. September 2015 .
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| The day after the Blood Moon Eclipse - it was cloudy the night before! |
Hello!
Well, it looks like September is done and dusted. A relatively quite month, activity-wise! Apart from Michelle, who managed to squeeze in yet another sojourn off island!
I guess we can blame the distraction of the World cup for the rest of it! The timing of the games in the UK mean that they are on from about 7 am through to about 4pm on the weekends. Perfect (for some)!
We watch the bigger games down at the Rugby club - which for some strange reason, became a little quieter on Saturday just gone, although as the game wore on, the vocal support from the Australian Quarter became a little more noticeable!
Anyway, the kids are back at school, and back in the pool.
We've had a couple of beach days and a recent Sunday boat trip which was quite nice.
Chicago
The Gaelic crowd headed for Chicago earlier in the month. Michelle went along as well. They took a women's team and two mean's teams to the North American Gaelic Tournament. All teams had to win their game on the Friday to make it through to the finals. Competition was very tough and unfortunately, none of the teams came away with a win, although each team fought hard. The good things was that this meant that they had Saturday free, as their next games weren't until Sunday. So needless to say, there were a few drinks on the Friday night and they ventured into the city, trying out a few different bars. They were pretty late home so most slept in the next day. This was rather unfortunate for the Men's A team as they found out at 8am on Saturday that they had a game in the Plate playoffs! They managed to drag a few guys out of bed and stumbled down to the pitch. Luckily, a few of them were well enough to play decently and they came away with a win! Thankfully, none of the other teams had to play that day!
Michelle and some of the girls went into the city to check out some sights - they went to The Bean and did a Architectural Boat tour along the river through the middle of the city. The weather was superb and the girls thoroughly enjoyed the tour. They had to cut their touring short as they had to get taxis back out to the hotel, to shower and change ready for the evenings activities - back into the city on a bus for a fun night of music, dancing and drinks at an Irish pub with a few of the other teams. Another late night, despite all three teams knowing they had to play the next day.
The Bean!
Very cool reflections inside the Bean - like a kaleidoscope
Outdoor theatre in the park
Rock climbing anyone?
The Wrigley's Building
An interesting circular car park, at the bottom of an apartment building
Everything you could need in your apartment building - shops, restaurants and a jetty
Chicago city!
The girls were up first and, as the other team was unable to field a full team, the game ended up being won by default and a friendly game was played with some ring-ins. This allowed the girls to all get game time with rolling subs (29 girls went on tour and only 13 play at any one time, with only 5 subs allowed!). We then had the Plate final later - in fact all three of the Cayman teams made it to the Plate finals which was great. We ended up winning 2 of the 3 - the girls had an awesome game, winning16-9, and the Men's A team also had a very convincing win. The girls were so excited - first hardware being brought back for Gaelic! Celebrations were a bit late starting as no-one had the energy to go and get drinks after the game! Everyone decided to move hotels into the city, so there was a mass exodus to the Virgin Hotel - wow, what a cool hotel - awesome outside, rooftop bar, lots of little goodies in the rooms and location was excellent - everyone was wishing they'd stayed there the whole time, although it was much more expensive and there may not have been too much enthusiasm in making it to the games! An awesome weekend was had by all - a great group of people, some good sporting results and an awesome city!
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| The Trophy! |
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| Apparently they did actually play - or at least wore their playing strip! |
View from The Virgin Rooftop Bar - absolutely amazing!
Cheers to an awesome weekend!
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| Sam and Sami...and half of Molly at Gov's Beach |
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| Sunday at the beach |
We've just had the first swim meet of the new season. Friday night was for the longer events. The weather arrived (a little bit of Hurricane Jocqain) which brought some heavy rain and storms. That shortened Friday night's activities a little. Both Sam and Jake got their swim's in and Jake was very happy with his 8 second PB in 400m Free - a great start to the season!
Saturday was all clear so the event carried on. It was pretty much a sprint meet from there, with the longest event being 100m, so it was all over fairly quickly. Even in time for us to get home and watch the South Africa v Scotland game!
Both kids saw some improvement in their times, and the coach has them working on a few other technical things so wasn't too concerned about their times at this stage of the season. Although a drop in your PB is always a good thing!
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| Coach gives the girls a de-brief |
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| Jake swims a good 50 back |
Jake's been working on his form - looking good!
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| Stop looking about! |
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| Better... |
Touch Rugby - Finals Day
Finals day for the Summer Touch finally arrived.
A very hot day greeted the players as they wandered out of their air conditioned accomodations and into the Rugby Club.
Jake's team were in the top four of the Social league, which was a pretty good effort for a bunch of kids. They had one or two 15 year olds, and the youngest around 10. They played against adult teams, who were reasonable experienced, but lacked the agility of some of the kids.
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| Jake clears the ball |
They worked hard in their first game, which was the 2nd team v 3rd (Kids being third).
And they managed to come away with a win! That took them into the grand final later in the day.
Michelle's team won their first knockout game as well, and ended up winning the Plate in the Competitive League. Well done!
And then it was Dave's team up for their final... And what a final it wasn't. Only about four players turned up, but they managed to grab a few extra vertical bodies to make up the numbers. They eventually went down 5 - 2. Beer time.....
The big final of the Social league was soon upon us. The crowd was well lubricated and vocal. It was Kids v the No: 1 Adult side, who weren't out to do any favours for the kids. This was the final.
Funnily enough the kids became the crowd favourites, and the crowd was pretty big!
The kids made a good fist of it, scoring a couple of tries. The other team, however, had a couple of guys that were very quick, and also very good and they managed to put a couple of un-answered points up against the kids.
The writing was on the wall, but the kids stuck at it until the end. Unfortunately, they couldn't claw back the deficit and came away as Runners-up for 2015. A great effort for a bunch of kids, many of whom had never played before. We look to see how many of these kids get picked up by adult teams next season.
Boat Day
One Sunday we went out with some friends on a boat. The usual is to do Stingray City, Starfish Point and then hang out somewhere. We skipped the first two and decided just to hand out at a deserted beach/sand-bar.
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| The Girls corner |
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| Boys Corner |
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| And just up the way, half of Cayman's Boating Community... |
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| Time to get airborne! |
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| Or maybe have a Rum Point Mudslide... |
So, that's pretty much it!
I guess October will involve a little Rugby watching as well!
We are also planning a short trip across to Jamaica for a swim meet, and a little holiday after that.
The kids are in a swim-a-thon this Friday to raise money for their club. Jake has to swim 200 lengths. Sam has to swim for two hours...non-stop! All pledges welcome!
See ya next time!
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