Doing 7 knots off the West Coast...

....of Scotland, that is.

Typing on the Blackberry from the deck of a wooden boat called Tara cruising off Oban in the West Highlands, having driven up this morning from Edinburgh.

If you have never been to Scotland, then it is tough to describe quite how breathtakingly beautiful it can be on a sunny day (like today, thankfully!). The cross country drive past mountains and lochs, then out on the water, with stunning views in all directions.

Just taking the boys out for a wee cruise on the grandparents boat, then to sleep on the boat at its berth back in the marina, which is a big adventure for them.

There is a big party at the pub at the marina tonight, with, surreally enough, a Cuban dance band playing.

Just a mellow Sunday enjoying the simple pleasures...whoops, nearly got salt spray on the keyboard, better sign off !

A "new" Tourist Attraction that is hundreds of years old

Today in Edinburgh I took my boys to see "Mary Kings Close", a "new" attraction that is hundreds of years old.

Absolutely fascinating... and OLD... in 1753 the great and the good of Edinburgh built what is now the City Chambers in the Old Town area off the Royal Mile. No, the attraction is nothing to do with that 250 year old building, it is the buildings that are UNDERNEATH that building.

In short, there were ancient buildings in narrow streets built onto the hillside (called "closes") that dated back many hundreds of years..... and in order to build a building at street level from the Royal Mile, they "decapitated" the old buildings and used their walls as foundations.

So, two years ago they finally opened this hidden area up as a tourist attraction, recreating what it was like to live there all those centuries ago...... just mindblowing, when you think of urban history going back that far.

Oh, and all of this is about 200 yards from the main railway station, from which every day tourists arrive, look up at Edinburgh Castle (and yes, parts of that date back over 800 years) and say "look honey, ain't it great they built the castle so close to the railway station"

Ah, perspective....

For more on Mary Kings Close, visit their website here

Radio Cayman strikes again

On holiday today, my mobile phone rings and it is a concerned member of staff calling to ask me if I am leaving The Reef.... to which my response was.... "EH !!??"

Turns out Radio Cayman said so on the news, that I was replacing Mark Bastis as GM at the Hyatt, as he was leaving the island.

Sigh...

I am in fact replacing Mark as a Hotel sector Board Director for CITA, our private sector tourism organisation, but as for the Hyatt... nope, I love The Reef, am very happy with having been working for the Thompson Group for over 12 years, and it would take something quite astonishingly special (frankly, can't think of anything!) to cause me to even think about changing.

So... one email to Talk Today (chat show at lunchtime Cayman time, that you can hear on their website here ) later, and back to vacation as normal.

Hibees, Hibees !

What on earth is all of that, you say ? Well, the rallying cry of one of the oldest football (soccer to those sporting heathens in North America) clubs in the world, Hibernian FC (founded 1875).

Hibs are my home team (I was born and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland), and a passion of mine that is normally only followed from afar (via Radio Hibs on the internet!).

But not tonight... am in Edinburgh on holiday with my two oldest sons, and a friend had some tickets for the first home game of the season, a pre-season friendly, but nonetheless a game.

Hibs won 1-0 to go enter the season on an upnote. Weather about 17 celsius (umm.. low to mid 60s, and even with a 7:45pm kick off, still light at end of the game at this latitude). Quite the experience for my Caymanian kids, used to 90 degree heat and dark by 7pm.

For me, a fun bit was the 6 hour time difference, getting work emails on the Blackberry and answering them during slow parts of the game... sitting watching a football game in Europe and still clearing the emails, WAY better than being in the office.

Also spent the morning kicking a football around in one of the many, many manicured public parks in Edinburgh (the greenest city in Europe in terms of public open space), and as temps were low 60s and overcast, quite literally "no sweat".

I remember when I lived there I went mad looking forward to the maybe 5 days a year when it might be sunny and temps in the 80s (and those days were invariably during the week so you had to look at it out of the office window!).... but now that I live in paradise, I do enjoy the contrast of cool weather !

Tomorrow it is a moviethon at one of the big cinemas here (although the Cayman cinema DID finally re-open last weekend, as noted earlier on this blog that it would open in July), and Thursday am playing in an evening cricket match.

As for food, Scottish food is generally "whatever is fresh", so at this time of the year the thing to focus on is fresh "soft fruit", eg strawberries, raspberried, blackberries..... they taste unbelievable at this time of year....

Of course the national dish of the Scots is.... CURRY (well, it is the unofficial national food, for tourists we still say it is Haggis).... curry is the first choice of almost all Scots, so Indian restaurants are to be frequented on an almost daily basis when on vacation in Scotland. When in Cayman, a great deal is the nightly buffet at Bayside, across the street from Lobster Pot, all you can eat curry for CI$10 or so.... excellent food, great value !

See youz later, ken ! (Later, mon!)

Bonnie Scotland !

Off this afternoon to Scotland for vacation. Travelling today with my 7 and 11 year old boys, and just realised how many gadgets I have, as am carrying them all in hand luggage. As a sample :
- Laptop (with seat power adapter to use all flight long !)
- Bose noise cancelling Headphones
- Portable DVD player (again with seat power adapter)
- Three digital cameras
- Gamepad for my sons to play FIFA 2005 on the laptop if they get bored of movies !
- Blackberry, two (UK) mobile phones

And, in the checked luggage :
- Gamecube (with power/video converters to use in the UK)
- Oodles of cables, UK power adapters etc for every conceivable need

Well.. at least we won't get bored on the flight, and if (sorry, when) it rains in Scotland, we can sit and be boys and play computer games :)

Talk to you all later !

Swimming in Cayman - more info

Replying to a comment from Chris Nash.

Oh, Chris started out asking if HD Morgans had a website. Don't think so, but it does have great steaks (it is a new steakhouse in town), and the chef (Big Brian) is my next door neighbour..... for the red meat lovers in town, definitely worth a visit, but bring your appetite, portions are enormous !

Anyway, re swimming, my involvement with swimming is on the board of CIASA, the national body responsible for the sport, with a particular focus on developing the sport and facilities (we are shooting to build a world class 50m pool facility, and hope to have some great news to make public later this year).

Cayman is a small island, so many sports find it tough to provide competition for their athletes, so swimming is ideal. First of all swimming is a sport done against the clock, so a time is a time is a time, no matter where it is swum. Second, swimmers tend to only peak for competition a few times per year, so our swimmers train hard at home all year, then peak for a few overseas trips a year. It works well, as shown by our results.

Why do I get so involved ? Well, my kids are in the sport, but that is how I discovered it, not why I am involved. I am involved because the sport, as run in Cayman, is dedicated to achieving the very best. Whatever is done, is done well, mediocrity is not acceptable. As you can imagine, with some sports on a small island, it is easy enough to settle for "good enough". Good enough to be on the national team and represent the island... even if not good enough to contend internationally. Swimming however, is a sport where Cayman does not settle for second best in their athletes, and I support that wholeheartedly and feel that this provides excellent life lessons for the athletes.

For adults, there are two avenues available. First of all, there is a very active Masters group, which swims in the pool twice a week, and also some of them swim regularly in the sea. The pool group is run by (we are spoiled here), Mike Barrowman, Olympic gold medallist and past world record holder... a legend to breastrokers (and an all round good guy!).

Secondly, we have an active open water swim schedule, and some of the best open water swimming conditions in the world, right off 7MB.

I almost forgot, one more option is triathlon, with a flat island and great weather conditions, we have lots of keen triathletes.

Of course for those with hand/eye co-ordination (sorry, small dig there from a racquet sports player... ie me), we have a great squash club (7 courts!), which is about to re-open after extensive renovations and upgrades post-Ivan. Our squash team has a great track record regionally, with numerous Caribbean junior, senior and team championships in the past. For adults moving to the island, give squash a try, it is a great workout and the social life (the bar afterwards!) is worth a look to... of course I could be biased... I met my wife playing squash, and we both have played for the national team for more years than I can count.

Right, that's the "local knowledge" post for the night out of the way !

Happy Birthday Sweet 16 !

Yesterday we celebrated the birthday of Miss Barbara. Know, she is not 16 anymore, in fact I'm not sure we have the slightest idea just how old she is, but she started with us the day we opened, and this is on native East Ender who I have the feeling will keep coming to work until the day they put her in a box, and that day is a long way off !

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Miss Barbara !


Oh, and the framed photos you see in the background are a gallery of fine art photos from renowned local photographer, Patrick Broderick, whose work you can see here. Visitors to The Reef can order fine art prints to be drop shipped to them through our Concierge at concierge@thereef.com.ky .

Googling, Cayman Time

Ok, from the last post you can see I am a big Google fan, but I do wonder about how people get to the top of their links. I've noticed that people are faking their links by a) setting up fake, auto-generated websites, b) having link pages with ludicrous numbers of links, and c) the latest thing, setting up bogus blogs simply to have links out their on the web.

Anyway this blog is called Cayman Time, it is about life in Cayman, but also a play on words, so I thought it would be fun to talk about what Cayman Time is, and, at the same time, every time I mention Cayman Time or the word Cayman, to have it set up as a link to Cayman Time, the blog. We'll see if that pushes me up in the Google listing for the term Cayman. However as this is an experiment and, naturally, I don't want to upset the powers that be at Google, I will then pull this post to restore the status quo in the search engine listings.

So, here in Cayman, we have this phenonemon known as Cayman Time. What is means is that, in Cayman, as in pretty much every hot weather country in the world, sometimes things don't run to schedule. I guess this is due to the hot weather. In Cayman, we call it Cayman Time, as in "we'll see you at 8, Cayman Time", means "we'll be there anytime after 8, certainly not before, but hopefully before you give up on us arriving at all!"

Another term used in Cayman and by our neighbours in Jamaica is "soon come", and of course the latin countries have manana, so it must be a hot climate thing.

The funny thing is that here in Cayman things have become more and more organised as time goes by, and the only thing that is normally guaranteed to run late is a meeting with a politician. I've yet to see one of those start on time here in Cayman, but then again those folk always seem so overscheduled, perhaps it is just impossible for them to be on time !

Another phrase we use in Cayman is "no problem", something again that we picked up from Jamaica. You'll hear it used by all the staff at The Reef whenever you need something done, but I see a difference from the usage in Jamaica. Over there it tends to be a turn of phrase, or pause for breath, kind of like how soldiers use swear words for punctuation. Here in Cayman though, and certainly at The Reef, it has genuine meaning. If a guest has something that needs done, and a staff member says "no problem", it really means that. It means that the guest need not worry, we will get the problem fixed.. "no problem" !

Right, end of experimental post, give it a couple of days and search for Cayman and see if I am on page 1 !

Google Maps - very cool

Just found this... Google has a really cool mapping site here . Of course if you zoom in, the Cayman Islands don't exist, but we are used to being ignored by big countries, we are, after all, vewwy, vewwy likkle !

And, for Windows users, Google Earth is worth hours of fun looking for your house on satellite photos.. worth the download.

Yes, got bored with cable already... 50 channels and nothing on !

Even people in Cayman take vacations...

.......and, judging by my lack of blogging inspiration in recent days, I must need one :)

No, not been watching the newly installed cable, except of course to see Scotland displayed in all her majesty as Tiger Woods comfortably held of a brave Monty to win The Open Golf Championship (FYI, it is not "The British Open", it is "The Open"... we Scots invented the game, we have the right to have the definitive tournament !). Yikes, I am getting crabby, definitely time for that vacation.

Anyway, things are ticking along at The Reef. Joey Welcome has done a few fishing trips already in his new EcoVentures boat, and I have the Yellowfin Tuna steaks ready for the grill tomorrow night to prove it.

I'm off on my vacation this weekend, so will be posting from Scotland. No great plans, just enjoying a change of scenery, although due to the internet will never be too far away from The Reef and Cayman. As I am just as proud of Scotland as I am of Cayman, be ready for some pictures of that beautiful land.

Now, on that theme, humour me as I give you one of the oldest jokes around... and, for my many English friends, as I said once at a Burns Supper, you have to understand, we are not anti-English (but we'll make an exception for ****** Clive Woodward!), we are pro-Scots :) :

In the beginning, God created the earth. On the second day, while he was making his countries, God discovered a small island off a continent he’d decided to christen ‘Europe’.

“I know,” thought God, “I shall make this land an area of outstanding natural beauty. I shall bless it with lochs and glens, crystal-clear waters and rivers teeming with wild salmon. I will name this country ‘Scotland’ and shall bestow upon the nation my favourite drink ‘whisky’, the water of life. I shall bequeath major reserves of gas and oil to bring its people great wealth , Aberdeen-Angus cattle and salmon running wild, so that they need never go hungry.”

When he’d finished his work, one of the angels turned to God and said, “Hang on a minute. Why should Scotland be blessed with all these natural treasures? Aren’t we making life too easy for its people; shouldn’t they have something to test them?”

And God replied, “You haven’t seen who their neighbours are yet.”

I thank you :)

I've got cable now !

Zoned out in front of the TV tonight, as finally got cable the other day.... the end of civilisation as we know it in my house, but I'll still keep blogging.. tomorrow !

EcoVentures "Gone Fishing"

"Welcome" to Captain Joey :



Joey and Steve of EcoVentures have finally taken delivery of their shiny new 26' "Panga" fishing boat. Here Joey is taking out some friends from The Reef "family" :



My two oldest boys are really excited, as Captain Joey has invited them out this weekend fishing.. yeah !

Emily played nice :)

At the end of the day we've had worse from winter "norwesters", power stayed on, 2-3" of rain, max wind gusts around 45kt (less at The Reef).

Gert (StormCarib) just emailed me, Cayman Airways has reinstated his flight from Houston, so he'll get his vacation in the end, and we are planning a dinner for him and his Cayman volunteer correspondents on Barefoot Night on either Tuesday or Thursday.

I'm going out to the resort for the rest of the day today as we will have some juggling of rooms, some unanticipated stayovers and some late arrivals.... but all will be smooth and happy hour today will be a treat... the restaurant did a roaring trade last night as our guests rode it out in style !

Emily 5am Update

Set my alarm to check around the house at 5am EDT (4am Cayman Time).

In short.... no worries right now.

There has been a surprisingly low amount of rain (as judged by water in the parking lot), probably just 2-3". We are expecting a lot more rain from the tail of the storm, but, based on what I see outside, it won't be enough to cause any flooding beyond what low-lying areas might get with any rainy weekend (ie no storm surge breaching land in this location).

Winds have not been too bad (well, I had no difficulty sleeping). Again just a guess, but outside right now I would say about 40mph, gusting stronger.

Right now we have just passed the closest point of approach, and the 5am EDT co-ordinate had the storm at 97.8 miles away from us.... so it missed us. We are now therefore into the tail of the storm, so will have a few hours of Southerly winds and rain remaining, but the winds should not get any stronger from this point on.

Emily update 10pm Cayman Time

Actually 11pm now, but the last advisory was at 10pm. Whilst the storm is a strong Cat 4, it is tiny... so although it should pass within 83 miles of George Town in a few hours time (around 5am) at the closest point), thus it is about 110 miles from us as I type.......right now we have about 15 knot winds outside my window and a tiny bit of rain.

Yes, it will no doubt deteriorate in the next hour or two, this means that as of now, 6 hours from closest point of the storm.... we have nothing to shout about.

Power, internet, TV are all still up and running, and I hope that stays (as I'm hoping to watch Monty win the Open tomorrow and he has an 8am Cayman Time tee time!).

I'm probably going to try to stay awake until about 3am, so that if we see any coastal flooding, I can mop up anything that comes under the door...however, I'm going to sit in the recliner and my record of staying awake in that chair is very poor :)

Will try to keep updates coming... as long as the Cingular network stays up, I can blog by Blackberry.

If not, check in with StormCarib for updates if you are up late.

Good night to all !

Emily Update 5pm EDT / 4pm "Cayman Time"

Good afternoon folks....this is the metereological department of The Reef blogging :)

Emily is now officially the strongest July Hurricane on record, but it looks like it won't take Cayman into the record books.

As of 5pm EDT, the Closest Point of Approach (as per Gert's tool on StormCarib) will be about 94.7 miles.

As this is a very compact storm, even though it has very high winds at the center, Hurricane force winds extend 60 miles to the NE from that point, and 50 knot winds 90 miles.

Grand Cayman is therefore anticipating winds starting around 8-9 pm and running through the night, with a closet point of approach about 6-7am. Winds are anticipated to be up to about 50mph

After Ivan, nobody wants to underprepare, so the shutters we put up on the ground floor at The Reef have been left up for the duration, but we did not board up any more today. Of course The Reef is another 20 or so miles further from the eye of the storm, and on the side that should get the least impact from a storm of this duration, so storm impact should not be significant.

Unfortunately, the north part of the storm is showing a lot of rain bands, so Cayman will likely have a lot of rain and "grotty" weather (in Scots parlance) through at least early Sunday afternoon.

Here's hoping we don't have any downed power lines that would cut off power, but other than that we don't anticipate any potential problems from this one.

Sigh :)

Hurricane Emily

This is all quite surreal....seriously, it has kind of a "pinch me so I can wake up" feel about it. Living and working in Cayman is really about as close to paradise as you can get, but the last 10 months have been horrendous, truly.

First of all in late August we had Hurricane Charley, yes, just a Category 1 storm, but the nearest thing to a storm to hit Cayman since Gilbert 16 years prior. Oh, and three weeks later a young hooligan called Ivan came and "mash up de place".

So, we just get things fixed up and Hurricane Season rolls around again. So, no worries, we say, nothing much ever happens until September or October, right ? Wrong... last week we had Dennis think about coming to say hi, and now Emily.... developing quickly and moving fast, already a major Hurricane and on track (as of the update half an hour ago at 11pm EDT) forecast to come within 60 miles of Grand Cayman... that is WAY too close for comfort.

Looking in some detail at the latest information on the US NHC website, the storm did "jog" further south (as we are hoping) the last few hours, but the weather gurus/soothsayers/con artists (take your pick, we kinda lost faith in them with Ivan!) have actually moved the forecast line further North, ie close to us.

Anyway, their "probabilities" (don't bet at Vegas with their odds) still have only a 26% chance of Hurricane strength winds actually coming within 65 miles (ie in real damage causing range) of Grand Cayman... but local knowledge tells you that we won't really know until it passes close to the South Coast of Jamaica, which would normally push it further South.

If it is any more than about 75 miles south of Grand Cayman when it passes, we will get some serious waves on the South Coast (whoops, my house is about 15o yards from the South Coast... better caulk the doors!), but other than that not much wind damage.... so fingers crossed for us !

Best case scenario, it shifts to 100+ miles South and we get some wind overnight on Saturday night, then life gets back to normal on Sunday morning..... we hope !

Welcome to "The Captains Blog"

Innovation is the watchword around East End, and where there is a good idea (like this blog), what's better than one East End blog ? Well, why not two ?

Our watersports partners (and blog addicts) along the road at Ocean Frontiers are getting in on the act from a "Wet" angle at The Captains Blog.

Aarr...welcome aboard, skipper....aaarrrr !

David Foster - the passing of a great Caymanian

This evening I want to reflect for a moment on the passing of David Foster, leader of the Foster family, businessman, father, husband, friend and a shining example to us all, who passed on to a place of peace 10 days ago. You can read much about this great man in the Caymanian Compass, simply search for David Foster and read the letters and tributes, but the newspaper editorial directly after his passing is here.

This afternoon I attended his memorial service at Pedro Castle. I have no idea of the exact number attending, but I would guess in excess of 2,000 people came out to pay tribute.

To me, his most vital quality was that he was first and foremost a man of total integrity and honesty. He was also probably the hardest working person you could ever meet, but at the same time always realised the reason he was working so hard was for his family, and behind them (but not far behind), his community and country.

David had five children with his inestimable better half, Chi Chi, and his most lasting and significant legacy is that each of those children, in their own way, carries part of him with them, and they will all undoubtedly build on the success story that he started for his family.

I will not get too personal about this, but David was someone I had a huge amount of respect for, he was a huge figure in Cayman society, but at the same time he was totally down to earth and someone I spent many a Sunday afternoon with under a shade tree with a cold Heineken while we solved the problems of Cayman and the world beyond.

As a father of three myself, I can only hope that I can come close to the success David had as a father and husband. There are many people who succeed in business, but few who also bring such a level of success to all areas of their life. In short, David Foster was the personification of everything great in Cayman and Caymanians.

His children are already making their mark one by one in the Cayman of the new millenium, and I have no doubt that, taking the firm grounding given them by both of their parents, they will, in their own way, take his legacy and build on it as he looks down proudly upon them from on high.

David will be sorely missed.

I'm going to paste this editorial in entirety, not just link to it, as I think it expresses my thoughts perfectly. This hypervigilance is not limited to Cayman... I spent yesterday with 600 agents at the Expedia call center in Miami, and they said that yesterday they were already fielding lots of calls about TS Emily.... which is still out in the Atlantic.

We are very prepared here in Cayman, so if any storm does get close to us, we will take appropriate action, but we are not going to live in fear.

Keeping hurricanes in perspective

Editor Monday 11th July, 2005 Posted: 15:43 CIT (20:43 GMT) By all accounts, Cayman was lucky. Hurricane Dennis started in an area that was crossed by Hurricane Ivan, travelled a similar route, and ended up making landfall in the United States at almost the same place as Ivan. The big difference, of course, is Dennis went north instead of south of Jamaica, and it missed the Cayman Islands as a result. Regardless, Dennis caused a lot of anxiety with a lot of residents here; after Ivan, people are justifiably apprehensive about the approach of any tropical storm system. Residents are now diligently monitoring weather sites and are nervously talking about mere tropical waves forming off the coast of Africa, more than 3,000 miles away. A surprising amount of people here already knew about the Eastern Atlantic storm system that has become Tropical Depression Five and is likely to become Tropical Storm Emily. While a certain degree of vigilance is appropriate for those living in the Caribbean during hurricane season, we must not allow ourselves to become overly concerned about every storm system that forms in the Atlantic Ocean. Historically, the large majority of tropical cyclones that form in the Atlantic curve northward much before they reach the Cayman Islands. In addition, the Cayman Islands remain a very small target in a very large Caribbean Sea. While we might feel the effects – some wind, rain and waves – of a storm system passing north or south of us, unless it comes closer than 100 miles away, we probably will not experience too much damage here. It will likely take two or three hurricane seasons for most residents of Grand Cayman to recover psychologically from the trauma of Hurricane Ivan. A certain amount of hyper–vigilance about tropical storm systems can be expected. But we should try to keep things in a proper perspective and not allow our fears to get out of hand to the point they are irrational and diminish the quality of our lives. Scientists have said the Atlantic Basin is in the midst of a decades–long cycle of increased tropical cyclones. Tropical storms and hurricanes will travel through the Caribbean and some will no doubt affect the Cayman Islands. But the chances of another hurricane like Ivan causing such destruction here again any time soon are statistically slim, and we must strive to remember that as we go through this and other hurricane seasons.

The Reef is in East End, 23 miles from the airport

Just a reminder for everyone who is considering staying at The Reef, we are most definitively not on Seven Mile Beach.

Instead, we are 23 miles from the airport in the opposite direction. There is no traffic on the way to the resort, so if you stick rigidly to the speed limits, it is a 45 minute drive (although rumour has it that some have been known to do it in slightly less !).

Why do I mention this ? Well, it seems to me that guests seem to have one of two reactions to the resort. They either absolutely love it, or else they love the facilities (especially the beachfront suites), but other than that they wish they were on Seven Mile Beach, so that negatively colours their opinion. Recent experience this week has seen this happen again... the location thing really polarises guest opinions.

We do absolutely everything we can to make sure people know where we are located... I mean, if we could reach up and teleport the whole place and plonk it down on 7MB, we still wouldn't do it, the last thing we want is to be in the middle of insane traffic and surrounded by fast food franchises and the like.

Anyway, please, please, please make sure you know the location before you make the choice... we can arrange rental cars, as well as shuttle service, plus our concierge can let you know about the activities, restaurants etc nearby and get you fully informed... but we are where we are, can't, won't and wouldn't change it.

Sorry... Sunday rant, but I will relax now... my next door neighbour runs a steakhouse in town, H.D. Morgans (expensive, but HUGE portions), and is having a birthday party later this afternoon in the back yard for his wife.

I guess for the neighbourhood it is also a sort of celebration... 10 months after Ivan, we still have no cable TV, but we do now have new doors and windows, and they just delivered the appliances today for those units that had not gone ahead and bought there own... a real symbol of things getting back to normal.

Inspiration fails me..

I have to admit I am lacking in blog inspiration today... this week has been a busy one, including of course our storm preparations... all for naught, thankfully, but once bitten twice shy, bordering on the totally singularly agorophobic !

Anyway, there was supposed to be the last 800m sea swim of the year this weekend, but that was postponed til next week, so with the resort ticking over nicely and the shelves empty in the stores due to all the Hurricane shopping, we'll just have quiet weekend at home to recharge the batteries.

Next week I am off to Miami for a quick trip to visit the Expedia call center and tell 300+ agents what a wonderful place Cayman (and The Reef!) is.

On Sunday 17th we are having a happy hour at The Reef at 4pm for Gert Van Dijken, who we are hosting for a free vacation with his family in recognition of the massive assistance he gave Cayman in the immediate aftermath of Ivan by all his (voluntary, I should add) work in running his website, StormCarib .

Any readers of this blog who are on island and want to swing by Castro's at 4pm Sunday, you'll catch Gert, myself and his Cayman correspondents.... hopefully not drinking "Cayman Hurricanes" or "Dark 'n Stormies" !

Kitty Kai - illegal aliens from Cayman !

Back in May a member at The Reef took in a pregnant stray cat that always hung around the resort, named it "Kitty Kai" and took the little waif home to the US with them.

Now, on July 5th, the US welcomed six new "aliens" :

Yeahhhhhhh. We have 6 beautiful babies. She wanted her tummy rubbed all night last night (July 4th) so of course I laid in the floor and did just that. Starting this morning about 10:30 she had her first one. It looks just like her. Then came a black one, and black one with brown, then a calicos, a striped gray one, and then one more that looks like her. We are both exhausted!!!!! Ha. We are not even going to ask who the father is...... She is just the best mommy ever. She wanted me there the whole time....I felt so special. God is good......

All together now.....Ahh !



And then, after the birth.... Ahh ! (again)

Dennis update - one word - "phew!"

**5PM EDT UPDATE - Storm continues to track further away from Cayman**

As of 11am EDT today, Thu July 7th, Dennis has now taken a more Northerly track and is now forecast to pass at least 125 miles from Grand Cayman early morning tomorrow (Friday).

As such, Barefoot Man has been "uncancelled" for tonight's performance and we are having a "Barefoot Extravaganza" party... I have a feeling "Cayman Hurricane" cocktails will be on the menu !

As always, we did take this very seriously, and Mr. Lawrence and his team worked very hard yesterday to prepare the resort and we did have a large team on call this morning should the storm have turned towards us.

Having said that, it didn't, so this can be regarded as an excellent "dry run" for the 2005 season.

For anyone who wants to track the weather this Hurricane season, go straight to the US National Hurricane Center site here . This is the ONLY source of accurate information (they are the only people with Hurricane hunter aircraft), and note that they only update the information every six hours (11 and 5 am/pm EDT) and so watching the Tropical Updates every hour on the Weather Channel is just listening to idle speculation on what the next overfly will say.

Right, back to work, I'll be checking the next update at 5pm EDT !

Hi Dennis (Tropical Storm Dennis)

Well... Hurricane Season is June to November, and June passed us by without a hitch (although rainy season finally arrived... washing out Taste of Cayman this past weekend).

Now we are in July and this morning we welcome "Dennis"



Of course in Cayman we are all Hurricane experts now, so I would say this one looks like going North of Jamaica, and when they do that they tend to veer to the North. On the other hand... if it does an "Ivan" and bounce off the Blue Mountains to the South of JA, we are right in the path. Mind you, if it was to come near us, then they are forecasting sustained winds of only about 65kts... pah !.. barely a breeze compared to "Ivan the Terrible".

Oh, and if you are due to arrive in Cayman this weekend, don't cancel !! Take a look at the great information on StormCarib here , and you will note that Grand Cayman has not had a Hurricane pass within 60 miles of as early as July since 1933 :)

Rain, rain go away !

Rainy season is supposed to be predictable... around mid to late May it will be mostly grey and rainy for a couple of weeks, then the rest of the summer is sunny with occasional late afternoon cloudbursts, until late October, when we get the same grey rain stuff again for a couple of weeks.

So, this year it came late... for most of the last couple of weeks it has been "dreech", to use a good Scots word. Of course the Scots have many, many words to describe rain and grey weather, much as the Eskimos have many words for snow.

At The Reef in East End, we get less than 40% of the rainfall of Seven Mile Beach and George Town, but this weekend I am sure even The Reef has been dumped on.

Here I am on Sunday morning, and it has been raining pretty much non-stop since, oh, 4pm Friday.

I'm just REALLY glad that this was not going on last Wednesday, when they had all the windows and doors taken out of the house by 7:30am and did not get the place "dried in" until nearly 7pm. Phew !

How much do you rely on travel review web sites ?

Asking your opinions here. In recent years hotel/travel review websites have become quite the thing, reaching cricital mass last year when TripAdvisor was bought by Interactive Corp (owners of, among other, Expedia & Hotels.com).

I know that when I travel somewhere new, I don't take the word of the hotel websites, I always look for independent reviews, but was just wondering which sites you guys have bookmarked ?

At The Reef, a while ago we took the step of embedding links to both WhereToStay.com and TripAdvisor.com right on our home page, and in fact guests can post reviews to WhereToStay without even leaving our website (don't ask me how it is done, something about embedding code). I've yet to see another resort anywhere follow this step, and was just wondering if you all thought this was useful.

Would appreciate comments on this... thanks !

Barefoot Man on vacation

In answer to a question... the man does not like to work too hard, (although as we speak I think he is working hard moving back into his newly rebuilt "Ivanised" house).... so he is taking a vacation.

Barefoot will be away and so there will be no performances from Jul 22nd through August 8th, with normal service being resumed on August 9th.

Lighthouse Restaurant "soon come"

In the latest edition of Cayman Observer :

Guiseppe Gatta, owner of the Lighthouse Restaurant, told the Cayman Observer that he plans to reopen at the waterfront location in the middle of July.

I don't think he meant THIS July.... as that is two weeks away... but it does look like progress is being made, so hopefully in the next month or so we will see that institution re-open !