Grand Cayman vacation review - Part 2

Days 9-12: Sunshine Suites Resort, Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman

Friday we packed up all our things and moved across the island to meet up with the dive club we were diving with at Sunshine Suites. The first thing that you notice when you get closer to the west side of Grand Cayman is the ridiculous traffic. Truly unbearable for people who are trying to get away from it on vacation. We found the "resort" easily enough. It is actually down a block and across a very, very busy streen from Seven Mile Beach. I was completely unimpressed by Seven Mile Beach itself - it looked like Miami Beach, replete with water bikes, jet skis, and all other sorts of watersports junk. Not my cup of tea at all, frankly, but I know that it suits other much more. Different strokes for different folks.

Our room was a first floor unit with a queen bed, regular-sized fridge, microwave, and stovetop (two burners). There was no balcony or private patio, which became a huge issue. This place caters to divers, I believe, and without a patio or balcony you don't have anywhere to hang/leave your stuff to dry. Everything we had was more or less constantly wet, which was really annoying and after a couple of days, really stinky. On our last full day we found the rinse tanks and storage room where divers could leave their gear to dry, but even that was pretty inadequate. Not pleased with that at all.

This part of our vacation was nothing but dive, dive, dive. Similar to the beginning of our vacation, there was never enough time to wind down from the activities of the day. In hindsight, we are not really "crazy divers" and a two-tank morning dive for two or three days over a vacation would probably be plenty for us in the future. The best past of being with the dive club was absolutely the social aspect. I really had an awful lot of fun with the people we met, and after being together 24/7 for the past 9 days, I am sure that DH and I appreciated having someone else to talk to besides each other.

We dove with Divers Down, and sadly it really wasn't optimal. They advertise that they don't usually dive with more than 8 divers at a time, but we always had at least 11 divers aboard (likely because we were on this organized trip that things were done differently). It was pretty crowded and overwhelming at times for the divemasters I think. Our first dive was a complete mess (unexpectedly strong current, divemaster who didn't read the crowd well, etc) but subsequent dives were better. There were just a lot of them. The most disappointing thing for me, I think, is that we rarely saw anything different than what we saw snorkeling, in terms of sealife. Oh well.

Our flights down and back were fairly uneventful - with Miami Airport causing the most stress with their out of control construction and confusing signage and whatnot. We spent way more than we anticipated spending, and never felt like we got a good value for our money. Food was ridiculously expensive at restaurants on both Grand Cayman and Captiva, and not good enough to command those prices. We almost always come back from vacation feeling like we need another vacation, but this time, for me at least, that feeling is especially strong. Unfortunately, it looks like mini-weekend retreats are all that we'll be able to afford for a while! C'est la vie. We have a deck to finish, a new car to pay for, and credit card bills that will haunt us until September!

I don't want to end this on a down note, so I will say that when we were having time to relax, it was nice. I read "To Kill a Mockingbirg" for the first time in one afternoon sitting on a comfortable beach chair at The Reef Resort's beach. We did meet some very funny, interesting, and friendly folks diving that made the time diving very fun. We did learn some skills and get credentials that will allow us to take vacations in the future that interest us. Most important of all, DH and I left work behind for 12 days and spent time together doing stuff we love, and all our memories - good and bad - will make great anecdotes to tell over and over again!

Florida and Grand Cayman vacation review - Part 1

I think that it's time to post a little review of all we did on vacation. I think that I'll post a follow-up comparing Cayman to St John, since it's a frequent question on travel message boards.

Days 1-5: Captiva Island, Fl. South Seas Resort. Offshore Sailing School's Learn to Sail class

The resort: We had a 3rd floor harborview room with a garden tub, balcony overlooking the harbor, two queen beds, and in-room fridge. The resort itself is actually quite large, and it took 10 minutes to get from Captiva's main road to where we were staying. The room was clean, nice view, stayed cool. There were an awful lot of kids there (understandable since we were there the weekend after the 4th of July, so probably lots of vacationing families). Not my favorite place in the world but the beaches were nice, there was an amazing variety of birdlife around the resort (lots of Ospreys, pelicans, assorted herons, ibises, etc). If we hadn't been doing the sailing class I would never have stayed there on my own. That being said, there was probably the opportunity to do some nice kayaking along the wildlife sanctuary and stuff.

The sailing class: From 8-5 for three days straight, the instructor was wonderful and patient (his name was Biete!) and I really feel like we learned a lot. The boats (Colgate 26) were purpose-perfect; lots of room in the cockpit, sheets clearly labeled, etc). It didn't give us an awful lot of time to unwind from the hard day's work, but that was the nature of the class (there was an extended course that would allow you afternoons to do the vacation thing). Would definitely take another class with the school. Learning to sail was pretty expensive, though, like all of our hobbies it seems.

Days 5-9: The Reef Resort, Grand Cayman.

This was supposed to be the relaxing part of our vacation. The Reef Resort is located on the northeast corner of Grand Cayman, easily a 50 minute drive from the airport along a very boring road. Frankly, I was unimpressed with Grand Cayman overall, but more on that later. The resort itself was pretty nice. We had a second floor Deluxe Studio which was an end unit, balcony overlooking the pool and beach. King size bed, jacuzzi tub, small fridge and microwave and toaster, and some basic kitchen supplies. The walls were paper thin such that you could hear everything in the neighboring room, and the tiled walkways meant that you could hear every sound elsewhere (like people dropping brooms or mops or whatever with a loud clatter). I didn't really like how two rooms were entered through a single door with a little entryway. (We were in room 206B, there was a room 206A, you entered both through a door marked 206 and walked through a little tiled entryway to get to your own door). That entryway just echoed all the noise from other people entering their room, which was annoying. Not a fan.

DH and I normally love being remote and secluded from the tourist meccas at our various vacation destinations, but Grand Cayman doesn't support this very well - or at least the resort made it a little challenging. There was a restaurant on site, but almost every night we were there there was some "special" resort thing going on that made eating there impossible. Monday nights the restaurant is closed, fair enough to give the staff a day off (common in Europe). Tuesday and Thursday nights are "Barefoot Man" performances, where you have the privelege of paying too much to order off an extremely limited menu and listen to this guys music (hopefully you like it, if not you're SOL!) Wednesday night they did some kind of outdoor Mexican night thing; I have to admit that was a night when we went out for dinner, so I am not sure whether you could eat a normal dinner at the restaurant or not.

None of this would have been an issue, had there been more restaurants on the East End of the island. We went out twice - driving 30+ minutes both times - to virtually the only options available to us. This was a big turn-off for us. I'll tell the little story about our last East end restaurant drive another time, but suffice it to say that there just isn't enough infrastructure on the East End to keep a tourist who wants to stay away from the madness of 7 mile beach happy for an extended period of time.

Finally, it was near impossible to identify good beaches with snorkeling on the East End as there are few to no signs indicating destinations. We had read about a couple of spots online and were able to figure out one (Queen's Monument). Overall, it just felt like to much work to stay away from the crowds on Grand Cayman.

There was good snorkeling and a nice beach at The Reef Resort, but so many people who were inexperienced or poor snorkelers kicked up so much silt that it made it difficult to see as the afternoon wore on.

This post is getting too long - I'll continue it in the next post.

More pictures from vacation...

So the pictures that we took were pretty crappy, sadly. Maybe I'll load some of them onto the blog (the ones that weren't as bad). However, I do have some pics that were taken by one of the dive instructors on our trip.


Me diving, unfortunately with my alternate and SPG hanging off me. Bad diver!



Me 'n' DH, cute as can be


STINGRAY ATTACK!


Hey! A picture of Brian rather than a picture by Brian!

Introducing... Brian Vallelunga photography

So, on our dive trip we met one very funny Brian Vallelunga, from Adams Morgan. He's a great photographer, and was brave enough to bring some very expensive equipment onto a very wet dive boat. He took these pictures:





This is my favorite picture



His Flickr gallery with all his pictures from our dive trip is here.

I'm back!

We got home about 11pm last night after traveling for what seemed like forever. Miami airport is a total clusterf*&k, everything else went fairly smoothly. It was nice to be home and have kitties piled on me while I slept. I went out to the garden this morning to check on how out of control it was, and there were about 7 baseball bat sized zucchinis taking over the place. Hopefully picking them will allow some little ones to come to life. The tomato plants are a little thin - but maybe some training of the vines will help. Things did seem well watered, though.

Tonight I'll try and download the pics and videos we took on vacation - and also upload some pics taken by those we met down on Cayman. It was a fun trip - perhaps slightly overscheduled - and we met some really fun people!

We're comin' home!

After 12 days of being on vacation - it's time to come home! We've done SO much - except really relax. Well, that's not really true, there were one or two days where we totally vegged, but they were the minority. Actually, it's kind of time to come home - we miss the kitties and I know my garden is out of control. And then there is the new Beetle stuff I have to do (like learn how to drive it!)

As we always say, we need a vacation from our vacation! Miami Customs and Immigration here we come! Yea!

Cool stuff that we've seen/done so far

It's been two long, hot days learning to sail. I think that before we left, I thought that DH was going to enjoy sailing far more than I; the reality is that I think that I have a much more instinctual feel for it, while he's trying to engineer/techie it and deconstruct what happening and understand what's going on and what to do in a very sequential, orderly fashion. In any case, it's been great fun and I love sailing.

We've seen tons of dolphins both days, but today we had a dolphin come up right alongside the boat. Then he swam off, leaping into the air and doing bellyflops three times... that was pretty cool. We saw a couple of turtles surface for air. We also saw two manatees as we were pulling into the harbor. They were so sweet, but it breaks my heart to see the boat prop scars across their backs.

We also saw a Beetle that looks exactly like mine driving around the islands! So exciting.

Blogging on Vacation - that's unpossible

Well, it's a wired society and we're all wedded to our technology... so here I am blogging on vacation. We're on a 1/2 hour break from our first day of our sailing class (all classroom thus far - haven't been on the water yet). The weather is okay - intermittently cloudy and threatening to rain mixed with bright, hot sunshine. The resort we're at (South Seas Resort on Captiva) is a little family-friendly for my personal taste (there are loud kids everywhere... I can't wait to get out on the water where there won't be any). I'm looking forward to doing this class and then going on to Cayman to our decidedly more private, more remote, and likely less family-centric resort.

The flight was uneventful, the pick-up of our rental car painless, and driving to the resort was okay. The scenery is nice - since most of the area is a wildlife refuge.

Ah! Time for sailing!

Weather Update; Follow Up

So we're under a tornado watch here in G-town, which is so weird. There was actually a documented tornado here (maybe about 5 miles from where I live) a couple of years ago; I'm just worried that a storm will knock over my tomato supports again. There's some pretty significant thunder rumbling in the area, though. Hmmm, this could get interesting.

I've spent nearly the entire day cleaning the house - like really cleaning it. I don't know why, but every time we leave for vacation I spend the day before cleaning the whole house - cleaning the kitchens and bathrooms, vacuuming, changing bedsheets and whatnot. It's got some logic to it - there's nothing more stressful than coming home to a messy house, but at the same time it is a bit odd. At least I won't come home to a sinkful of dishes, dirty bedsheets, and an icky bathroom. The cat hair will cover the couch again, I'm sure.

I also put the car cover that came with my New Bug on him today. It's custom made for the car, so it fits like a glove. The cutest thing was that it had these two little pouches for the side-view mirrors that looked like little ears! So the Bug has been put to bed until we return.

Weather Update

So I added two little weather tracker things for the two places we'll be on vacation; Captiva, FL and Grand Cayman. Somehow I don't think that the differences between the weather here and the weather there will be as dramatic as it would have been had I gone on vacation in, say, February.

As long as the little weather tracker thing doesn't say 'hurricane conditions' I'll be happy.

Crossing my fingers that we have a good flight tomorrow with all the Great Britain drama.

More Bug pics

So the Beetle is still in the garage. I messed up the loan check I wrote out for the car and have to send a replacement, so in the garage the Beetle stays until its paperwork is all clear. But no need to not have a few more pics:


Pic of DH driving the Bug, as viewed in my rearview mirror. I'm surprised this came out so well without me causing an accident.


A girl and her Bug.... feel the love.

No more blueberries :(

Last Sunday DH and I picked 9 lbs of bluberries at Butler's Orchard in Germantown with Jeffro and CC. Tonight, I put the last 1/4 cup of blueberries in the freezer for future muffins, pancakes, or waffles. And thus ended our haul of berries. It actually took us less than a week to go through 9 lbs of blueberries - that last 1/4 cup has been in the fridge for 3-4 days.

I'm sure that there's someone out there who can do the math of how many antioxidants or whatever DH and I each got from eating about 4.5 lbs of berries in a week.

I guess we'll have to get more once we get back from vacation!

Things I have found cleaning out "George": Part 1

As I prep my 1995 Saturn "George" for sale, I'm sure I'm going to find a lot of interesting artifacts. Today, I started vacuuming the backseat area and I found:

- An old test prep tape for taking the NASD Series 6 licensing exam; this was for variable contracts.

- An old Russian conversation tape (from my Russian class a hundred years ago)

I'm sure there's lots more treasure hidden in my trunk, under my seats, and elsewhere. Stay tuned for next exciting installment of "What's in Erika's car?"

Note: There's nowhere to eat in Bedford, PA

The adventure is semi-over! My new Beetle Convertible is in my driveway (I have to clear out some space to make room for it in the garage!) after 8+ hours of being on the road. It's been a long day, so I'll leave the stories for another post and simply provide pictures:


Look at Ray drive away in my car!


Ahhh... home at last.


Out with the old and in with the new

The adventure begins!

So... in about 20 minutes DH and I are leaving for our 4 hour drive to Pittsburgh to either pick up the New Beetle or run away at the smell of a scam. It's going to be very interesting, to say the least. No money has changed hands yet - and frankly, I'll leave that part to the very end when I am sure I am about to drive away with the car. I'm totally freaking out... I don't have the impending feeling of doom or anything that would make me just shut the deal down, but I'm nervous. I called VW Credit last night and they confirmed that he did have an account (more than I have ever gotten out of them before) that he had requested a payoff package and that he was selling the car to a third party. They noted my name for record too - so that seems like it's on the up and up.

If you don't hear from me by 10pm tonight (by which I mean if I haven't posted the results of this boondoggle on my blog) call the authorities!

Times they are a changin'

I didn't realize it before, but it seems the majority of my minor and major life changing events happen between May and August. Graduations, birthday, marriage, job changes... today is one of those days. Sadly it is my last day on rotation in my dream office. Happily, the dream office is still my dream office; the work is incredible, the people are an absolute trip to work with, and there is a lot of potential in the work of the office itself for personal career growth. Unfortunately there are no spots open, but hopefully I've made myself an invaluable enough that that will change at the first opportunity.

So the next few weeks will be full of changes: new car (new to me, anyway, and hopefully), new responsibilities at my old job, vacation. July is going to be over in a flash! And June isn't even over yet.

Of all the crazy things I've done, this might be the craziest

Which, if you know me, means a whole lot.

I've just bought a car off eBay.

Seriously.

I bought an $18,500 car sight unseen. Off eBay.

There are more details that I'll share later about the sale (I don't want to disclose them yet, because I don't want to jinx things, but believe me when I say they are juicy!). I think it's a good deal. It's going to be an interesting weekend.

You can see the listing here.

Manic Saturday

So close, yet so far away

It feels great to get so much accomplished so early in the weekend. I had my car reinspected this morning for emissions - and I PASSED! Woot! That's a relief. So the car is good for another 2 years - emissions-wise that is.

I bought the paint for the living room and have one wall done. It looks wonderful - I am so pleased and it's only the first coat (it'll need two). Just three more walls (and one is barely a wall) and I've got 1/2 my painting requirement done!.

DH got both the front and back lawns mowed, and I got an out-of-control weed situation back under control. I've been emailing back and forth with a VW dealer for a Salsa Red convertible that he says he's selling me for $100 over invoice - but I can see plainly via Google and like 100 million websites that he's overstating his invoice by about $450. And he's padding the back end (taxes and all that) pretty well too. It amazes me that an "internet manager" would think that someone using the "internet" to buy a car couldn't instantly check out such statements. I mean, if he simply told me he could sell me the car at X price, with Y being the total for taxes, tags, etc, then I could respect him. But trying to tell me that he's giving me a "deal" by selling $100 over invoice. What. ever. Not only that, but I told him that I didn't need the car - I just wanted it, but only if the price was right.

This guy was no Bob Barker.

Two more weeks!

Until we go on vacation that is. To pass the interim time, I'm:

- dreaming about my New Beetle Convertible, trying to decide if I should maybe try and find a used Turbo to satisfy my need for speed or take the safer road and buy new (since VW's long term reliability is less than stellar).

- trying to get through a project at work that I am totally burnt out on.

- working on the deck; progress on which has been stymied by rain on the last two/four nights.

I still have to get my car to pass emissions inspection, paint the kitchen and living room, and hang curtains in the den. But it's so hard to wait for my new bug - I want it to look like this:

When's that vacation again?

Oh. my. gosh. I am so tired. Today was non-stop action. Haircut, more paint quarts to test in the kitchen and the living room, DECK CONSTRUCTION, finally approval of the paint color (after 7 test quarts!), then primer on the walls in the living room in preparation for the new yellow!

Everything hurts, we've just started making significant progress on the deck and in the living room, and tomorrow we've got to go to DH's parents' house for Father's Day and the MIL's B-day. And to hear all about the bay-bay. Ugh.

I'd rather be working on the deck/painting the kitchen/anything.