Still at Grand Cayman - April 5th
Grand Cayman – April 5th
Its 0600 Sunday morning, our second Sunday here – where does that time all go? I guess I’ll answer that then, each day since our arrival we have worked on Moondancer, and every time we go ashore we are walking to places that we don’t know the location of until we find them. To fill our propane tank we first walked about 20 minutes to the office where you pay for the propane – 20lb tank $33 Cayman ($40), then walked another 40 minutes to the place where they fill up the tank. Then back again. Well that just about does the day in, walking these distances in the hot sun lugging a propane tank really wears one out. Especially when we got back to the downtown Georgetown area where the 4 – 5 cruiseship loads of people are all milling about, weaving and dodging through those crowds pulling a propane cylinder really works up a beer appetite.
We have really liked Georgetown, the anchorage is a bit rolly, and we’ve been woken a few nights at about 0300 with the boat rocking sideways so badly we couldn’t lie down any longer, but other than that everything else has been great. We really love to be anchored in this beautiful clear water, every time we jump in to snorkel the view is gorgeous and there are always fish to look at, and squid and lobsters. Which is quite remarkable in a harbour that hosts 4 – 5 cruiseships every day during their season, which must be now. Actually there were no ships yesterday and apparently for the next 2 days.
A couple of days ago we decided to find the chandlery which is at the bottom of the north sound, quite a long way from here. We did find a bus which took us part of the way then it was back to shanks’s pony (legs), so Tony and I did something I can’t remember ever doing, Tony put his thumb out (put, not pulled his thumb out) and a very nice woman in a brand new vehicle stopped and drove us all the way to the chandlery making pleasant conversation all the way. We found a couple of things we needed at the chandlery but also found that the north sound shallows up too much for us to bring our boat into the small marina there. The marina manager made some phone calls for us to find out where we would be able to take our boat and where we could fuel up etc. A very helpful man who had nothing to gain from the transaction than goodwill.
So the hitch hiking had been so successful once why not try it again – another very nice person – a young man in a newish truck picked us up and drove us all the way back into town. He is an up and coming musician – reggae/rap. He played us a CD he had made and it was good, he told us of his aspirations to make it and said that some of his music is already doing well in Europe. Then he gave us one of his CD’s and dropped us off.
So not only did we not have to pay bus fare we made a profit.
Buoyed up with all of this goodwill we stopped into a bar on the beach which advertised $3 beer all day and where we had heard a bunch of people a few days earlier calling out ‘shame on your sobriety’ in the same manner as a spiritual healer would bring down the wrath of God on a poor soul possessed by the devil.
We met a couple of newly retired gentlemen from New York who were at the tail end of a very pleasant day on the beach interspersed with lots of libations. One of them was a retired primary school teacher, he had taught Grade 6 kids and said that he never once didn’t like his job. I believed him – he had the air of Raffi about him – a musician that kids love. On the way home we dropped by a neighbouring boat – Ivory Moon and were fed a very nice curry.
That was a damned good day.
Yesterday we went for our first dive since Catalina Island and it was really nice. The water was not as crystal clear as it has been most our time here as it had been quite rough during the night but is was certainly not a disappointment. I was quite nervous to start, being a new diver I was a bit worried that I might have forgotten my newly acquired skills, but I had nowt to fear. Tony is an excellent teacher and is so comfortable in his underwater environment that he makes sure I am always OK. Initially my mask clearing was a bit difficult, but then everything was good and I loved the dive. The coral columns are full of fish, all kinds. Its amazing how nature can keep coming up with new shapes and colours and combinations of frilly and puffy and spiky or furry to make fish good to look at. And they look back with their swivelly eyes. We found a couple of huge lobsters (lobsters have no claws here) hiding in a small coral cave. When Tony touched a feeler they popped back into their cave, but then they came back out and one of them extended a feeler to touch him back. Tony the lobster whisperer.
In the late afternoon we met up with a couple who live here from the US who had seen our boat and are looking to buy a TransWorld 41 on Yachtworld. They asked if we would mind showing them our boat, as it would make it easier for them to decide where this is the type of boat for them. We remember that viewing boats on Yachtworld is quite different from actually looking over a boat in reality. So Ray and Julie showed up with cooler full of ice cold beer (Tony already loved them), a bottle of rum and a Tortuga Rum Cake, a Cayman speciality. We had a very pleasant visit with them, unfortunately the boat was rolling around enough to make Julie feel sick, but we are meeting them onshore today and they are going to show us around Cayman Island.
Another very good day.
Oh, and by the way we aren’t going to Antigua next stop, we are going to Dominican Republic, it’s about 500 miles closer, better for Josie and Lorne and Nadine to get to and looks like it could still be a good place to leave from to Bermuda. We found a really good guide on noon-site which we downloaded free. We’ll head for Boca Chica which is close to a big city called Santo Domingo.
Its 0600 Sunday morning, our second Sunday here – where does that time all go? I guess I’ll answer that then, each day since our arrival we have worked on Moondancer, and every time we go ashore we are walking to places that we don’t know the location of until we find them. To fill our propane tank we first walked about 20 minutes to the office where you pay for the propane – 20lb tank $33 Cayman ($40), then walked another 40 minutes to the place where they fill up the tank. Then back again. Well that just about does the day in, walking these distances in the hot sun lugging a propane tank really wears one out. Especially when we got back to the downtown Georgetown area where the 4 – 5 cruiseship loads of people are all milling about, weaving and dodging through those crowds pulling a propane cylinder really works up a beer appetite.
We have really liked Georgetown, the anchorage is a bit rolly, and we’ve been woken a few nights at about 0300 with the boat rocking sideways so badly we couldn’t lie down any longer, but other than that everything else has been great. We really love to be anchored in this beautiful clear water, every time we jump in to snorkel the view is gorgeous and there are always fish to look at, and squid and lobsters. Which is quite remarkable in a harbour that hosts 4 – 5 cruiseships every day during their season, which must be now. Actually there were no ships yesterday and apparently for the next 2 days.
A couple of days ago we decided to find the chandlery which is at the bottom of the north sound, quite a long way from here. We did find a bus which took us part of the way then it was back to shanks’s pony (legs), so Tony and I did something I can’t remember ever doing, Tony put his thumb out (put, not pulled his thumb out) and a very nice woman in a brand new vehicle stopped and drove us all the way to the chandlery making pleasant conversation all the way. We found a couple of things we needed at the chandlery but also found that the north sound shallows up too much for us to bring our boat into the small marina there. The marina manager made some phone calls for us to find out where we would be able to take our boat and where we could fuel up etc. A very helpful man who had nothing to gain from the transaction than goodwill.
So the hitch hiking had been so successful once why not try it again – another very nice person – a young man in a newish truck picked us up and drove us all the way back into town. He is an up and coming musician – reggae/rap. He played us a CD he had made and it was good, he told us of his aspirations to make it and said that some of his music is already doing well in Europe. Then he gave us one of his CD’s and dropped us off.
So not only did we not have to pay bus fare we made a profit.
Buoyed up with all of this goodwill we stopped into a bar on the beach which advertised $3 beer all day and where we had heard a bunch of people a few days earlier calling out ‘shame on your sobriety’ in the same manner as a spiritual healer would bring down the wrath of God on a poor soul possessed by the devil.
We met a couple of newly retired gentlemen from New York who were at the tail end of a very pleasant day on the beach interspersed with lots of libations. One of them was a retired primary school teacher, he had taught Grade 6 kids and said that he never once didn’t like his job. I believed him – he had the air of Raffi about him – a musician that kids love. On the way home we dropped by a neighbouring boat – Ivory Moon and were fed a very nice curry.
That was a damned good day.
Yesterday we went for our first dive since Catalina Island and it was really nice. The water was not as crystal clear as it has been most our time here as it had been quite rough during the night but is was certainly not a disappointment. I was quite nervous to start, being a new diver I was a bit worried that I might have forgotten my newly acquired skills, but I had nowt to fear. Tony is an excellent teacher and is so comfortable in his underwater environment that he makes sure I am always OK. Initially my mask clearing was a bit difficult, but then everything was good and I loved the dive. The coral columns are full of fish, all kinds. Its amazing how nature can keep coming up with new shapes and colours and combinations of frilly and puffy and spiky or furry to make fish good to look at. And they look back with their swivelly eyes. We found a couple of huge lobsters (lobsters have no claws here) hiding in a small coral cave. When Tony touched a feeler they popped back into their cave, but then they came back out and one of them extended a feeler to touch him back. Tony the lobster whisperer.
In the late afternoon we met up with a couple who live here from the US who had seen our boat and are looking to buy a TransWorld 41 on Yachtworld. They asked if we would mind showing them our boat, as it would make it easier for them to decide where this is the type of boat for them. We remember that viewing boats on Yachtworld is quite different from actually looking over a boat in reality. So Ray and Julie showed up with cooler full of ice cold beer (Tony already loved them), a bottle of rum and a Tortuga Rum Cake, a Cayman speciality. We had a very pleasant visit with them, unfortunately the boat was rolling around enough to make Julie feel sick, but we are meeting them onshore today and they are going to show us around Cayman Island.
Another very good day.
Oh, and by the way we aren’t going to Antigua next stop, we are going to Dominican Republic, it’s about 500 miles closer, better for Josie and Lorne and Nadine to get to and looks like it could still be a good place to leave from to Bermuda. We found a really good guide on noon-site which we downloaded free. We’ll head for Boca Chica which is close to a big city called Santo Domingo.
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