11.00 p.m. and I am stood on a near deserted harbor side with just a music teacher and a pile of steel drums for company.
Nearby can be heard the drunken ramblings of a grounded sailor and across the water drifts the sounds of a container ship being unloaded.
I turn to my silent companion.
‘Come here often?‘, I try as an ice breaker and we both start laughing at the ridiculous image.
Two white guys on a dark dockside late at night minding a large pile of Caribbean drums, surrounded by the detritus of a street party while we wait for a truck to turn up. .
That’s right in life you do have these moments.
Tonight has been ‘Pan in de City’ the first official event of Pirates Week. Earlier in the evening our respective school bands had been part of the 100 or so musicians performing in the Annual Cayman Schools’ Steel Band Competition. The Main Street through George Town closed off so our students could perform on the sea front.
It was a great fun evening and the bands were brilliant Prospect came a very credible 2nd beaten only by a private secondary school. (Admittedly James and Poppy’s school so no mixed loyalties there).
But they were brilliant, the average age of the band is 10 and they held their own against the local university band! So proud, go Prospect!
As I watched them play I figured it was probably the most authenticity Caribbean event of our adventure so far! If you don’t count the food, the beach, working in a local school, the life style… well you know what I mean.
(Sorry its sideways!)
11:15 and back on the dockside we now sit on upturned drums listening to the waves and watch the drunken sailor fall over again. Shouting obscenities at some invisible protagonist he jumps up and staggers unsteadily off down the street moving like a marionette in the hands of a careless child. His ravings fading into the dark.
Through the night we hear the low rattle and clash of an approaching truck and a beaten up old van comes at last to our rescue.
Under an Endless Sky 