Living in Grand Cayman

Last Sunday, Julie and I had the privilege of participating in the annual cross island relay race. It is a road race that essentially crosses the entire island of Grand Cayman.  Teams have six runners each and each runner does 4 miles.

The course looks like this. Is starts in the east (left) and runners make their way all the way to George Town along the southern coast of the island.  The roads remain open to traffic, but as expected, it was very light on this Sunday morning.

The organizers must have been pleased ; there were 74 teams registered; a good number of them were corporate teams.  Start time was at 6am on Sunday. Needless to say you had to be somewhat motivated to get out of bed at +-4:30am Sunday to go running.  I guess we are 🙂  The runners waiting for the start. Even though its 6am in February, it was still a very comfortable 26 degrees at start time.

Julie ready for the start ; she ran the 1st leg which in my opinion is the best one to run ; no sun = less heat.  Also, organizers made the race east to west, so all runners had the wind to their backs. Running eastbound would have been a lot less fun.

Here I am (black back) passing the baton to the next runner in our team. We ran with four of my co-workers and finished a very respectable 27th out of 74 teams. I am very pleased with the results.

All-in-all, an really nice experience.  This race is annual and always early February. It is open to anyone, as long as you are in a team of 6.  Lots of fun and accessible to most runners, since 4-miles can be done with minimal training.   Link to the Website of the organizers of the event:   http://www.caymanhash.com/Cayman_Hash_House_Harriers/Races.html

Every hero’s day (that was today – a public holiday), the Turtle farm has a family day with a lovely discount on the entry fee.  We had not been in a while, so it seemed like a great opportunity to enjoy one of our lovely attractions. Here is the view of the main turtle pool.  The turtles here are simply massive and quite impressive beasts.

First off, the petting zoo.  Here you can pick up small (some up to +-10lbs – my estimate. This one maybe 4-5 at most) turtles and pet them.   They are obviously used to it and take it very well. After 30 seconds or so they want back in the water though and start flapping like mad ; that’s your queue to put them gently back in the tank and pick up another one if you want to pet them some more.

Since it was a “special day”, some guy was walking around with a small iguana. Of course I asked to handle him/her.

No visit would be complete without seeing the sharks in the main pool area.   I remember when they got these, they were quite small.  Some of them are really big now.  This one was swimming around “à la Jaws” with his dorsal fin sticking out of the water. Lots of people around today ; showoff!

Here is Smiley, the resident salt water croc.   This croc was found on the North Side of Grand Cayman by some tourists in 2006.  Yikes, that will spoil your Sunday morning stroll on the beach.  Long story short, they captured him and took him to the Turtle farm to figure out what to do. After DNA testing, it turns out that Smiley is a hybrid of two types of crocodiles.  Releasing back to the wild a hybrid is apparently not supposed to be done (or so I read), so he is now a permanent resident.  Has his own pen, two pools and certainly plenty of food.

Here he is smiling for us!

Another smiling face was at the Turtle farm on this awesome afternoon; our Premier, the Hon. McKeeva Bush. I find is great to be able to see and get close to political leaders. I guess this is only possible in a small country.  There were of course no bodyguards.

In the aviary, one of my personal favorites.   This lovely Cayman Parrot takes a nap after most certainly entertaining numerous people that passed before us on this day.

Finally, the under appreciated nature walk.  Its only a few minutes stroll, but very nice and peaceful.

Great day at the Turtle farm.  Bravo to the organizers of this “family day”.   Seems to have been a great turnout and we certainly had a great time.

First of all ; happy new year everyone!

Now, a new oddity has appeared in Cayman and is totally fascinating me. Why, I am not really sure, but my guess is since I love animals so much. This story is also a bit sad.

To start with this tale: One thing I noticed soon after arriving in Cayman was that there are no Pelicans.  There are plenty in Florida and other islands I have been to, but have never seen any here.  I am not saying there are none at all, but I certainly have not seen any … that is … until now.

It all started not long before Christmas when I first noticed this fellow.  This is pretty much how I saw him while driving back from work one afternoon.  (if you don’t see him … he is on top of the lamp post)  For those wondering where this is, this is along the new-ish bypass in Prospect, directly in front of the Lantern Point condos.

This is the kicker : he is ALWAYS there in the morning after sunrise and in late afternoon before sunset.  By always there, I mean on the exact same lamp post  (the 3rd post from the nearest roundabout) and on the same side (east bound side) as you can see him (or her) on the picture above. It is like that, day in, day out!

Here are some better pictures of this follow

Where I feel a bit sorry for this bird is that I have yet to see another pelican.  Its solo time, all the time.  Cant be any fun.   That being said, obviously not much competition for fish when meal time comes around.  Maybe someone could find a way to teach him to eat lionfish! 🙂

Anyway, I wonder if anyone at the Dept of Environment has inquired about this solitary bird.   Ill post more if I know more. If anyone reading knows something, please let me know via email (link on top-right of this page) or by leaving a comment in this post.

… for all of those Christmas lights we all love here in Cayman.  Once again, the usual suspects have put on quite a show for us. There is however a new player in town.   The property below is when driving east along the coast, near Spotts.  It is a house that was built a bit over a year ago and this year they are putting on quite a show.  Unfortunately though, like some of the other homes, we are not allowed on the property, so my pictures were limited from the street and between the bars of the gate.

This is the view from across the street.

Though the gate ; the driveway leading to the house.

Of course, there is the Creighton property. I have featured this house pretty much every year so far. I still look at it when driving past. I cant help but wonder though what this guys utility bill must be like.  🙂

Finally, I came upon a really nice promotional video for Cayman. Its a wedding promo video, but that does not matter 🙂  I REALLY like this video of Cayman. If this does not make you want to come to Cayman, I am not sure what will.

For those who have visited before, most of the sites in the video are easily identifiable. The only one that had me wondering is the scene with the lake and the lush forest/vegetation.  I had to think about it : it’s the botanical garden on Frank Sound Road in the East end!

This morning I had the privilege to run in the annual Cayman Islands Marathon … in fact I ran the 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles/21.1 km) ; my first one ever.

Although I cannot compare, I have to say that this event was really well organized!  The Cayman Islands marathon has been running (pun intended) since 2002.  This year, over 1000 runners (all categories – full marathon, half marathon and 4-team relay) took part ; a record for the event.

The course starts right downtown George Town at the Waterfront (top left of picture below). Then takes the runners south, along South Church Street though South Sound all the way to Prospect.  At Prospect we turn around at the half way mark and do +-7km along the same route before heading north on Walkers Road, into town and to the finish line.

Another view per the upload from my GPS running watch after the run.

To help us beat the Cayman heat, the race started at 5am!  That may seem early, but its a brilliant idea.  Quick 1/2 marathoners can finish the race right around sunrise while the full marathoners only have to cope with <2h of sun out of their race if they are fast enough.

For time tracking, all runners are issued a “chip” as seen below. (407 was by bib number)

It is about the size of a bottle cap and you integrate it to you shoe laces so not to lose it.   When passing though the start and finish lines, there are sensors that detect the chip and the total running time.  Quite nifty and reduces the likelihood of an error if someone were to manually take the time when runners arrive at the finish line.

Here is the finish line.  Lots of people cheering on the runners ; it was great.  Along the route, at the water stations, the volunteers also did a great job cheering us on and always had plenty of water and Gatorade on hand.

Here is my good friend (and office mate) Beth.  She won the women’s full marathon for the 4th time (not a typo) in a row.   A true force of nature. The following woman came in over 15 minutes later, which makes her win even more impressive.

So how did I do?  Well, here is the medal all the finishers get ; very nice.

I finished the half marathon in 1h41:44 – I am very pleased.  That places me 27th in a field of 520 half marathon runners.  Not bad for a guy who only started to run 5 months ago!

In conclusion, to all my runner friends and anyone out there reading this who would like to run with us, I highly recommend you consider coming to Grand Cayman in 2012 for the marathon which is always held the first Sunday of December.  The run in the dark is fun and definitely different, the atmosphere is friendly and the whole organization makes this a very pleasant event.  Not to mention early December is a great time to escape the cold if you are from the USA or Canada 🙂