This week I had my mug shot in the local newspaper, “The Cayman Observer”. Organizations can send in press releases to tell the business community about promotions & hirings. This is not something I was used to in Montreal, but am told by a buddy of mine that in english Canada is done quite a bit. In the first week of may, in another newspaper “The Journal”, I will have published the first of five montly security articles I am writing as a guest columist of the paper. I will post it here when I comes out.
Saturday was the annual KPMG beach day. It was a great day to have a beach party. There was plenty of drinks, burgers, ribs, BBQ chicken, etc. Turnout was surprisingly low (free food & beer … go figure???), but it was great anyhow. One of the other managers brought his sea kayaks. Julie & I took one out for a 30 minute paddle along 7-Mile beach ; we really enjoyed it. Thank goodness we had put on a lot of sunscreen though! We are now considering getting one for ourselves.
Here is a scan of the press release. It made page 5 out of 32. Not bad eh? People actually read these things because on of my clients even sent me an email after reading it.
Here are some pics of the office beach day.
As many of you know, I seem to be going often to Miami. Miami has become a sort of “Toronto” compared to when I was in Montreal. Last week I was again in Miami. Great place! My client has an amazing view from their penthouse offices in one of the tallest buildings in the city.
One thing great about Miami is the shopping. Not that I go to get anything fancy, but its amazing the things we take for granted in North-America. Mundane items such as computer parts, lipsyl, soap or plant seeds are either unavailable in Cayman or are 2-3 or even 4 times more expensive. I was in Miami only one nigth last week but took our largest suitcase. When I came back, it was completely full as was my laptop carry-on bag. The Cayman government allows up to bring back duty free 400$ US worth of merchandise for personnal use. So every time I go to Miami, we make a list of stuff and I got at Walmart or Target. Everytime I come home Julie says its like Santa Claus visiting 🙂
Here is the view I had from the office I was using in Miami.
Here is a better picture of the CRV in Nagoya Japan. Notice the mention “Grand Cayman” in the windshield. It will hopefully be there early June. Sure takes a long time
This week-end is a long week-end as in most of the world. My friend Michel (a former co-worker) is here for 9 days and is staying at our place. He is doing an advanced diving certification most of his time here. However, this week-end, his schedule was not as busy so we headed out to some local tourist activities. Friday we went by boat to Stingray City (no we were not stung ; there is absolutely no danger) and saturday we went to the Turtle farm which is now also a bird sanctuary & a shark aquarium.
Here are the pictures of these two days. Two absolutely gorgeous days (needed lots of sunscreen lotion)
On our way to stingray city
Here we are at stingray city. You can see the stingrays going to see the people & to get fed calamari.
Here Michel & I hold a Stingray.
Now to the Turtle farm. In this picture, I took a medium sized turtle in the petting area. We are allowed to pick them up & play with them.
Here Julie feed a Cayman Parrots. There birds are very pretty and were not very shy.
Also in the bird place, there were two strange looking birds ; a pair of “white Ibis”. They walk right up to you and start checking you out with their very long beaks ; toes, shorts, sandals, etc. Of course, it tickles terribly. Julie compared their “bites” to chinese chopsticks. These birds dont hurt you and are not agressive at all. All three of us very much enjoyed our encounter with these friendly birds.
Now to the shark tank. There are 6 reef sharks & 1 nurse shark. By my estimates they are about 3 – 3.5ft long. You can go snorkeling in the pool next to theirs and see them thru a window while snorkeling ; very cool. Here is a picture of one of the larger reef sharks.
Once we left the turtle farm, we walked over to the ocean (the other side of the street) and looked at the waves crashing onto the the ironshore ; the sea was rough and the waves were quite impressive.
