Little Cayman

And here is the Blue Iguana. There are only approximately 20 left in the wild and they are protected in the Cayman Islands. The signs on the road in Little Cayman say "Iguanas have right of way, please drive carefully" He doesn't look very blue here as he is blending into the deck, but if you look closely he does have blue skin. If you are interested in going to Little Cayman...check out the Little Cayman Beach Resort

This is the famous Bloody Bay Wall...the wall divers come to see. Just 100 yards off shore...under the water there is a severe drop off that goes to approximately 6000 ft. The wall is amazing to dive. The coral is so alive. It is like a tropical rain forest under the water. These pictures do not do it justice. The most amazing thing we saw was an 8ft reef shark. He was very quick at coming into visibility and then disappearing that we did not get a good shot of him.....but here is a picture of the wall.

The reason we came to Little Cayman was for the scuba diving. It is one of the top 5 dive spots in the world we are told. Seeing as we have only dove in Grand Cayman and Little Cayman, we are really not good judges of this. However, all the people we met up with assured us that diving doesn't get much better than this. Here is a picture of Wade under the sea.

The transportation. Little Cayman is so small (about 7miles long and 1 mile wide), that the plane lands on a gravel landing strip. There is no hanger...but there are a couple of benches! Completely how a tropical island in the middle of the Caribbean should be.

Life & Times in Grand Cayman

A look out to cemetery Beach from our complex.







Our friends Charmaine & Dave and Tasha & Brian came down from Canada for a visit in November 2005. We went on a sailboat race...the boys on one boat the girls on another. I would just like to say that the GIRLS WON! Here is a look at the boys boat.


Here are the girls at one of our favourite restaurants...Deckers.






A night out on the town at the Hedge Funds Care dinner...the theme was a splash of red.









Long night...don't even think that Ice is melted yet!







My parents bought us a Murder by candlelight game for Christmas...and here we all are.






So it was farewell to our friends Shari, Eamon, Nicola & Craig who were returning to Dublin & London. On one of the last nights we went for dinner and tested their knowledge about their Canadian friends by playing Canadian trivia. They did pretty good at the last challenge...drawing a Canadian flag...but alas Shari's was the worst and thus she was the loser. Should we ask Canada to adopt any of these new drawings?

Here is Silver Sands from the air. When my parents were down this year we went for a helicopter ride.






Here we are at Stingray City...had the place to ourselves...can you tell? I think the rays are so hungry they just might eat the boys! Willie, Dave & Wade are in the water. We sent them in first ...just in case.


Tanis is in the Christmas spirit!








Long live Avalon No. 3! These are the people we shared a condo with for just under 2 months while we were all homeless after hurricane Ivan.





Another beautiful Cayman sunset.







Wade was a good boy...he got so sit on Santa and Mrs. Claus's lap! Although Mrs. Claus looks a little scary.





This is what Christmas is like in Cayman.







Our friends Jay & Kami came to visit us from Canada with their little boy Jack. Although he is not so little now anymore! Wade and Jack seem to be in deep conversation.



Our friend Mark came down from Canada. Here is Mark and Wade doing cannonballs into the pool. No wonder the pool was empty.




A street party downtown George Town, Grand Cayman during Pirates week.






A stormy day in Cayman outside of Silver Sand. This is what a tropical storm looks like.






Here is a typical night for the boys out on our balcony smoking Cuban cigars. Casey, Wade & Chris.





This is where we lived for 3 out of the 4 years we were in Grand Cayman...Silver Sands. Ahhhh...ain't this the life.





A good beach party always ends in Fives Alive, or as our Canadian friends now fondly refer to is as CI Turbo. Many a night has turned nasty because of this game...thanks to our South African friends who taught it to us. Cheers guys!



And here is Karate Kid! I'm not sure what kind of move this is, but everyone seems enthralled.






Have you been to Hell? Well we have. Here I am with my Mom & Dad on one of their 4 trips to Cayman.





And here we are at the end of our deep sea fishing. There were 12 of us and only a few people did not feel ill by the end. All of those sandwiches were for not boys! At least Audrey caught a fish...our only fish...and wouldn't you know it, it was a barracuda.



Our friend Jamie came for a visit from Canada. Here is Wade and Jamie making sandwiches for our deep sea fishing expedition the next day.





Wade and Stevie Mac at Mardi Gras, Kaibo Yacht Club.

Cayman Critters

Besides the turtle...these guys are Cayman mascots. Stingrays are so tame here at Stingray City that they are more like cats than anything else.






And they said no pets were allowed. Well our Landlord lied to us! Here is the first critter we became acquainted with in Cayman. Mr. Scorpion. We had about 9 of them in total when we lived at SummerField...needless to say after catching them in little zip lock bags and handing them to our Landlord we broke our one year lease about 9 months in and moved to Silver Sands. To date there have been no Scorpions at Silver Sands.

And here is the second critter we discovered. Mr. Crab. Who knew you could find them knocking on your front door wanting to come in. As we later discovered they can even climb walls...kinda like spiders. Only difference is...they taste great! Altough we could never bring ourselves to cook one up...turns out we are restaurant crab eaters.

Oooh....please don't pooh on my head. I really don't have the best luck with birds...but this one was okay. This was taken at Rum Point.









Well here is another guest...come on in! Good thing this wasn't our back door. Who knew Peacock's were so curious...I thought that was cats.





Don't you just hate it when you go to take a nap and an Iguana is in your bed? Yes...here is our latest guest, Mr. Iguana. Needless to say we were a little shocked to find him, however, once our bounty hunter Casey McDonald arrived on scene, we and by we I mean Casey, were able to catch him and release him into the wild.

And here is the only invited guest in our house...Gussy. Gussy is Anne-Marie and Rob's cat and he comes for many overnight stays when they are off island. This is Gussy's home away from home. As you can see...he is quite comfortable at our place. Although when there is lightning and thunder it is next to impossible to coax him out from underneath the bed of his choice.

Hanggliding School (Lookout Mountain)

Tanis, Anne-Marie and myself went flew to Nashville, TN in November 2005 to attend hang gliding school at Lookout Mountain. We had a blast! Check out the school at Lookout Mountain I think our instructor Gordon was almost more excited than we were when we finally got off the ground. It was a great time and I'd highly recommend it to anyone. Here I am with Gordon running behind me...this is before we even got to the bunny hills.

And here I am with my tandem instructor Dan. We were towed up by an ultralite plane to 2000 feet and got to float down to the ground twice. It was an amazing experience and I am hooked for life. And it's not just for the birds!

Tanis & Anne-Marie

Bermuda

A picture of downtown Hamilton. Colourful buildings and of course many scooters on the road due to the one car limit per residential address policy.




Bermuda is famous for it pink sand beaches. Here is a picture of one of its more secluded beaches.






Here is a picture from Crystal Caves. The Bermuda caves consists of numerous submerged integrated passageways of salt water pools. There is much study being conducted on the caves due to the biodiversity. There are currently only two caves open for tourist viewing.

Victoria (British Columbia)

In June 2005 I had a client meeting in Whistler. Once that was finished I took a few days off and went to Victoria to visit my Aunt & Uncle and my friend Sheri and her family. My uncle is fond of hiking and so we went for a few hikes while I was there. There are so many trails around where they live that we didn't have to venture very far before being out in the wilderness!


One of our hikes took us to French Beach. It was a pretty windy day, but the scenery is breath taking. Just behind my Aunt & Uncle's house is the Royal Roads University. A scene from the movie X men was filmed here. Check out Royal Roads and see if you recognize it as the school that was invaded in the movie!

This picture was taken in the back yard of my Aunt & Uncle's house. The deer are so tame that if you leave the gate open...they wander in.




A view from the ferry on the way back to Vancouver.

Argentina

We arrived in Buenos Aires and spent a day there before flying to Salta (in the northwest part of Argentina). We rented a 4X4 Turbo Diesel Truck (Wade fell in love with it) and drove to San Antonio. We originally wanted to take the Tren a Las Nubes (Train to the Clouds), however, it was not running the days we were there. So we tried to drive approximately the same route. The terrain was very arid and unusual.

We drove to the wine region of Cafayate and to get there went through Quebrada de Cafayate (Canyon of Colours). It was a mini version of the Grand Canyon in a multicoloured environment of bright oranges, reds, browns and greens. Many of the rock formations have been named, this one is Los Castillos (The Castles).

Here we are in Cafayate at the Etchart winery. An afternoon of sampling grapes, touring the facility and then sampling the wine. We ended up buying 6 bottles to take home on the plane with us.



Iguazu is in the Northwest corner of Argentina and can be viewed from the Argentinian or Brazilian side. The waterfalls here are amazing and make Niagara falls look small. There are so many waterfalls of varying sizes that it took us the better part of a day walking on a series of catwalks to see all of them.

Back in Buenos Aires right now at Casa Rosada. This is the Presidential Palace where Eva and Juan Peron addressed crowds of Argentinians. This is also where Madonna was filmed as Evita for the movie.



Here we are at one of the Pedestrian Malls in Buenos Aires.