Row row row your boat...

We have been spending the last few weeks settling into our new jobs, and although we have taken the opportunity to explore the island and start to explore the Caribbean, we thought it was about time to start looking for things to do with our spare time on the island....

                 

 

Given the number of bank holidays we seem to get out here, and the fact that everything closes on Sundays (and bank holiday Mondays) we have realised that it is important to find diversions that didn't involve eating and/or drinking (something we seem to have been doing a lot of recently, judging by the fit of our clothes...).

So we started exploring our hobbies.

Barn runs the 7 mile beach...

Bon swims the George Town Harbour at dawn....

One of the things that draws people to the Cayman Islands is the fantastic scuba diving that can be found a stones throw (literally) from the beach - many of the dive sites are accessible as shore dives, and the majority of other sites are less than a 20 minute boat ride from a dive center. Not wanting to be left out, we booked ourselves onto a dive course, which we completed over two weekends.

We both brought our bicycles out with us and Barny has started taking Sunday morning cycle rides out from the house. Both of us would probably have started cycling sooner, but for the slight oversight of having abandoned our cycle helmets in the UK. Barny got as far as packing his in his hand luggage, but a combination of a significant amount of alcohol and a suggestion that it may not be the best thing to lug through the departure lounge at Heathrow lead him to donate it to his brother-in-law the night before we left, thinking that it would be easy to find a replacement on arrival in Grand Cayman. Unfortunately "bike shops" per se don't exist here on the island, and there is very limited choice, but we finally bit the bullet and bought ourselves some very practical, if somewhat un-flattering matching his-and-hers helmets in Cost-you-less (the Cayman equivalent of Makro), so now there is no excuse not to hop on the bike and take a ride.
Barny test-rode his helmet on a ride up to Governor's beach. Although the ride was hot and sticky it was well worth the swim (and the coffee, which Bonnie had picked up on the way over, having taken the sensible decision to drive in a nice cool air conditioned car...) waiting at the end.  

We have also taken to having early morning strolls at the weekend to get breakfast. A couple of weeks ago we walked up to Cimbocco (www.cimbocco.com) on Seven Mile beach on a Sunday morning for a coffee and a bowl of their fantastic granola and mango yoghurt. Last weekend we decided to stick a little closer to home, and took a stroll up the road to Full of Beans Cafe (http://www.caymangoodtaste.com/restaurants_detail.asp?restaurantID=24) on the outskirts of George Town for what we think may be the best coffee (proper Italian Cappuccino made with Illy coffee) and eggs Benedict on the Island. We are yet to be proved wrong...
However, all that may have to take a back burner, as we have found a new hobby (well, actually a reinvention of an old hobby) to keep us occupied... rowing. Yes, for those of you who don't know we were both keen rowers back in the UK, and one of the things that we really wanted to do when we got to the Cayman Islands was to find somewhere to row. We shipped over the erg and it's kept us busy while we look for an alternative.

Although a search of the internet suggested that there was some rowing out here, when we arrived we quickly discovered that there had been a number of attempts to introduce rowing to the island, but they had never lasted long, and tended to peter out as people left the island.

Undeterred, we started to look into the possibility of importing a boat from the US, and also asked around among the people we met as to whether they knew if there was any kind of rowing community out here. Our enquiries were eventually rewarded when my secretary put me in touch with a contact from the sailing club who had bought an ocean skiff out here several years ago with a view to rowing around the island, but which had been languishing in his garage for the past few years. We went to look at the boat, and were delighted to find it was exactly what we were after - a Virus Yole double scull - and were even happier with the price, so agreed to buy it.

This was fine in theory, but left us with two problems. The first was how to transport it, as it came with a launching trolley but no trailer, and our car does not have a towbar so we would have no way to tow it anyway. The second was where to keep it, as we couldn't exactly wheel it down to the beach every time we wanted to use it.

A few phone calls later, and we found we had joined the Cayman Islands Sailing Club, where we could store the boat if we were members, and secured ourselves (and the boat) a lift up there on Friday evening. (on the local beer delivery truck no less!)

Bonnie was so excited about the prospect of getting back on the water that the alarm was set for 5.30am on Saturday morning, and we found ourselves at the gate of the Sailing Club just after 6am, ready to set the boat up and take it for a gentle paddle around the neighbouring canals. Having covered around 6km we brought the boat back, washed it down, put it away and were back in time for breakfast.

We enjoyed our row so much that we took the boat out again on Sunday morning for a more ambitious outing. It was ambitious for two reasons. The first reason was because we spent Saturday night with some new friends enjoying an evening of fantastic home cooking, washed down with copious measures of bourbon and topped off with some (increasingly raucous) Karaoke (which needless to say Barny got into the spirit of and enjoyed immensely).

The prospect of an early-morning row with a hangover was not perhaps the most appealing idea of a relaxing pastime. The second reason was that Barny had planned a route which was double our tentative first outing and, although only around 12km, would involve a large stretch of rowing over open water, which is something neither of us had done before. We crossed North Sound and headed for a canal on the edge of the appropriately named Bonny View Estates that offered a good long straight to practise our technique on. It was all going so well until the point where Barny decided to take the rate up, and was horrified to hear a dull CRUNCH as the screws holding one of the riggers ripped out - clearly someone has been spending too much time at the gym...! We swapped seats so that Barny could row us both back, and limped home to the sailing club to assess the damage. Although it is not too serious, it is a bit of a setback, but we will be back on the water again just as soon as we can effect repairs!

 Until then Barny will have to spend his Sundays washing the car!