Living in Grand Cayman

Once again, we had the 10-10-10 Halloween race today.  Last year was the first edition and I enjoyed it very much.  Running in the east end is not something I do often since I can easily run where we live ; a change of scenery is definitely welcome.

I am repeating myself from last year, but in a nutshell, the race is a 10km x 3 runners relay race (some do the entire 30km though). It starts at The Reef Resort in the east end and essentially does a loop and back to the resort.  Its a 6am start (I got up at 4:30am) on a Sunday morning, so anyone who manages to make it out to east end is already a winner in my book!

So I had the 1st leg of the race.  Its actually a good bit uphill.   The highest point on Grand Cayman, a whopping 79 feet above sea level, is somewhere along the northern side on my leg of the race.  However, as hills and elevations go, its not a big deal!  The first leg did have the advantage of starting in the dark (sunrise was 6:25am) so I had very little sun to deal with which obviously makes things easier.  Later runners did have a nice breeze and somewhat overcast which also helped.  If anyone cares, I ran my 10k section in 45mins, 25 seconds.  I am quite pleased.  Our team finished first of the corporate teams.  🙂

Here you can see my leg (starting at the green dot). After that, it keeps going south and then back to the start point along the ocean.  A very pleasant run.

Here is my team getting our trophy from a representative of The Reef resort.  Good job guys ; it was an honor to have you as team mates.

While waiting for the prizes & food … I took some pictures of the beach at the Reef resort.  Its a really nice place.  Will probably have to go back and spend a bit more time at one point.

There is a nice pier, not unlike the one at Rum Point.

From the pier, we saw masses of fish.  Not sure what they were doing there, but it was a nice sight.

Here is the beach.  Really nice place.   It seems that quite a few people who live on Grand Cayman come here for “Staycation” week-end.

All-in-all, a lovely event! I sure hope they have this each year. Attendance for this second year seemed up from the first year, so seems hopeful.

Cayman Islands Marathon is +-5-weeks away … ill be running the 1/2 marathon again and will of course post here.  For any runners out there, its not too late to sign up.  Its a fabulous event and definitely justifies a quick (or long) trip to Cayman in early December.

So hurricane Sandy passed quite a distance east of the Cayman Islands.  WHEW!   Other parts of the Caribbean and now the USA may not be so lucky.

We have had some effects though.   In George Town, the wave action this Saturday morning was quite impressive.  Definitely no snorkeling or diving going on today in this area.

It always amazes me that just 2 miles or so down the same street, on the southwest corner of the island (“South Sound”) the ocean is calm and barely any wave action. On the first picture below you will notice the boats.  All of the George Town dive operators bring their boats here to protect them from the large waves and to be able to take their clients diving in calmer waters.

Finally, another consequence of the storm.   Since the path somewhat “blocked” maritime traffic between us and the USA, there are some food shortages.  Now, this is nothing massive … no one is starving, but there are some basic things missing.  Essentially, food items that would come in weekly (e.g: bread)  I would expect this to be all cleared up early next week.

More posts soon …

Its been quiet recently … great news, but nothing exciting report on 🙂

However, a new story last week caught my eye.  Some lucky tourists were out boating a few miles offshore when they encountered a bunch (many) dolphins that followed their boat.   Below is the Youtube video of this awesome experience. I which I had been there.   Near the end of the video, you can see over 40 (or so) at one time.

The full news story can be found here:

http://www.compasscayman.com/caycompass/2012/08/31/Visitors-have-rare-wild-dolphin-encounter/

With Ernesto barely gone, we now have another system to deal with.  Still unnamed, but likely to be called “Florence” in the next day or so.  Already, tropical storm watches have been issued for many of the Lesser Antilles (Dominica, St.Lucia, Barbados, etc)

Its quite obvious that this will now come into the Caribbean basin. Once there, who knows what will happen.  One thing for sure (or almost for sure) is that it will gather strength.  The reason being is that these systems “feed” on warm water, and water is much warmer in the Caribbean than in the open Atlantic.

Will probably post another update on Sunday ; by then we should have a much better fix about where its going.

Two days ago Ernesto seemed heading pretty much our way.   As of Sunday morning, Ernesto decided to stay on a more southern route.  A tropical storm warning is now in effect for Cayman (just raised a few moments ago) and for Jamaica but will likely be lifted later today or early tomorrow.  My guess is that this was done in an abundance of caution, since by looking at the path I dont see how it could affect us in any significany way.

It will likely effect Nicaragua and the Yucatan peninsula who probably get a direct hit.  Although with a TS or weak category 1, should not be anything devastating.

This is unfortunately only the start, since the “statistical peak” or the hurricane season is +-September 10, so we will likely see quite a few new storms being formed in the Atlantic in the next 8-weeks or so.