Julie and I are reaching a major transition in our lives. Our three kids are all reaching major milestones on the growing to adulthood, and those in turn mark major milestones for us.
- Diana, our youngest, graduated yesterday from high school. In the fall she’ll be going to UVA - our third to go there. We’re immensely proud of her.
- Kate, our middle child, has what is pretty much the ideal summer job for her. She is studying to be a biologist, probably working in genetics, and this summer she is working in the lab of one of UVA’s bio professors. She’s the only undergraduate in the lab, and she is getting a lot of attention and chances for glory. Most notably, her name will be going on the papers that the lab publishes over the summer - and there should be several. That’s likely to do wonders for her grad-school resume. We’re immensely proud of her.
- Andy, our oldest, has been out of UVA for a year now. He’s planning his first big solo vacation - next weekend, he leaves for Japan. He’ll be attending a J-rock concert, going to a tea ceremony, and sleeping one night in a Buddhist monastery. It all sounds like a tremendous blast - and we’re immensely proud that he’s doing so well on his own.
Taken all together, our three children are moving up and moving on in the world. It’s an exciting time in their lives, and an exciting time in mine, to see them all blossoming. I guess Julie and I did something right!
Postscript: On Thursday, my sister Sara gave birth to her first child. A little strange: she’s entering the active parenting world at around the same time I’m exiting it. Curious how these things go.
But in any event, congratulations to Sara and Gary, and a welcome to the family to Marjorie Grace Heard.
I’m now sitting in Miami, enjoying net connectivity over the cell network. We’ve made it through customs (always a challenge in Miami), everyone who wants food has had it, and all we have to do now is get home. This trip is just about over, and now I have to look forward to too few degrees on the thermometer.
It was a good trip. We did lots of fun stuff. I didn’t enjoy myself quite as much as on previous tropic trips, but then, I wasn’t really in a state to enjoy myself quite as much. Still, all was good.
But I don’t think I’ll be visiting a non-US dollar vacation destination until the dollar recovers a bit. Things were expensive on the islands, and the exchange rate did not help.
High points:
- Kate and Diana vote for Stingray City.
- Andy votes for the beach - both walking it and just sitting on it.
- Julie liked the horseback riding.
- For me, it’s always about being wet. Either scuba or snorkel - I just want to be moist.
There were a few firsts this time around: this was our first non-inclusive tropics vacation, and the first time we rented a car for the whole week. I rather liked that, though it did add to the expense. It let us do a lot greater variety of stuff, and allowed the occasional random jaunt that was fun. (Inclusive resorts worked out really well when the kids were young. They’re not as young now, so it wasn’t as necessary.)
On the water front: I liked the diving at Cozumel last year more than at Caymans. The coral and wildlife here wasn’t notably better, and the drift diving at Cozumel was a lot more fun. (The current is strong enough at Cozumel that you hardly have to swim - just drift along by the corals.)
And oh - today was the first rainy/ugly day that I’ve ever had in the Caribbean, after six trips down there. So I did not get a chance to swim this morning, before the plane. But there’s something kind of nice about bad weather on the day that you leave - makes it easier to go.
So farewell to another trip. I do hope to keep up the blog - not as many posts as this week. But do keep an eye on this space and see if I can keep up the resolve over the new year.
High winds, rough seas - there’s a nor’easter coming this way, and the state of the island shows it.
First activity of the day: I finally got Julie out snorkeling. Alas, because of the roughness, visibility was limited, and so she did not have a lovely time. Julie is a bit nervous in the water at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. Still, I saw a nice ray, though no pictures.
Then, Julie, Kate, Diana, and I all went horseback riding on the beach. That was special - and the winds helped keep things comfortable and cool. A nice healthy bunch of horses as well.
Then off shopping in George Town. It was fun to watch the cruise-ship tenders maneuvering through the rough seas to bring hearty cruise-ship passengers to visit the town. That must have been a rough ride!
Back to the hotel, and I went for a short swim. My intention was to do a little body surfing, but a rocky bottom combined with poor visibility and memory of all those spiny sea urchins now hidden beneath the opaque waves quickly convinced me that the most comfortable dip would be in the hot tub.
Then one last dinner, this time at Decker’s. Nice, but not as nice as last night’s meal.
Note the pina colada in the picture above. Between this and some rum punch on the pirate ship, Kate is developing a taste for demon rum.
And so goes my last post from Grand Cayman. I’ll do a trip wrap-up somewhere in transit tomorrow. Now, to try to steel myself for a place where a cold day means something more than 70 degrees and high winds…
The last few of times I went to the Caribbean, I made a point of going out one night with my trusty underwater flashlight and a snorkel.
The first time I did this, at the Turks and Caicos, there was a party going on at one of the resorts not far from the reef where I snorkeled. As I swam along through the dark waters, the visible sea consisting only of what was illuminated by the shaft of light from my flashlight, my underwater ears could only hear the bass tones from the music playing at the party. Those base tones sounded something like this: “Da dum. Da dum. Da dum da dum da dum da dum…” Yes, I was all alone in the water at night with the theme from Jaws playing for me. It was terrifying and exhillerating, and I’ve made a point of repeating the experience at all possible opportunities.
On this trip, tonight was the night.
The down side: the visibility was terrible. (Yes, Bill - I know it was night. I mean visibility with my flashlight.) There was so much debris in the water that in places I could barely see three feet. This produced even more anxiety than you would expect, as the most prevalent life form off the resort’s beach appears to be spiny sea urchins. And I did not want to stumble into one of these ugly little bombs, so feeling my way through the murk was right out.
But there is a big upside to diving at night, other than the adrenaline rush. That’s the creatures that only come out after dark. Of these, my favorite is the octopus. One accommodated me tonight.
Thank you, Mister Octopus. (Or maybe Mrs Octopus, though I suppose that would only really matter to another octopus. It certainly did not matter to me!)
The thing about Marriott resorts is that they have a never-ending stream of lavish events for large prices. Case in point:
Today, while Julie and I drove around the island, the kids lounged on the beach. At some point, as often happens with kids, the girls got hungry. So they went to the hotel restaurant where they found a nice brunch buffet set up. Yum, they said. The food was quite good, the service excellent, what’s not to love?
Then came the bill, and they found out what’s not to love. This was a Marriott special New Years brunch. $65 per person. Yikes!
So what’s a girl to do when faced with a bill like that? Or, more to the point, what’s two girls to do?
Charge it to the room, of course.
Before setting out this morning, I noticed a sign announcing the absurdly expensive New Years Brunch Buffet being held at the resort. And I wondered what kind of fool would pay that kind of money for brunch.
Now I know.
(And a postscript: if you know the Dzikiewicz family dynamics, you know who is going to be paying that particular bill. In other words, I am not, in the above paragraph, accusing my daughters of being fools.)
No diving today. Instead, Julie and I hopped in the car and drove around the island. The sites we saw:
- Rum Point. A crowded public beach with a dock at one end and food stands at the other. No big deal.
- Snorkeling at some random beach that we stumbled across. Lots of fan corals, bunches of undistinguished fish.
- A visit to the Grand Cayman Botanical Gardens. The place includes an English-style carefully cultivated country garden, only with tropical plants and iguanas. I discovered a few years back in England that I like carefully cultured English-style country gardens, the kind of places where even the butterflies seem planned, and they are even nicer with tropical plants.
- A visit to what the map said was the St James Pedro Castle. It wasn’t a castle, but there were cold drinks and a nice view.
- Snorkeling off another random beach. Some really good coral formations here.
- The best meal we’ve had on the island so far, at Casanova’s. I ate way too much.
I made it until midnight after all. After sitting around the room until 11:45 or so, we all went down to the beach to see rumored fireworks. Our hotel did not have any, but there were fireworks shot off at other resorts and condos up and down the beach. All of which was visible from where we stood, as the beach curves around. And did I mention that this stretch is called “Seven Mile Beach?” From that, you can guess that there were plenty of fireworks to be seen. Pretty neat!
Today was my last day diving this trip, largely because I’ve got conflicting plans on Wednesday, and tomorrow, in honor of the new year, I’m taking it easy. (Yeah, I know. Relaxing on a vacation. Where does that guy come up with these ideas?) So enjoy two last scuba pictures from this trip:
(And if you’re ever diving on Grand Caymans, I can recommend Wall to Wall divers. They’re a small group, running only two boats, but they’re reasonably small boats and well managed. I never dived with more than 9 divers, always had good guides, and excellent service.)
After that, it was a ride on a Pirate boat with Kate and Diana. (Andy wasn’t interested, Julie avoids boats.) There was a definite cheese factor, but it was fun. And halfway into the ride, the boat stopped and we were able to jump off and swim. The jumpers below are Kate and Diana, respectively.
I did take the opportunity to keelhaul myself. I jumped in on one side and swam under the boat to the ladder on the other. Lots of fun.
Important safety tip: if you happen to be a man-type person, and you happen to be cannon-balling off into the water from a great height, be sure to keep your legs together. And you are such a person, and you have ever failed to heed this advice, you know what I mean.
Special video bonus: Kate and Diana singing a sea chantey while riding on the boat’s poop deck, accompanied by the sounds of the wind.
After that, Julie and I got a couple’s massage. No pictures of that - sorry!
Now I’m sitting here, full of a big dinner, wondering if I’m going to make it until midnight to see in the new year. It’s not looking good, but I’ll let you know how things turned out in tomorrow’s post.
Once on each tropical vacation, Andy joins me scuba diving.
Today was that day.
Andy picked a good day for his dive. Our first dive was off a coral wall. (A coral wall is a huge shelf of coral, potentially dropping down to thousands of feet, and you swim along the side of it over the drop-off.) The second was along ridges of coral. Both were beautiful.
At noon, I got back to the hotel and wolfed down a quick lunch. Then it was off snorkeling with the girls. The first two snorkel sites were nice enough - a little coral along a sandy bottom, with a diverse set of wildlife (including a four-foot long barracuda, a ray, and several conch). The third site was quite special: Stingray City.
Stingray City is a sand bar where several of the tour boats go with their customers. You get off the boat, wade through waist-deep water, and are swarmed by stingrays looking for you to feed them. The guides hand you pieces of squid and the rays slide up you looking for food. You can pet them, hold them, kiss them, and do whatever else you like. Just watch out for those barbed tails!
Morning: scuba diving. A couple of rays, a lot of turtles, one guy making silly faces. (Note: you should not intentionally remove your regulator while diving. (The regulator is the mouthpiece that you breathe through. (Okay, scuba geeks. That’s not quite complete. But close enough.)) Other note: I’m not terribly good at following rules.)
Early afternoon: A visit to the Grand Cayman turtle farm. It was a lot more interesting than it sounds - they farm green sea turtles. Lots and lots of tanks full of large sea turtles, ranging from a few months old up to 30+ year-old breeders. You can lift the 1-2 year olds, and touch lots of them. Interesting observation: the skin of the turtle legs gradually hardens and becomes the shell. There is no transition of the sort you would expect from cartoons - the legs and head cannot retract into the shell, because they do not go into the shell: they just become it.
After turtles, we stop off for a quick visit to Hell. That’s the name of a post office, here on Grand Cayman.
Late afternoon: Snorkel with Kate and Diana. We see a bunch of cool stuff, including a conch shell inhabited by a conch.
Throughout the afternoon: Andy goes on a walk down Seven Mile Beach. The whole seven miles of it.
Evening: Dinner at the beach party run by the resort. And not terribly well-run, I’m afraid. But at least Kate and Diana get to go free, thanks to Kate’s l33t limbo skillz.
Two days down. And already our days are getting booked up - so much to do between now and next Thursday, so much that you’ll read about here.
