlantic. It wont affect us for at least a week to ten days but it is definitely something everyone in the Caribbean is starting to watch closely every day.

Katie headed off for Texas today to go to her Mom's graduation and will be there through Sunday.

World War II Landing Craft

Today while Katie finished her final paper I went back to Sunset House to try and find the WWII landing craft that is submerged some 200 plus yards from shore. Today I swam with Adrienne, who is a dive master and the son of Katie's friends Thierry and Marie Claude. He had dived the wreck before and knew where to swim to get to it. We swam out past Amphitrite the mermaid and found the landing craft pretty quickly. It was about 60 feet below the surface and did not photograph well. This evening we went out to Yoshi's to celebrate Katie finishing her paper and her summer class. We used a certificate from our cousins the Spetters and want to pass on again our thanks for a great time with them and for the gift certificate. This Thursday Katie is headed back to Texas for her Mom's graduation from Lamar University in Beaumont.

Mermaid

Off the Sunset House hotel and restaurant on South Church Street is a dive spot popular for a wrecked WWII landing craft and a statue of a mermaid called Amphitrite as well as a wide variety of sea life. This afternoon was very calm so while Katie worked on her final paper for her Masters class on a deck overlooking the water I went for a swim the 200 or so yards out to see the Mermaid. On my way I passed a school of Caribbean squid in to lay their eggs and a turtle looking for lunch. Even though the mermaid is a 9 foot tall bronze statue, the shots arent that great as she is about 55 feet below the surface.

New Car

Today we picked up our new car a blue 2007 Toyota Yaris that we bought from Budget. We are still working on a name. Katie has already rejected VY, Major, Ricky and Earl so we are moving beyond the pantheon of Texas Longhorn football legends for a name. Will post pictures and the name soon.

Scott on Daybreak

Scott made an appearance on the local morning TV show, The interview was two segments and both are now up on the web and we have the links below. Just cut and paste into the address bar.

http://www.cayman27.com.ky/news/item/2138

http://www.cayman27.com.ky/news/item/2137


The Minister of Education is touring the college Thursday so we are preparing for his visit. The Spetters headed home today and we had a great time with them while they were here. Our car has finally given up the ghost so we are in a rental for a few days and should get a new (used) car by Friday.

Visit from Chicago Relatives

This week our cousins the Spetters are on island to see Grand Cayman. We met them this morning for breakfast and a quick tour to give them the lay of the land. They went on their Stingray tour this afternoon and we will be taking them to Cemetery Beach and Hell tomorrow morning. This weekend we plan to show them several sites and also go to the new Harry Potter movie which debuts here on Friday.

Butterfly Farm, Pirate Caves and Vivendi Cabaret

This past Monday celebrated Constitution Day here in the Cayman Islands. With work being closed, we decided to take advantage of the holiday by visiting some of the tourist sites we have often driven by but never gone into. Since we got on Island Katie has wanted to go up to the Butterfly Farm which is located north of George Town across from Marquee Plaza. It houses several species of butterflies and actually was a very interesting hour. We went early as the butterflies are active in the morning before it gets too hot. We toured the farm seeing butterflies in every stage of growth from caterpillar to death and food for the ants. After a home made lunch we headed east out to Bodden Town where the Pirate Caves and Bodden Town zoo are located. They are right next to the coast in Bodden Town on the main road East. We have passed the caves quite often both in our car and on our bikes and decided that it was time to see what they were actually like. We toured the mini zoo then climbed down into the caves to look around. The caves were interesting though extremely unlikely to have ever been used by pirates. They are home to bats and we kept a look out for any flying friends while walking through them. Having been to Carlsbad this was a huge difference and we kept having to remind ourselves that essentially this was a cave for bats to hide in and not an 8th wonder of the world so we needed to not let our expectations overtake reality. All in all we needed to see them at some point but could see why everyone had told us the Pirate Caves were a tourist trap and they were right.

We went to the caves around 1:30 in the afternoon and definitely were reminded that during July and August being out after noon and before about 5 is not the time to do things as it is way to hot and steamy. El Nino is supposedly going to keep down the storms in the Atlantic but it not doing anything to keep down the summer heat here in the tropics. After a trip home and a cleansing shower we headed out to the Vivendi Cabaret a new restaurant and Cabaret show on Seven Mile Beach. The show is a combination lounge singer, dancers, showgirls, and cirque de soleil style acts. The show was fantastic, as was the service though frankly the food wasn't that great especially considering what we paid for it. We would definitely recommend seeing the show but pass on the meal in the future. There are two different shows and we plan to go to the other show at some point soon and just eat a meal before we go and have drinks/appetizers at the show.

Home from Chicago

By Scott: I am back in Cayman after my week up in Chicago. On Wednesday the wake for Julia was held in Oak Park and then the funeral Thursday in Willow Springs. Julia was laid to rest in a very pretty cemetery and then the reception was held at Nikos a banquet hall style restaurant where ironically Nick and Julia's wedding reception was held. On Friday we had a big breakfast with Nick, his brother Dean and his wife Olympia, his sister Michelle and her husband Keith, Johanna and little Nicholas, Chuck Cori and Christi at George's in Oak Park where we always meet on Sunday's before Bears games to ride the train downtown. Friday afternoon Johanna, Nicholas and I headed over to Lyons to see Uncle Hank and Aunt Mary. Hank turned 90 not too long ago and was looking good. Aunt Mary had just won over a hundred bucks at bingo so she is staying active too. Saturday was a very early wake up call for my 5:59 a.m. flight. The flight actually had mechanical difficulties and as a result I was going to miss my connection. I got moved to another flight and another connection and made it home about 2 hours later than I would have if I had made my original flights. A big thanks to Chuck, Twila and family for letting me stay with them part of the week and to my sister Johanna, Brent and Nicholas for letting me stay with them part of the week.