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Skatepark Tour
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for detailed pictures of the Skatepark and Wave Machine
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for pictures we took as we traveled around the Island of Grand Cayman
The pool at the Cayman Island Skatepark
Day One
After weeks of waiting, its October 21st and we are headed
to the Grand Caymans to check out the Black Pearl Skatepark. We took
the 11 pm flight out of LAX with a 6 hour layover in South Carolina
which sucked, unless sleeping on the airport floor is your cup of
tea. Oct 22, finally arrived at 1:15pm at Owen Roberts airport in
the Grand Cayman Islands (pronounced Caymaaaan FYI). The first thing
we noticed was sweatshirts is a definite waste of luggage space, as
you walk out of the airplane onto the runway (yep no tunnel with AC
into the airport) you are instantly drenched with salt air and sweat,
86 degrees and 98% humidity will do that to you. Kathy Miller from
Black Pearl Skatepark was waiting for us when we got here. She took
us straight to her apartment where we would be staying, it’s a sweet
setup, 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment right on the beach and directly
across the street from the Skatepark in the Grand Harbor shopping
center. After a quick shower and change of clothes we went directly
to check the whole scene out. I don’t think we were quite prepared
for what we were about to see, it’s mind blowing how huge this place
is. Kathy introduced us to all the locals and made sure we were hooked
up at the restaurant and bar in the shopping complex, which is owned
by Mike Bell who owns the Skatepark. Of course I padded up for a quick
session even though I was exhausted and that was when I first realized
how out of shape I was and how huge the park is. Oh well I had a great
time skating so that was awesome!
Next we were off to see some of the local attractions and were taken
to 7 Mile beach where we had burgers and cocktails right on the sand,
it doesn’t get much better than this. Kathy left us to our own devices
and returned 30 mins later with front side tickets to the local boxing
match going on that night at the town sports complex. After another
shower (you're constantly sweating) we took off to see the fight.
Great atmosphere, they had local fighters against some Americans and
the fans really get into it. Its not often you get to sit close enough
to have spit and sweat land on you, I guess that’s part of the front
row seat package. Back to the apartment totally jetlagged, we hung
out with some close friends of Kathy's and one of the fighters from
the boxing match showed up, he's originally from Dallas and kicked
some butt in the ring. 3am and everyone had gone home and Kathy had
gone to bed so we decided to call it a day. All in all I would say
that it was not a bad first day:-)
There are still very rough waves due to the aftermath of Hurricane
Wilma. Normally the water is nice and calm around the whole island.
Day 2
Dragged ourselves out of bed at 11am and went to breakfast at
Breezes which is overlooking the ocean. Thanks to hurricane Wilma
we had massive waves crashing onto the main street and had to detour
almost everywhere we went. Its hot as hell here, breathing is an effort
in the humidity, but its better than rainy 65 degree California. Kathy
took us to get a rental car, the last thing they say to you as they
give you the keys is “keep to the left” famous last words. Good thing
the wife is from South Africa and knows a little about how all this
left hand side stuff works, because it is a trip and I don't think
I could handle that one my own:-) We went back to Kathy's and took
a nap and then woke up and hit the Skatepark again. 5pm seems to be
the key time to go skate as it is cooling down and there are some
locals in the park at this time. Dinner time rolled around and we
thought we’d run across the street to see what they had cooking over
there, Castaways restaurant has some awesome food, they're right next
door to Davey Jones’s Locker a cool sports bar with 23 flat screen
TV’s,and a great atmosphere. Seeing as though we pushed so hard on
the first day we decided to call it a night at a decent time.
The Wave Pool at Grand Harbour is one of 3 in
the world. Located right next to the Skatepark this thing is nothing
but fun!
Day 3
Up and at em early and started the day out with some more pics
of the Skatepark, you cant get enough of it. We forgot to get a map
the day before so we couldn’t go anywhere. So our first order of business
was getting a map and giving ourselves a tour of the island. Somehow
we managed to find our way back to the local Avis and got some maps
and started the tour. The island was totally ravaged last year by
hurricane Ivan and you can see a lot of the destruction still. A lot
of the houses are torn to pieces and haven’t been repaired and hurricane
Wilma’s effects aren’t making it any easier on getting repairs done.
All the touristy stuff was closed because of the huge surf, but we
had a good time just driving around, some of the houses here are insane!
We stopped in a little town called Hell, bought a hell of a cool tank
top, spoke to the devil, and then continued around the island. We
went everywhere! From the very west part of the island to the very
east part of the island. We just cruised around and got a bunch of
pics and got to see what this great island is really all about. There
are a lot of specific funny things we saw but one was a road called.
“off the beaten path”. Once we were done we came back and got some
food at Davey Jones Locker and then caught a cool demo that was put
on by the guys at the wave pool. I haven't ridden that thing yet but
it was an hour long show. Lots of people from inside the Castaway
moved outside to check it out and everybody had a good time. I didn't
know you could do airs, 360's and backflips on a wave pool. The coolest
thing about this is that the wave pool was installed and nobody really
knew how to use it so they just cranked that sucker up and learned
on their own. After 4 months they are getting pretty good at it and
it was quite a show. Yet another new thing for me to see.
This town
is called Hell, Grand Cayman. An interesting stop on our journey around
the island:-)
Day 4
Woke up a little late and started writing the story and going
through the pics. After a few brief updates Kathy hooked us up with
a special guided tour from Chet at the Turtle Farm. Since the water
is still rough the Turtle Farm was closed to the public but we got
hooked up with a private tour, so we got a great hook up there! The
turtles are famous because when Christopher Columbus first ran into
this island there were turtles everywhere and they named it los tortuga
island or something like that. That didn't take hold and the name
was later changed to Cayman which is an alligator like creature. Anyway
the Turtle Farm is a great attraction. They have a big tank with big
turtles which weigh hundreds of pounds and they have created a nice
beach for them to lay their eggs. In the middle of the night somebody
goes and collects the eggs and puts them in the hatchery. After the
hatchery they go to the baby turtle tank and after a year or so old
they go to the touching tank. This is where you can reach in and grab
them and take pics of them and what not. When I grabbed my first turtle
it was flapping its flippers pretty wildly and Chet told me to just
rub him under the neck and that mellowed him out. We also checked
out the next few tanks where there are 5 or so year old turtles are
and they are much bigger and you don't want to try grabbing those
things because they could snap a finger off no problem. After the
Turtle Farm we drove down the road a piece and stopped at this condo
development that still hadn't been fixed up after Ivan. I took some
pictures there because it is amazing how powerful that hurricane was
and I felt the need to take some pictures there. After that we headed
back down to Seven Mile Beach and got a chance to lay on the beach
of the Courtyard Marriot and play around in the water. The waves where
still very rough so when you got in the water the current would push
you down stream and eventually you had to get out and walk back a
few hundred feet. This was fun stuff so we did that over and over
again. Next we hopped in the car and drove to the other side of the
island to go barge the Grand Caymanian Hotel. We got a few tropical
drinks at the bar, talked to some of the guests, swam in the pool,
got in the Jacuzzi and pretty much rocked it like we were guests.
Nobody cared and that would be a nice place to stay because it is
on the other side of the island and pretty secluded. Once we were
done with that we came back and skated the park for an hour or so
and had a nice sushi dinner at the Castaway. Afterwards we met Landon
who is one of the local skaters here and a professional underwater
photographer and we talked with him allot at Davey Jones Locker Bar.
We planned on having a drink or two but that didn't happen and I found
myself watching the World Series (which lasted 13 innings) with a
few other Americans, we stayed until the bar closed and then headed
back home.
The Bar at
the Grand Caymanian has a great happy hour between 4-7
Day 5
Woke up late again. We had a 2:00pm trip out to Sting Ray City,
so we grabbed some lunch at Davey Jones locker, took a few more pics
of the Skatepark and saw some kids get a good line in a fun little
section, so I made a mental note for when we get back later to try
it out. Headed out to Captain Marvin's Boat Tours with Kathy, of course
we got the local price hook up, thanks to Kathy again. There were
about 20 of us on the boat. Pulling out into the ocean we passed a
few million dollar houses, not a bad way to live. Our first stop was
at the coral gardens and when we pulled up, it didn't look like it
was going to be much more than big pieces of coral. Once we got our
snorkeling equipment speech, we geared up and jumped in. It was like
jumping into a giant salt water fish tank, this is something everyone
needs to experience at least once in their life. We had a videographer
with us going into all the little crevices and getting great footage
for us. Our second stop was the coral reef where they have a resident
moray eel which they named "psycho" and nurse shark. We
followed our guide, Chester, to a little underwater cave where he
fed the eel and wrestled around with it a little like they were old
pals. The nurse shark didn't make an appearance because of the rough
water conditions she's taken cover somewhere else for the time being.
Back on the boat and off to the final and most important destination,
Sting Ray City. We pulled up and the stingrays were already circling
the boat, which signals lunch for them. When we jumped in, they swarmed
around us and it freaked a lot of people out. They just come right
up to you and start sucking on your back or belly or leg looking for
food. Chester picked one up and let everyone hold it and give it a
kiss (kissing a stingray gives you 7 years good luck) all this is
also caught on film by the videographer. So we hung out with them
for a little while and another boat came along, the rays lost interest
in us because all our food was gone and went after the new boat. We
headed back to shore and watched the video from the day which had
some awesome footage and of course we decided to buy it. Once we were
back on shore, we got an introduction to Captain Marvin who wasn't
able to make it out with us, he has been running the Sting Ray City
tour for over 50 years, the longest on the island, so if you make
it out here, 2 important things to remember are, first, you haven't
really seen Cayman until you've been to Sting Ray City and second,
you haven't really experienced Sting Ray City unless you went with
Captain Marvin's. We went back to the Skatepark and I was able to
start working that line I was looking at earlier on in the day which
consisted of working a small pocket, some rollers, back and forth
over the spine and an over the shells attempt which I failed at this
time. For me this was the best session because it was really windy
and I could actually breathe and have a good time. Afterwards we went
to Castaways for dinner again and grabbed a nice pasta plate which
consisted of chicken and seafood. Damn I think I am going to miss
that place the most!
This section
of the park is huge and goes oververt. No grinding going on here today
but fun as hell to carve through
Day 6
Today we wanted to be even more touristy and went to check out
Rum Point, which is all the way on the tip of the north east side
of the island. The weather wasn't so great when we woke up and it
didn't get much better throughout the day thanks to Beta's outer bands
hitting the island, but we thought we'd truck through it, we planned
on getting wet anyway by going snorkeling. So off we headed with a
few stops on the way. Earlier on in the week we saw a sign for tours
of the pirate caves, so we stopped there and wanted to see what it
was all about. It cost $6 bucks and I'm glad it wasn't more because
then I would have felt really ripped off. It was this weird little
shop with beach sand for the floor and 2 parrots roaming around inside
that apparently could laugh and dance but it wasn't our lucky day
to see this display. We got a brief history of the place from the
cashier, were given a map and a flashlight and we were on our merry
way to "explore" the caves. First stop on our tour was a
mini cemetery, not sure if it was real or not, next was the mini zoo
with some chickens, a donkey and an iguana. After all that excitement
we were ready to enter the cave. The actual cave itself was pretty
cool, but not cool enough so they actually put fake treasure and plastic
pirates and painted the walls, and totally cheesed the whole thing
up...pretty disappointing overall. So we hopped in the car, passed
a horse in someone's backyard just hanging out and headed to Rum Point.
Rum Point was super nice and we were quick to rent a Seadoo and hit
the ocean, but 15 mins into our half hour ride it starting pouring
with rain which just pelted the crap out of us. So we headed back
in after only 15 minutes, got some snorkel equipment and decided to
do that instead, we may as well be in the water if we were going to
be wet anyway. Came back to shore for an awesome Jerk Mahi Mahi lunch
and back out to snorkeling. Once we were pruned up enough after a
day in the water, I decided to get the rest of my moneys worth on
the jet ski and went out for the remainder of my 15 minutes and actually
put a wetsuit on this time which made it a lot better. The water was
so choppy my wrists were cramped up when I got back to shore from
trying to hang on to the jet ski. We hopped back in the car and drove
the rest of the way to the tip of the island and found this weird
arch that said there was a yaught club there, but when we went in,
there was only a giant statue of Jesus and a roundabout road. We got
out of the car to explore and we walked to the ocean and realized
what had happened. This really was a yaught club, but hurricane Ivan
had wiped the whole place out, all that was left were a few broken
jetties in the water. Got a pic with Jesus and started heading back
in, it was chilly (compared to normal) and Abigail wanted an Irish
coffee, so we stopped at a little cafe called "Over The Edge
Cafe" which is literally over the edge of the water. That place
was pretty cool, would have been better in better weather though.
Had some drinks and ate some conch (which is really good btw) and
headed back home. On the way we stopped at The Lighthouse Restaurant
at Breakers for another drink (island bar hopping if you will) $8
mudslides were a little too steep for us, so we each had one and went
on our merry way home, which is where we stayed for the rest of the
evening.
The Turtle Farm Located on the West End
of the Island
Day 7
Started the day out with an awesome breakfast at a bar called
Coconut Joes on Seven Mile beach, this place has swings instead of
barstools at the bar....accident waiting to happen for sure. Thought
we would creep around a few more hotels and see how much we could
get away with. The Hyatt seemed right up our alley and we headed over
there to check the scene out. They have a really fancy pool area.
The hotel is right on the beach and we decided to rent snorkel gear,
yet again. The snorkeling out there was amazing, we found a coral
reef and tried to go as far out to sea as possible to see if we could
find anything else, we got about 50 feet away from some diving boats
when some guy on a jet ski showed up and told us we were in the boat
channel and our vacation was about to end early because a boat was
probably going to plow over us pretty soon. The water was getting
choppy anyway and the visibility was turning muddy from the incoming
storm, so we headed back to shore. We thought we'd check out some
room prices for the Hyatt for one night and got quoted $299 plus 20%
tax. I'm not sure what all this tax stuff is about seeing as though
this is a tax free island. Hopped back in the rental and headed back
out to the Grand Caymanian to see if they had a better deal going
on, they also tried to pull the extra tax story on us, but theirs
was only 10% extra so we gave the whole hotel idea a skip. Seeing
as thought this was 2 days before we were leaving, the rental car
was due back the next day, we had to fill it up with gas, according
to Avis this was "in our best interest" due to the gas prices.
$4.25 a gallon and even in a small car it still cost us $30US to fill
it up. The weather was still bad but I still wanted to ride the wave
pool come hell or high water. The open session was at 5 and I got
there just in time to see it get started. I was behind a girl who
was just learning to stand on one of the surfboards which is the next
step up from a body board, she was doing pretty good for a beginner.
I hopped in there and they had it on a level 2 (level 1 being almost
nothing at 10,000 gallons per min, level 4 being raging at 150,000
gallons per min and an 11 ft wave). First try, I got shot right out,
second try, got a little better, by the third I was well on my way
to being the next champ. I had to quit after about 20 mins, because
of my snapped elbow from a skate injury a few years back. I was using
that arm to hold myself up and never regained the muscle in that arm,
so I was screwed..and I'm old and out of shape, that might have had
something to do with it. Went back to Kathy's to get changed, had
a great dinner at Castaways, once again, and spent the night at Davey
Jones Locker playing a really cool shooting game they have up on a
projection screen which took up the whole wall, kind of hard to miss
the target when its that big.
Ivan took
out full condo complexes like this one
Day 8
Last day to actually do anything, the weather was still bad,
but we needed to make the most of it. We headed back to Georgetown
to do real tourist stuff, shopping for souvenirs and gifts at all
the tourist stores. Bought some Christmas tree ornaments, and some
Big Black Dick, yep, you read it right, Big Black Dick, apparently
its pretty good, lucky for me it's the name of a rum they sell on
the island. Headed back over to Avis to ask for an extra day so we
could tour around a little more, they didn't seem to care. And we
were back to looking at hotel pools. We heard about a place called
Morritt's Tortuga Club from a guy at Over The Edge Cafe. Started making
our way out there and thought we would try and find these supposed
blow holes they have on the island, no one knows exactly where they
are and the map says they're in East End but we drove back and forth
and couldn't find anything, but we did find a ship wreck site called
Wreck of the Ten Sail, which is one of many ship wrecks that have
happened. Apparently some of these guys weren't too smart and kept
on driving their ships right into the coral. I'm not sure why no one
could figure this out after hundreds of years. We saw some wreckage
from ships as late as the 1960's. Back on track and on our way to
Morritt's. We have figured out by now that in order to pass as a guest
you need a towel from the hotel. After checking out their beach which
wasn't great because they had some construction going on over there,
we got into the pool area. They had a pretty nice pool and Jacuzzi.
But it got boring quickly, the pool was freezing and we were ready
to get back home. Got home took a nap to gear up for our last night
there, which of course was going to be spent well. Left home at 9,
went to the Aqua Beach bar which looked like a pretty cool place had
it not been raining, blew out of there to the dance club next door,
and had a great time jamming to some reggae dance music, who would
have thought that kind of music existed. The locals were going crazy
over it. We totally forgot that the bars close at midnight on Saturdays
because of the no alcohol sales law on Sundays, so the night was cut
short. Headed home but not before we stopped at the next best hangout
for the night, the local "On the Run" Texaco gas station,
this place is happening after hours as its the only place open. They
have some pretty good pizza if you're in the mood for a snack. After
grabbing some food, we passed out.
Ab with a smiley stingray on her back. She
looks thrilled
Day 9 the final day
Kathy wanted to take us to our last breakfast, so we headed back
out to Breezes. She dropped us off at home where we packed and fueled
the car up again and said our farewells to everyone before heading
out to the airport. Dropped the car off and started our long trek
home. Got plenty more Big Black Dick in the duty free and a few more
cheesy souvenirs. Almost missed our flight because we could barely
understand the announcements. Had a rough flight into South Carolina
where things seemed to get progressively worse thanks to being married
to a foreigner, so we were held in customs, and almost missed our
flight into California, but the customs guys don't care, and you better
not let them know you're pissed because then you're really in trouble.
Starving and tired, another 5 hours of flying with a screaming kid
in front of you and a seat that wont recline, we couldn't be happier
to land and get the hell home. In conclusion we had the best time,
thanks again to Kathy Miller who made it all happen, and Mike Bell
who gave us a major hook up and is also responsible for the park coming
to life. We'll be back soon.
Louie and Ab
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