It has been a busy couple of weeks.

At work we were in the run up to half term and sports days. Sports days here are huge, we took the whole school down to the national athletics stadium for the actual day but not before we had spent the best part of two weeks carrying out ‘eliminations’. Only the finalist competed and I do mean competed at the stadium. For those that did not take part in the main sports day we held a second ‘fun day’ in the same week. The winners of our school sports day will get to compete in the national inter-primary games in two weeks time…

Like I said seriously! The most furiously competed races however were the mums’ and dads’ races! We ran 4x100m relays and the parents really went for it!

On top of this I have ended up coaching our basketball teams and taking them to matches every Friday. Now not to brag about my coaching but our girls team have only lost two games and our boys have won every game! Seriously I am not bragging about my coaching skills, the kids do it all themselves I just organise the buses, wash the uniforms and bring the Gatorade! They are amazing, the only way I could improve the whole thing is if I organise speakers to blare out Sweet Georgia Brown during the games.

At home we were equally frenetic preparing for guests. The migration of the Woodwards. On the penultimate Friday before the break the advanced guard arrived. Sally landed to spend a week with us before half term and the arrival of Caroline, Pete, Wig, Alice and Daisy.

We had a quiet week with Sally mainly because we were still at work during the day but it was lovely to have her over and she enjoyed mimbbling about and going to the beach. She even came along to watch the Prospect Sports Day.

Sports days out of the way and half the academic year down we all headed to the airport to pick up the rest of our guests and to take them over to their digs.

Obviously they were on a budget so had to rough it a bit… their apartment was gorgeous, right on the sea front with a pool and private beach and it own ship wreck to explore and snorkel around. Just imagine if they had some money!

The sunken ship was just of the beach, it formed an artificial reef teeming with fish. We even saw a shoal of rainbow parrot fish, each about two and a half feet long and beautiful!

Being westward facing the apartment had uninterrupted views of the setting sun…

…and we were treated to a couple of beauties! We even saw  our first Green Flash! A phenomenon where in the last second before the sun drops below the horizon the arch of the sun flashes green!

Saturday was an easy day while the gang settled in. We headed to Governors’s Beach and spent an afternoon messing about in the water and snorkelling out to the reef.

Our neighbour Damo was there with his boards so we grabbed a couple and all had a play at paddle boarding!

Sunday, it was down to Smith’s cove for more fun in the sea and Alice’s first snorkelling experience, turned out it was Sally’s too! They both loved it and spent the rest of the week splashing around when Alice wasn’t chasing chickens with Poppy.

On Tuesday evening the gang headed off to Rum Point and Bio Bay to see the bioluminescence. Generally agreed to be the highlight of the trip. Night time paddle boarding in a glowing sea, just stunning. The lack of light pollution meant the stars were out in force and Victoria and James saw the Milky Way for the first time in their lives.

Wednesday. Of course because its Cayman we jumped on the Capt. Jimmy and headed out to Stingray City.

Everyone loved it and Pete and Wig both proved to be very popular with the amorous rays! Pete getting a kiss and Wig getting her bum rubbed by the rays! Still they did not seem to be to upset by the experience. Wig was alright about it too.

On Thursday we headed to Spots Beach and swam with wild turtles, to be fair they seemed quite placid not even a little bit bothered to see us.

Here Alice is following a pair of juveniles.

On Friday the ladies headed out for Wig’s Cayman Hen Do. Leaving us boys baby sitting so we sat on the beach, ate pizza and drank beer until quite late while the kids ran about and eventually fell asleep under the stars. Who says we aren’t responsible parents?

One of these two pictures is the hen do…

Having stayed in with the babies us chaps felt the need to reconnect with our masculine sides. So the next day us boys headed out for a manly hike along the Mastic Trail a route through the island’s ‘jungle’ interior and a climb to the highest point on Grand Cayman. Reputed to be nearly 60 feet high!

Not a trek for the faint hearted.

We saw loads of wildlife including Cayman Parrots, racer snakes and lizards. Pete stopped to take pictures of everything! It was a great hike but we still felt we needed to walk some more and to do something even more macho to keep the testosterone levels up.

So we headed to the Botanic Gardens.

It was very pretty even if it meant more walking in the sun. But we did get to see Blue Iguanas! Suitably worn out from our excursions we headed out for a well deserved ‘boys’ lunch at the Lighthouse! A lovely Italian place overlooking the sea…

All in all not a bad week, lots of sun, swimming, snorkelling, sand, sea, laughter and we found time to watch the rugby, have a b-b-q, head to Da Fish Shack for dinner, eat jerked pork on the beach and drink lots of rum and cold beer!