Thursday, January 31, 2013

Today we have been on Little Cayman a week already.  We got up early today as our workmen were arriving at 7:30.  They were right on time.  Luckily, it was a cloudy day today but absolutely no wind at all.  We have never been here when there was no breeze.  It was kind of eerie.  We got right to work moving rock on the beach.  I thought we would get a small area finished, but we did the whole beach.  It is so fantastic!  Boy did we work hard.  It would have been impossible to accomplish so much if the hot sun would have been on us.  At 3:30 in the afternoon it got very dark and started to rain.  It rained harder than hard!  What an experience.  We had to stop working.  After a half hour the guys finally did a little touch up work and we called it quits as it just wouldn't stop raining.  We sure appreciated Neil and Cullen.  Such nice guys and hard workers. 

Richard and I are both exhausted.  It is a good exhausted though.  Tomorrow we will relax a little.  The barge is arriving tonight at 8:00 P.M.  Our supplies, including the famous scooter, are on it.  We will find someone with a truck to help us get our things off the container and to the house.  The grocery store will also have fresh supplies so everyone on the island is excited for tomorrow. 

It is nice and cool in our house this evening.  We will sure sleep good tonight.  The temperature here today was the 80's again.  We are sure glad to miss the bitter cold and snow back home. 

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

It happened again.  Early this morning it started to rain again and rained hard for at least one hour.  Then another hour of on again, off again rain.  The rest of the day was beautiful.  Sunny and mid 80's with a nice breeze.  This rain is the talk of the island.  We are easily entertained.

Richard tried to fish at the Tarpon pond today but broke his fly rod twice.  He worked on it and with some luck it will be useful again. 

This was "Wet Your Whistle Wednesday" at Southern Cross Club.  We rode our bikes there and had a great time visiting with other locals.  Everyone is so friendly here.  We stayed for dinner also.  They had Indian buffet.  It was the best food ever!  They have a 5 star chef who rates at least 10 stars! 

Tomorrow Blossom Construction is sending two guys to help us with removal of the rocks on our beach.  They will arrive at 7:30 so it is off to bed early for us tonight.  I am loving having all this help with the work.  I will surely become lazy now. 

We worked on our driveway again today.  It is looking very sharp.  Every year we make more progress.  We do have a fixer upper!

We are wondering if they got 6 inches of snow back home today as was predicted.  Sure glad I missed that.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

This morning at 7:00 we suddenly had rain again.  It rained hard for about a half hour and then off and on for awhile after that.  Then the sun came out and it was beautiful all day.  I wonder if it'll happen again tonight or tomorrow?  Two days in a row is kind of strange. 

Our day was busy as usual.  Richard did some fishing in the morning and I cleaned the ceiling of the porch.  It gets a lot of bugs and cobwebs while we are gone.  I also sat in my chair on the beach and took it easy. 

After lunch I worked outside.  The driveway is a project that we just slowly make progress on.  Richard replaced all the doorknobs on the house and put on a new screen door closer.  We seem to have a lot of little projects to work on.  We have not gone in the water yet as I have this chest thing going on.  It steals my energy.  I also have a big ugly blister on my foot and a lovely burn on my hand that I got on the oven the day before we left home.  Richard thinks I should heal up before we snorkel.  Luckily I have a good book I am reading. 

Today we called Blossom Construction again to hire the guys to come help us move rock on the beach.  I am excited to make serious progress on those darn rocks.  The storm surge over summer brought in some nice sand to our beach.  This is motivating us to get the rocks out. 

I got an e-mail that the barge carrying our scooter should be in on Thursday.  How exciting is that! 

Monday, January 28, 2013

This morning at 12:30 we awoke to a sudden rain.  It was such a surprise as the sky was so clear when we went to bed with that beautiful full moon.  The rain didn't last long but we had to hurry and close windows and I had to dry floors.  Then there was that wonderful smell of fresh rain.  I immediately fell back to sleep. 

We got up about 7:00 and took it easy.  Richard went bone fishing after getting his fly rod ready to go.  I did a few stretches to loosen up my body and then spent a nice long time in the hammock on the beach side of the house.  I was reading a book but succumbed to a serious nap.  I think I was fighting that cold Richard had.  Thank goodness I am in this environment where it can't get me.  After a hardy lunch, we got the bikes out and went to get a few items at the store.  Wow!  It sure felt good to ride that bike.  I really feel like I'm back on the island now.  It was a hot ride as the sun was shining brightly on us.  After getting our "goodies" put away we both headed for the hammocks and took a nap again.  What is going on?! 

There is always an issue with sand burrs ( stickers) on the beach.  I decided to do a little removal of them after my nap.  People say to take an old shirt and wrap it around some rocks and then drag it over the sand.  It will collect all the stickers and then you just throw it away.  I am going to try this tomorrow.  Today I just picked them up and it was taking forever.    They are sure nasty little things. 

This evening we are just relaxing.  It is nice and cool in the house.  We were down on the beach earlier this evening watching the water and sky.  It was so  beautiful.  All in all, I would say it was a pretty relaxing, lazy kind of day. 

Richard took this from his kayak today.  Our house is in the center with the tiny resort over on the left.  That tiny red dot on the beach in front of the house is my kayak.  The trees out front are the mangroves that are susposed to protect us from hurricanes.  I think they just block our view.  It is against the law to remove them. 

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Already it is Sunday.  Where have the days gone?!  The weather today was just beautiful.  Mid 80's with a lovely breeze.  This morning we moved a little slower.  It was nice.  I washed Richard's work clothes so he put up my clothes line again for the year.  He worked on his kayak in the morning.  He installed some equipment to hold his paddle and his fishing pole.  He needs this so he can fish outside the breakers in the open ocean.  Sounds dangerous to me.  I spent time on the beach fiddling around and also went on a little walk. 

After lunch I decided to work a little on the driveway.  I had good intentions to just do a little but of course I got carried away.  It is fun to make progress though. 

We have been waiting a few days to get in the water as Thursday and Friday were very windy here.  We want the water to "settle down" after the windy days.  Tomorrow should be perfect.  Just being here in this environment is so much fun.  I guess because it is so different.  I mentioned to Richard that even sleeping here is an adventure.  The windows are open, the full moon is shining in and there is absolutely no noise.  At home we never have the windows open.  Always the air conditioner is on.

We tried to get a photo of the full moon coming up tonight.  It was huge and shining through one of our coconut trees.  It looked like a beautiful post card.  The settings were incorrect on the camera, so no luck.

The sunset was pretty so Richard shot some photos from our deck. 

We had a good dinner tonight.  For some reason, we tend to always be eating a lot here.  Would not want to be on a diet here. 

In the background on this photo you can see the curve of the island. 

Saturday, January 26, 2013

It is so wonderful to be here at Little Cayman again.  I slept really well again last night.  It was a good thing, as we got up by 6:30 to eat and get ready for our "work crew" to arrive at 7:30.  Our place was so overgrown with weeds and small trees.  It was just unbelievable!  I couldn't face starting over after we worked so hard last year.  Two guys arrived right on time and they worked like machines.  The place looks spectacular!  I am so happy.  We will definitely use them again next year.  Richard and I worked with them so having four people working really made the job easier.  There are a few more areas we want to clear, but we can do that at our leisure. 

Tomorrow we plan on taking it a little easy.  The hammocks are hung so we will need to spend some time in them.  Richard has started construction drawing for our new storage/garage we are going to build while we are here this year.  We need it so we can store our new scooter and also the kayaks will be stored there from now on.  Seems we always have some new big thing to work on.  Life is exciting here.

The paint job we did on the inside of the house still looks nice.  The walls and ceiling look so nice and clean.  Hope it stays that way as I really don't think I like to paint that much.  It is work.

Our neighbor, Johnny, came by today.  He has been here since November.  The tenant of the resort next door is on the island so we visited a little with him.  It sounds like they will get a new manager soon.  Hope things go OK over there. 

There is a full moon tonight so it looks very bright outside shining on the sand.  What a beautiful evening.  Now this is  living! 

 

January 25, 2013 Friday

We arrived at Grand Cayman Wednesday around 2:30 in the afternoon to 85 degree temperatures.  A band was playing Caribbean music outside as we deplaned.  It was fabulous.  It sure is great to be back. 

We spent the afternoon taking care of paperwork on the purchase of our new scooter.  This turned out to be a big deal here and very time consuming.  We had to go all over town buying insurance, licensing and other money grabbing locations.  With that finally over we headed to the Wharf restaurant for the best meal of ones life.  We ate once again right on the water and watched the sun set.  There were a few giant cruise ships getting ready to set sail that we enjoyed watching too.  It was a beautiful evening.  We were in bed asleep by 8:30.  We were exhausted.  It is a good thing we are not older.  We would never be able to stay up so late otherwise.

Thursday we got up early, had a good breakfast and started shopping.  We bought a nice vacuum cleaner, bed pillows, fan, some tools.  No luck on the table lamps though.  I was very disappointed.  There was no time for art shopping or clothes.  Maybe next year.  We had lunch at the airport restaurant and it was very good. 

We arrived on Little Cayman around 3:00.  Everything was great on the tiny island.  We stopped and said hello at the store and SCC.  Then we got to the house.  Wow!  The trees and weeds took over while we were away.  The house is looking great.  Everything is in good working order.  We are so pleased.  The place didn't smell musty or anything.  We started getting the place up and running right away.  We had another 5 star dinner at SCC.  Man!  Was it good!  I was worried if I would sleep but no need to worry.  I slept wonderful.  The breeze blew on me all night long. 

We got up early and started working on everything.  I called Blossom Construction and they are coming tomorrow morning to help clear the property.  I decided that we did enough work already.  I may becoming lazy.  Thank God for ground crews!

The big news this year is the nice couple, Paul and Isabelle, who were running the resort next to us have left.  We didn't get to say goodbye.  They left suddenly.  There is a new guy and he seems very nice.  There is a girl from England who is coming soon to help there too.

Tonight I will cook a 5 star dinner here at the house.  It will shock our systems as we are now pretty spoiled by spectacular food prepared by well trained chefs.