April and May 2007

At Sarah's birthday bash at Yoshi's. Batabano street parade in front of our place.

Lee's birthday braai at sunset in front of our place.

Lee loved his home-made cupcakes... Spanish Bay Braai on the beach near Rum Point before the storm set in...

The storm setting in...

Oh Captain, my Captain...

What a star... Near Rum Point for our beach braai. A dive before the beach braai.

Sting ray.

Giant blue Parrot fish Sunset at Tamarind Bay

Coconut Joes for 2 for 1 Mudslides on a Sunday

Spanish Bay

With only a few weeks left, we have crammed lots of fun stuff into the week ends. We had a week end away at Spanish Bay with Moose, Clare, Matt, Colleen and Se and Jas. It was lots of fun, great pina coladas and three awesome dives. Unfortunately my camera battery died after the first two photos... so sadly, you won't get to see the most beautiful spotted eagle ray or the numerous turtles. We have been wakeboarding too, had Se and Lee's birthday celebrations and also had a great day out on the North Sound with yet another dive, a beach braai and some stormy weather!Here are some pics...

California Dreaming.....

we had a superb two week trip in California. It started with the best part (for me that is)... a 5 day gastronomic feast in the wine country north of san francisco. Sanoma and napa were beautiful and the surrounding towns just gorgeous. I loved cruising in our mustang convertible, stopping at beautiful wine farms, tasting gorgeous californian chardonnays and picnicking under the lush trees. In the evenings we would go for a run through the mountainside or vineyards as the sun was setting before going to the fancy shmancy restaurants I had booked well in advance! We had some amazing meals with local, organic produce.... so yummy! And our fair share of fresh seafood and oysters!! We then drove via San Francisco to highway 1 down to Monterey and Carmel, where we stayed for 2 nights. Carmel is my new favourite place- one day when we're millionaires we might get ourselves a little trendy shack on the beach... ha ha! It was freezing cold though and I had a few spells of major complaint.... Cayman has really turned me into a woosy. Then we followed the Big Sur to San Luis Obispo, the student haunt for some steaks and margheritas.... and then onto Santa Barbara for real mexican cuisine (which is rather different to how we know it!) and lastly to LA where we got onto our fabulously large cruise ship. We sailed for 5 days, to San Diego, Catalina Island and Ensenada in Mexico. We played bingo, had some fun in the casino on board, danced, drank champagne and fought through a night of very very rough seas! The food was excellent, not even spoilt by the fact that we were placed at the kiddies table. Yip- Lee and I were the only ones allowed to drink! The mormon missionary couple were on there honeymoon (about 18 yrs old) and the rest were an interesting bunch of yanks and a german. Each night dinner consisted of everybody gawping at us and asking us questions... we were 'old and wise and well-travelled'... we regaled them with wonderful stories of africa (snigger) and European trips filled with adventure. It kept us amused too. Then after a day at Universal Studios in LA, we flew the 'red-eye' midnight flight back to Cayman... and now we rest. xxx

stingray city...

So I thought maybe it would be a good idea to update the site with some pics of stingray city- especially also of when Lee's folks were here with us. Picture this... The island is an L shape, lying on the long side. The whole area of water between the end of the long side (western tip) and the tip of the short side (North-eastern tip) is a reef-protected bay called the North Sound (go figure). Anyway, so this is a shallow body of water, pretty big and enclosed with a reef that runs the full length from one side to the other. Theres one spot close to the reef thats waist-deep and is pure white sand... beautiful. This is where, in the good old days, the fishermen used to stop and gut the fish and turtles cos the mosquitoes were like a plague on the island. So the stingray and some fish have been coming to this sandbar for years and years to feed on the fishy remains.... Hence the name Stingray City and Sandbar. Now the mosquitoes are controlled by a plane that fumigates.... and only tourists like us frequent stingray city and sandbar! The sandy waters around the area houses millions of beautiful conch shells, all inhabited by squirmy conch... one of the favourite local dishes, after turtle soup, of course. This is a picture of the Lighthouse, which is now a restaurant and serves the best-ever Pina Coladas!

Botanical Gardens of Cayman Islands...

So once again the ladies took to the road in the open jeep, sunnies and peaks adorned to journey to the east side of the island for some exploration. We started at the Botanical garden for the Orchid show which was pretty sweet, but small and definitely better than we had anticipated... so all was good. The orchid display was almost the size of my mothers green house in the back garden, although the blooms were somewhat more exotic... we even had a few seashells thrown in for good measure. Its the Caribbean... of course there will be seashells in any display. We had a walk in the forest- it made for a wonderful change from the flat and rather barren lowlands of the rest of the island. We saw rare blue iguanas and the nests of the Grand Cayman Parrot. No parrots unfortunately. We also saw some other birdlife, which again is definitely worth mentioning as very few birds inhabit this island. In fact few creatures inhabit this island as the locals eat anything. (hence the rare and almost extinct blue iguana!) We ambled along until we found a small lake, pretty to say the least, which led to the colourful garden.... which was superb and reminded me of home a little. Except that all the beautifully lush and overgrown foliage was in bloom with rather exotic flowers. It was a real change from George Town and well worth the trip.

And the beers and lunch at the resort on the beach en route home was also well worth the trip. Overall a great day out.

Whirlwind week end in London for Steph...

For the half term break I flitted off to London for a very brief visit. I was lucky enough to see so many friends who had made the effort to track me down in a cosy pub somewhere between Clapham and Earlsfield! I was especially happy to be able to spend some quality time with Bron, Norm, Jax and Steed. I did some shopping, had a really nice boozy lunch, learnt the art of using hair spray and lay in bed till 3am each night reading Spud. The jetlag (of which I really thought there'd be none) clearly screwed up my clock and so couldnt sleep at all. Only to get back to Cayman and sleep like the dead for a week solid! Its been bliss having the bed to myself- no 6 foot-something man to share it with.... utter bliss. But alas, its been crazy being here on my own with no hubby to share a walk along the beach with. This week end we had a crazy night at Pippa's hen party- boy oh boy did us girls party... getting pretty used to these 3am mornings now... The girls were on fine form and ended the night with some fancy dancing at The Next Level. Lee's back next week....

another move beckons...

So ... both Lee and I have resigned. Yes- once more we are heading off into the great wide open... although its more like 'backtracking' this time. We will be back in London for the European summer. We plan on doing many camping trips, week ends away and a long gastronomic feast to Italy... but until then, its paradise here and we're very happy to enjoy it to the max.

Here are two pics of us at Brad and Jax surprise wedding celebration.... they surprised us by secretly getting married after 13 years, and so we surprised them with a big bash on the beach!

This last week end us girls decided to get together and relax. We sent the boys off to do some deep-sea fishing and we started to pack for a fun day out. We gathered all our bags, snorkeling gear and big cooler and started the trek to the boat. Picture us 4 girls in bikinis, lugging a huge cooler, about 4 bags, a huge 20l petrol tank and all the snorkeling stuff through a crowd of tourists on the beach in front of the Marriot Resort. Besides the Italians screaming that they wanted to come with us- no offers to help were had, so us girls continued the lug all the way to the boat, kitted up and roared off with the first wakeboarder styling behind. We all had some great rides and some great wipes- but esp dupree who had a creep on a jetski circling us like a vulture, chopping up the beautiful, flat seas with a wicked grin and some dirty tricks while she was trying to do her stuff. We then gave up and charged off to do some snorkeling- which was beautiful although we had no major sightings.

We then anchored up to the deserted beach to have a scrummy late lunch, a beer and play some cards. Sunset was looming so we packed up and wakeboarded all the way home- and poor Dupree was once again the source of some fun as we took her on a drive-by past the tourists on their sunset cruise- needless to say she carved like a pro and jumped the wake with ease. Home time- only to see the best sunset and hear that the boys caught us fresh Wahoo and Tuna! That was Saturday. Sunday saw us taking it easy and chilling most of the day. Lee did a bike ride in the midday heat and I did a scuba dive on the Nortwest tip with Amber and friends.

Some pics from Cayman Islands.....

Lee, Jason and Ernie enjoy a swim at Calico's on Public Beach.

Here I'm posing in West Bay...

West Bay

The view of the cruise ships from our old spot, George Town Villas

West Bay Harbour

Seven Mile Beach from West Bay Harbour