Sunday, February 26, 2017

Richard and I are tired this morning and slept in a little after partying last night like we were teenagers. The party started at 9:00 which is late for us.  We had a great time.  Today we had a cloudy morning and then the sun came out.  When it got to be time to do beach clean-up the clouds were back.  What a gift!! We didn't have to work in the hot sun.  There was a huge turn out to clean up our beautiful beaches.  We must have collected 100 bags of trash.

After our work was finished, there was a BBQ for all at Point of Sand.  The food was the best we had ever ate as we were all hungry from all our efforts.

Another spectacular weekend in paradise!

A group shot of all us workers with Richard on the right running to get in on the shot!

 

Another beach site we worked on.

Marcia and I posing with our trash!

Hard at work!

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Just a short post tonight as I skipped last night.  We just get busy somehow and time gets away from me.  This morning we woke up to a very calm day.  I think the wind speed was 1.  The water was beautiful!  Friends wanted us to go to Point of Sand with them snorkeling in the morning.  We had to say no as we needed to get the boat out of the water.  We finally got news from the boat repair shop on Grand that a technician is coming to work on the motor.  Hopefully, they will find what is wrong and it can be fixed.

After lunch we went lobstering again.  Conditions were wonderful and we loved being out even though we didn't get a lobster. We didn't even see one!  Tom went along and we enjoyed a nice visit too.

We rushed to get ready once back home as ISU had a game.  Richard likes to watch them on the big TV at the Hungry Iguana.  We ate dinner there also tonight.   Tonight at 9:00 there is a party with a live band at the Iguana.  I hope I can stay awake that long to head back there.  Normally we don't stay up so late.  This should be a lot of fun though.  We are not teenagers anymore!

Tomorrow is the big beach clean up event so maybe we will have to sleep in tomorrow morning.

Thursday, February 23, 2017

We woke to a beautiful day here on our little island in paradise.  Everything is sparkling clean after our big rain.  I dried off the outside furniture and we are ready for action!

I did a load of laundry.  The wind was coming from the southwest which is super rare.  This is the second time it has come from the SW this season though!  It was blowing pretty fierce.  Hanging out the laundry pretty much did me in!  I felt like the wind just beat me up! I should have had Richard take a movie of it.  The laundry was blowing in my face and nearly knocking me over!  What a riot!

Late in the afternoon I took the laundry off the line.  It was so fluffy!  The towels were just like fresh from a clothes dryer.  The wind did it's job!  Thank you wind.

We worked a little on trees this afternoon.  Will we ever finish?  I am reading a good book and fulfilling my obligation to everyone who told me to lay on the beach for them.  This was a relaxing day.  My sea lice bites are slowly getting better.  They look ugly yet.  Once in awhile they start itching again, which is so weird.

Time to beat Richard in a game of cards!

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Yesterday was a busy day cutting trees again and hauling them away.  We worked hard but it is looking good.  These island sea grape trees just got too close to the house.  They grow so fast. You can't turn your back on them for a minute!

Friends had us over for dinner last night and we had a super yummy meal.  We even had sweet corn! It was a very fun time.

Today Robin, a very good contractor on the island, stopped by our house.  He is working up a quote to remodel our kitchen.  I like the kitchen as it is but it is time to replace the cabinets, counters and sink.  Very exciting!

Bruce stopped by with some sympathy fish from Brian.  The boat is still out of commission and we never hear a word from the repair technician.  We may have to cough up the big bucks and buy a new motor!  You can be sure it won't be a Yamaha!!

Late this afternoon our beautiful blue, cloudless sky suddenly got very dark to the southwest.  The wind was super strong and it poured rain.  This was sure welcome as it has been super dry here.  Boy did it blow!!  I am absolutely positive, I would never want to be here in a hurricane!

Needless to say, I have been spending my fair share of time laying on the beach and in hammocks.  My book reading continues.  

Monday, February 20, 2017

I'm still in Paradise!  I slept a little last night.  My one million bug bites are actually caused by Sea Lice!  How gross is that!!  After researching this and talking to others on island, I now know way more about these lice and hope I never encounter them again!  I guess they got inside my rash guard and got trapped.  The water we were in was too warm and shallow with grasses in it.  Never will I go there again!   I am so uncomfortable!

The boat saga continues.  We are having a technician fly here to work on it and he was supposed to call today.  We never heard a word.  That's island time for you!  Whoa, guys they want to go fishing, whoa guys they just want to fish!  That was to the music of Girls They Want to have Fun.....

Today we cut down trees along the side of the house.  They are Sea Grape Trees.  Very hard to cut and a tremendous amount of work.  It'll be so great when they are gone though.  Richard likes these trees a lot and I hate them.  So we are trying to compromise.  If you give these trees an inch, they take a couple miles!  One has to be aggressive with them.

We have two iguanas that have joined us here.  They hang out here all the time and stay close to watch us work.  We have to step over them a lot as they like to be in the thick of things.  The silly things seem to like it if we talk to them!  What fun!  Today I had my green floaty laying on the porch.  Rocky climbed up all the steps to get up to check out my floaty.  We named them Rocky and Balboa!
They were just tiny when we bought the place.  Now they are all grown up!

Another beautiful sunset tonight.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

It has been hot here in paradise!  The wind is not blowing so even in the shade it is hot.  This is great water weather.  Yesterday we went with friends to Owen Island in the kayaks.  We took the back way around and then parked our boats on the beach and went snorkeling.  We saw a lionfish!!  Richard put a bunch of rocks at the opening of its cubby hole so he at least couldn't escape.  When it was time to head back home, out of nowhere, the wind picked up! Of course it was the wrong direction!  It was super hard to paddle home.  I was exhausted!  Once back at the house, we all snacked and had rum punches and recovered.

Today the water has been like glass all day!  We should have made our trip to Owen today!  But I can't see the future!!

My continuing saga of bug bites progresses onward!  This morning I awoke with what looked like about 20 mosquito bites on my left shoulder.  As the hours pass I get more and more!  What a mess! Boy do I itch!  I had my rash guard on while snorkeling and that is where all the bites are.  My right arm is OK except for two  on that shoulder now appearing.  Help!!

This afternoon the water was flat as glass and warm.  I went out for a swim and it gave me some relief from my itching.  I had at least four turtles join me.  They wanted to see who the weird lady was with all the bites on her body.  They kept their heads out of the water for long periods and were probably talking to me.  I speak English not Turtleish though!

Fun day on Owen Island

Friday, February 17, 2017

Today in paradise we awoke to absolutely no wind!  Everything was so still and quiet.  The water was completely smooth.  Talk about pretty!  I worked on the beach early before the sun was beating on me.  We had an early lunch and had a rendezvous with friends snorkeling on the north side.  Conditions were ideal.    We had so much fun.  I am calling it the "day of the ray"!  We saw a couple of lovely Eagle Rays and several stingrays.  There were a couple turtles, tons of fish and two "love bird" groupers there for our viewing pleasure.

This day we were joined by several other snorkelers.  This has not happened for years.  Usually we are totally alone over on the north side, wondering if we are alone in the world!

We are still bug free here and loving it.  The house is all open and we ate dinner on the porch.  Our lemon shark entertained us while we ate tonight.  He seems to be liking our locale of late.  There must be some small rays he is after.  We also had a turtle stop by tonight.  We don't get this view in Iowa!

Last evening we went to a program on the Grouper Aggregation presented by REEF Divers.  It was so interesting.  The scientist presenting this did such a great job communicating to all in attendance.  The Nassau Grouper is protected here.  It is the largest aggregation left in the Carribbean.

One of the beautiful Eagle Rays we saw today.

Thursday, February 16, 2017

It has been a busy, fun two days here on Little Cayman.  We have been enjoying the hot, sunny days and beautiful evenings that have been bug free.  This season we do not have bugs.  It even seems weird not to have them.  We sit out on the beach at night totally bug free.  We ate supper on the porch tonight and lunches and breakfast and absolutely no bugs!

Richard has been busy taking the boat out fishing.  He has been having a little luck.  We had tuna for dinner tonight.  Yesterday afternoon he did some bone fishing from his kayak.  While he bone fished, I went swimming.  I was not joined by a shark this time!  

This morning I enjoyed my bike ride and beach walk.  I noticed a black tip reef shark near the Conch Clubs boat dock.  Suddenly I seem to be seeing sharks!  After lunch Richard and I and Tom went lobstering.  We found several.  One lobster was huge!  He did not want to be eaten though.  We tried and tried to capture him!  We were in the water several hours.  I shrivelled up from being in so long!

Following are some photos of us getting ready to head out to go lobstering.  Or I should say, photos of Richard!

How about this great shot!

Getting ready to go lobstering.

We bring a kayak along to put the caught lobster in so we don't have a shark come get us.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Happy Valentines Day!  It was a beautiful, sunny day so I took my bike out and went on my beach walk.  What a fun time!.  When I got back I put in a load of laundry and took my book out to the beach.  Soon Richard and Jim returned from fishing with a nice fish.

In the afternoon I went for a swim.  I was out for a short time and was joined by a lemon shark!  I immediately came back in!  Darn!  Hope he doesn't make a habit of hanging around here.  I took the kayak out right away to see if I could find him but had no luck.  I will have to be careful for awhile.

Sitting on the beach under the stars.

Tonight we went out to the Beach Resort for valentines day dinner.  The weather is just perfect this evening.  We sat on the beach when we got back home.  Richard took a photo and video.  The stars were so pretty as the moon wasn't up yet.   We are so loving it here!

Richards fish.

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Richard and I have been enjoying our time on the island so much this year.  It has been busy with water play, friends, and yard/beach work and so much more.  All this busy fun has been making the time fly by though!

Yesterday we did some major clearing on our property again and today tackled another area.  Soon we will be totally finished.  What will we do with our time then?  I am looking forward to being finished clearing.

Last night we went to McCoys for their Saturday night barbecue.  We went with Susan and Joe.  It was fun and the food was great.  We saw the beautiful sunset from there and on the way home enjoyed the gorgeous full moon!

Tomorrow it is back to fishing.  The wind has calmed down again.  We had two days where it was too windy.  The waves and swells in the ocean just get to high and dangerous.  So, I put my order in for a nice wahoo and some tuna.

Dinner at McCoys.

Friday, February 10, 2017

Yesterday was a beautiful day here on the island.  Richard went fishing with Tom and they got skunked again.  Brian felt sorry for them and gave them some "sympathy" fish.  He was out fishing too and got a couple and gave them to us.  He is such a nice guy!  We had company for dinner and I fixed the tuna.  It was super yummy!  Today I baked some brownies for Brian as an exchange for his fish.  Not a fair trade at all.  I definitely got the better end of that deal!

Today was a yard working day.  It was windy on the north side so we work when it is not a "water" day.  We just keep clearing more areas and spiffing things up where we can.  It is fun work!  While I was working three "twenty somethings" came by on their bikes.  They had gone all around the island and were out of water.  I invited them in and filled their bottles with water.  We had a nice little visit.  They were here visiting from Grand.  The girl had purple hair like Emily!  How fun!

We had a beautiful sunset tonight.  Another fabulous day coming to a close in paradise.

Sunset photo taken from out beach.

Even a fish jumped up to see the sunset!

So pretty!

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

The sun has set on another beautiful day in paradise.  What a day it has been!  This morning at 6:15 we headed out in the boat to do some deep sea fishing.  It was a beautiful calm morning and getting through the cut was very easy. We fished and we fished but never got a thing.  If I wouldn't have been there, I wouldn't have thought it was possible to be skunked!  Well, tomorrow is another day!  If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.  That boat drinks a lot of gas!

After lunch, we headed to the north side to snorkel.  It was perfect conditions and one doesn't want to pass that up.  What a way to spend the afternoon.  Just the expanse of the beautiful ocean water in its vibrant shades of blue will take your breath away.  The water is so clear and warm and for some reason no one else can be seen for miles and miles.  You feel like you are alone on a deserted island.  Life is good.

This evening we lit the Teki torches and sat on the beach under the almost full moon.  Need I say more!  So lovely!

The sun coming up over the water.

Coming back to the dock after fishing.

Heading out to snorkel.  Notice how clear the water is.  The tiny dot in the distance is a dive buoy where the water is 40 to 60 feet deep.  Just after that it drops to 600 ft. deep.  We swim out to the buoy to snorkel the drop off wall.

The first sign of the rising sun.  It was very pretty.  The top photo here is when the sun was a little higher.  The blog posts my photos out of order for some reason.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Another day in paradise!  Just a gorgeous day today.  The wind was very calm for Richard to go fishing.  Apparently, the fish loved it too as they were ready to eat.  Richard caught a fish!!  Finally!  I immediately prepared some for a second breakfast.  It was super yummy!

The seas are supposed to be calm tomorrow so I am going deep sea fishing too.  When I go along, we catch a Wahoo (hahaha).  I am hoping we catch a lot of fish.  It would be fun to get a bunch!

I am still vacationing today, so I didn't do a lot of work.  We had a 15% off special day at the grocery store today.  I made a big list and spent $124.24. I saved $12.98.  I had 18 items of food and $ 50.00 in gas.  They don't give the discount on gas.  Gas is only $ 5.53 a gallon this year.  Not too bad, but I had just picked up a few items yesterday.

We had fish for dinner tonight, of course!  Boy, it was so tasty!  I fried it and put a special sauce on it.  I had gotten the recipe from Brian.  He knows fish!  We had it with rice and some vegges.  It was like a stir fry.  I could eat it every night.

Our second breakfast of fresh caught tuna.

Monday, February 6, 2017

Yesterday was a fun vacation day for me here on Little Cayman.  I got up early and made a batch of pancakes and ate them out on the deck.  Not a bad view!  I could have eaten the whole batch, they were so yummy!

Richard trimmed up the mangroves and I helped haul them out a little but I sure didn't exert myself!  I grabbed my book and read on a beach chair.  What a way to spend the morning!  After lunch, I went in the water.  It was calm and wonderful!  Then I layed on the beach to dry off for awhile and did some more reading.  What a lazy life!  I truly felt like I was on vacation!  I didn't even cook supper as we went out to watch the Super Bowl.  What a game that was!  I normally don't watch it but I did this time.  We had a good time.

This morning Richard went out again and tried to catch a fish.  No luck!  I took my bike out and walked down to Brian's dock.  They had two smaller ones.  Brian invited me to stay and enjoy the fresh caught Tuna.  He had a wonderful new sauce he mixed up and it was so yummy.  I could have eaten every piece and not shared with anyone!  I'm excited to fix this when Richard finally is successful.  Maybe tomorrow!  We will have a party to celebrate when he finally catches the fish!!

I shoveled a little driveway sand this afternoon but quit after only a few wheelbarrow loads.  It was time to lay in my hammock again and read!  That is just too fun!  We ordered way too much sand so we are trying to find places for it.  What a shame as it is so expensive.

This was after my swim.  The boat dock is in the background.  Our boat is there if you enlarge the pic by clicking on it.

Yesterday, reading on the beach.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

This morning I went on my bike ride down to SCC again and then went on my beach walk.  I walked down to Brian's dock and watched them clean some fish.  The pelican was there and a bunch of frigates to pick up scraps and then the sharks and two stingrays showed up along with some tarpon.  What a sight!  I also finally got to see Brian's new boat!  Very impressive!

Richard did not catch a fish again today!  What the heck!  Won't be long though.  It will happen eventually.  I don't want to starve!

Today I spent some time just goofing off.  I am on vacation!  I went to the store for a couple things and got home and discovered I forgot one thing!  I am not a good grocery shopper!  I sat on a beach chair a lot today.  So many people back home have asked me to do that on their behalf!  I had to do it.

We are having beautiful warm/hot sunny weather and I love it.  It is dry here though.  They did not get as much rain in their rainy season as they normally do.  Luckily, our cistern was full when we got here.

Hats off to my 90 year old Mom today!  She went to Phantom of the Opera in Madison, Wisc. with my sister and my niece today.  She is amazing lately.  Seems to have a lot of "get up and go"!  Fun!

Tomorrow Richard wants to see the Super Bowl so we will watch it at the Hungry Iguana.  They always have a crowd!  Should be fun!

This morning a bananaquit took a bath on the porch in the frisbie water I set out.  The pan I had was seeming too deep for them this year.  The frisbie is perfect!  They are loving it.  This little guy got in three times and each time he stayed in super long.  These tiny birds are so cute!  It is a deep frisbie and will be a lot easier to keep fresh for them.

Friday, February 3, 2017

It was another beautiful day in paradise today!  Richard took the boat out fishing this morning very early.  I got the "house work" complete and finally went on my bike ride and beach walk.  Things have been so busy here that I haven't had a chance to do this yet.  As I was walking on the beach, I realized how much I had missed doing my ride/walk.

On my ride back home I was able to stop and visit with a neighbor which was also fun.  Once back home Richard was there and told me all about their fishing adventure.  They almost had a fish....darn!  He will try again tomorrow.

I spent some time doing some easy work around the yard and beach but mostly I moved from one comfortable hammock to another comfortable hammock today.  When I was finished laying in hammocks, I layed on a beach chair to read.  I am trying to make the most of every blissful day on this beautiful island!  I'm living the good life!

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Today I am so grateful to be at Little Cayman.  Back home in Ames the temperature was 17degree F.  That is cold!!  It was 85 and sunny here with a lovely breeze.  I went swimming at the house and layed on my beach afterwards.  What a life!

Our permanent Internet was finally installed today.  So the next thing I will expect is the bill!  It was just a little over 3 weeks late.  That isn't bad for island life!

Last night we had friends over for dinner and they brought the game called Sequence along.  It is fun to play and we decided to buy one for at home.  Maybe I'll buy one for here too.  When you don't have TV, you need games.

Yesterday we installed all our new window blinds.  The old ones were blue.  The new ones are white and they really look great!  It really brightens the place up!  It took a while but was well worth the effort.  

I had such a lovely adventure with a tiny bananaquit yesterday while laying on my hammock.  I was reading and suddenly felt something/someone pushing lightly on my hammock.  I thought it was Richard!  I turned my head and there was the little bananaquit sitting there looking right in my face!  It hopped along inspecting me.  It came so close as to peck on my face!  It continued to check out my whole side of my body and then quietly flew away.  These bananaquits don't seem to mind humans at all.  They come on our porch when we are sitting there and get a drink and bathe while we are watching.  Totally adorable!

Cutie Pie is still here on our property but he is all grown up now and looking like an old man!  There is a young one here now also.  Our rock iguana also is back and seems to remember us along with our little curly tail gecko.  Such pets we have!!

Time to beat Richard at another game of Cribbage.  My winning streak continues!