Our Caribbean Adventure - continued: Issue # 86

. October 2014 .

Hello again!

Well, that's October done! It's probably the quietest month on record for us! Although we did report the Touch Dinner in the September Issue, so that accounts for the early part of the month.

The weather has been a little cooler of late as well. A few small storms about the place and plenty of rain and grey skies.
Michelle has been training hard for the Cayman Triathlon. The kids have been back in the pool for a while now. Another swim meet coming up next week. Dave hasn't done anything spectacular, although kids rugby is back on so there goes the next 20-odd Saturday mornings!

So, the blog this month is reasonably brief, but hopefully reasonably entertaining as well.

Roald Dahl Day

Jake and his Mud & Worm Cake

The school recently held a day to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The kids all dressed up in character for the day and were asked to bring a plate of something gross looking (with Halloween in mind).

As you can see, Jake came up with a Mud & Worm Cake. Sam and Jake made a chocolate cake one day after school and then decorated it with Gummy Worms.

Sam made little Spiders with Oreos, M & Ms and mini pretzels.

As for costumes, Jake donned Dave's Purple Pimp Suit jacket, a Top hat and some John Lennon Shades and went as Willy Wonker.

Sam went in black with a painted face and was a Cat from another book.

Unfortunately we don't have photographic evidence so you'll just have to take our word for it.

Sam's Spider Snacks

Morgan & Sam scare the locals

The annual Haunted House was set up in Camana Bay for Halloween. Sam helped out as part of her Community Service. She was there with a couple of friends for about two hours per night for three nights leaping out of dark corners, screaming and scaring any visitors to the house - she had a blast - what a great way to get community service hours!

Rugby Club Halloween

The Rugby Club Halloween party was held the other night - on the 31st to be exact!

Dave went along to the party while Michelle rested up at home - Triathlon imminent!

Jake went around the neighbourhood with the hundreds of other kids.

There were plenty of cool costumes at the party. Here's a selection of them.

Middle-Aged-Mutant-Ninja Turtles

Local humour.
One of the local politicians was recently accused of illegal use of a Government Credit card...

There were all sorts and shapes and sizes.

Sam checks out the costume. Looking pretty 'armless!

Triathlon

The annual Cayman Tri was held on Sunday. Yes, it's technically November's news but we couldn't hold off for that long, so here it is.

Michelle has taken part in this event for the last few years. Two years ago she ended up in Hospital with dehydration. That was a learning experience!

Last year she did alright but thought she might be able to do better this year as she felt better prepared.

Stormy weather was predicted for the race in 2014. Thankfully it was just windy, so the swim was still OK to go ahead. It's Michelle's strongest leg of the race so she'd be annoyed if that didn't happen! As it was the sea was a little rough, but nothing too huge. The start was somewhat delayed due to one of the bouys being caught in the current and disappearing from sight - the organisers had to figure out the closest thing that wasn't moving that would be about the right distance for the swim - luckily there were a couple of boats anchored nearby that weren't too much off course but made for a longer swim - two laps were to be swum for the Olympic distance. The bike course was slightly different - 4 laps to be done with a tail wind one way and a strong head wind the other. This year they also changed the run course to make it shorter but more laps - Michelle was very worried about it as she finds it very difficult mentally to run multiple laps and she thought 4 was bad enough from previous years so she wasn't too happy when she found out it was 6 this year - and so the challenge began...

The Red Caps are doing the half, and the Black Caps the Olympic distance.
Michelle shoved one of these clowns back into the water as he was getting in her way when exiting the
water at the end of the first lap!

Not exactly swimming in the most direct line!

Exiting the water at the end of the swim. Focussed!

The swim seemed to go pretty well - they had the current with them on the main back straight and while there were some big swells making it difficult to pinpoint the markers, she managed to maintain her course, coming out first individual woman athlete...then it was time to jump on the bike (aka the beast - this bike was second-hand when she "borrowed" it five years ago from a fellow triathlete who had bought a new one - it still goes fine but looks decidedly amateur against many of the other bikes in the rack!). As is often the case during the bike, other athletes that are stronger on the bike catch up and whizz by her, with some of the bikes sounding like cars...

Not so focussed! But probably happy with the tail wind!

When she came in off the bike she had still managed to hold on to her top place, although she had no idea where she was in the race. She threw on her shoes and proceeded to begin the dreaded six lap run...

Looking pretty good on the run!

After the first lap she had seen a few other women who she knew were doing the Olympic (note that the Sprint distance aka half triathlon, was also going on at the same time) but wasn't sure if they were ahead or behind her, so she plodded along, catching a few here and there. The race commentator made a comment every time she went around the turn around point - at 3 laps he asked her if it was her last lap - gutted, she said "no, I'm only half way!" which made her think that a couple of the others she'd seen were actually the best part of a lap ahead of her and that she was in 3rd place. So she just carried on at about the same pace, making sure she took a sip of water every time she turned (no way she was going to make the same mistake as two years ago!). She noticed that the one girl that beats her every year was falling a bit further behind with every lap and thought that she was nearly a lap ahead but she was gaining on her, knowing it would never be enough. At the turnaround point for the 5th lap the commentator said she was in the lead, so she finally realised that she had been in the lead the whole way! All she had to do was keep it steady and hold onto it, and that's exactly what she did - she kept strong and focussed right to the end, and even managed to put a sprint on to finish! She was surprised and very happy with her win, even though it was quite a lot slower than the previous year - the wind made a big difference to all the athlete's times.

Sprint to the finish!

She won!
First Female overall!

The hardware!

Beach

We said the weather had been pretty average. Even though it was a windy day, we popped down to the beach for the afternoon on Sunday. It's quite nice sitting there with a cooling breeze, and Michelle was thankful just to sit back and relax! The waves were up too, so the kids took advantage of that and had some fun!