Cemetery Beach

Today we went to Cemetery Beach, which is quite a ways north of us, but quite close to Hell. We ran into this turtle while we were snorkeling. I was quite surprised to find that he kept circling and following us. I thought for sure that he would have taken off as quickly as possible. I managed to get quite a few pictures.

The reef around the beach here was absolutely spectacular. I am glad that I can relax like this with my one day a week off. It really helps to rejuvenate you.

Hopefully I will get the opportunity to slowly work my way around the island with all the different points for snorkeling. There are quite a few shipwrecks that I would like to check out.

Of course the more snorkeling I do, the more pictures I will take. And of course I will post them here.

Georgetown

I went for a walk into Georgetown tonight. It is quite a nice town right on the water. It is a little strange though because their port is really small and it is right in the middle of town. I guess there are not a lot of areas around where they can get any boats in close enough. Everything that comes onto this island comes through this tiny little port. It is quite amusing to see because they cannot get very big container ships in here, so the port is working like mad all the time to get everything out of the port so that they can offload again.

Hot

As you can see it was a little hot today. I would say it was hotter than Hell, but there is a town here called Hell and I am not sure what the temperature was there!

Jobsite progress

Well our tower crane is finally going up at work. And what a relief it is. This will make the jobsite much more efficient which will mean less legwork for us! Hopefully this will translate into more energy in the evenings.

I have never seen a company like this before. They just keep purchasing brand new tower cranes for every job they get. They even went so far as to purchase an extra embed section just in case they pick up some more work they will not have to wait for it to come from Spain.

Moving

OK so I have moved residences and I am now living with my friend Jim and an apprentice named Tyler. We are located at 30A Kintyre drive.

We spent all of our free time today snorkeling. I absolutely love the swimming here, the water is beautiful. I have also been getting some use out of the underwater camera as you can see by the pictures.

The picture on the left top is Tyler and the one under it is Jim.

I really kind of sucks that we only get one day a week to ourselves, because there is so much that I would like to do here. But then again I guess that I am here to make money so I should not complain.

Well I am really starting to get used to things. I noticed this afternoon that it was kind of hot, so I went and looked at the thermometer on the outside of the office. It said 43 celcius. This of course is without the humidity. I would guess that it was somewhere around 50. So yes I guess you do get used to the heat.

Kathleen is going tomorrow to buy her plane ticket to come down here for two weeks in August. I am very happy about this. It will be very refreshing to see her without having to squint into the computer monitor! I thing everyone is starting to get used to the idea of me not being around. The one thing that I find difficult here is that there seems to be very little time in the evening to do anything. It gets dark here around 7:30 and after a 10 hour day by the time I make dinner and shower there isn't much time left. But after seeing my first paycheck it is getting better!

Last night after I came in off the balcony there was a gecko running around on the wall. The poor little guy was trying desperately to get away from me. He ran and hid behind a painting, so I went to bed. I got some pictures, but I am not sure how they will look on here.

Luckily for him he was not on our jobsite. The people from this area would have eaten it. The other day one of the guys came with a local delicacy, Iguana! A bunch of the Canadians tried it and of course they say it tasted like chicken. Someone is always bringing some sort of local dish like shredded cabbage with fish! Or fresh mangoes. It seems that everyday there is something weird going on.

But hey tomorrow is payday and that should make everything OK.

Things are going well

O.K. here is the deal. I am getting alot of requests for correspondence, and I just do not have the free time. I spend most of my free time with the most important person in my life, Kathleen. I am speaking with her daily and that's the way I want it. Everyone else comes second. So I thought I would post here to update everyone else.

Life here is definitely different. The heat can be quite intense, the other day it was 50 with the humidity, and I am told that it may get hotter. The job is good even though the hours are long, or so it would seem in 50 degree weather. Even though it is almost unbearably hot and I miss my family alot, I am getting quite comfortable here. As long as I keep my longterm financial goals in mind I believe that I will not have too much trouble staying here. Kathleen has discovered that she can fly down for $400 Canadian round trip, so that will make things that much better knowing that she can come down more often.

Anyway, I went out snorkeling yesterday with my friend Jim. For something that I always thought way kind of gay I had a great time. It is unbelievable how peaceful and relaxing it can be. The underwater environment is amazing. I have purchased and underwater camera, and once I get it figured out a little better I will post photos. We were snorkeling around a ship wreck and I saw some pretty big clown fish. Jim came up on a 6 ft barracuda, which was a little intimidating but extremely cool. Of course I ended up with an awful sunburn on my back, because when you are as ugly as me it is hard to get volunteers to put sunscreen on your back.

Other that that I have not had much time to get out, just getting groceries can be a challenge. I am sure that as the heat does not bother me so much I will find more time to do things. As I do I will update here.

I made it

Ok so I made it here yesterday. My flight got in around 1:30. I am very tired and finding there is not enough time in the day. The biggest problem I have so far is that this is the kind of crap that I have to look at off the balcony of my condo! Asides from that I miss my family alot more than even I would have thought. It will be difficult, but we will get through it and I am still confident that the long term gains from this will be worth the costs.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day! Well maybe not tomorrow, but I do have to head for the airport around 1:00 in the morning on Tuesday. So I am saying tomorrow!

Living arrangements

This is the address that the company has assigned to me. Should be interesting. Notice how dreadfully far away the beach is!

I have a work permit!

Well after all that waiting it has finally paid off. I received confirmation today that I have been approved by immigration. I have booked a flight for Tuesday July 10th at 6:00 am. So the next time I post I should be on the island.

Cheers,

Jonathan

Accomodations

Here are some pictures of my friend Jim's accommodations in Grand Cayman. He is working on the same job that I am scheduled to go to. If all things work out the way they should then I will end up in the same living quarters as him.

I am getting tired of waiting so I started purchasing all of the things that I believe I will need down there. I was reading the paper yesterday and discovered that their top immigration official has been fired, so I can imagine that this will delay things even more for me. Yay. Oh well, as long as I get down there eventually I guess I should be happy.

Still Waiting

I am still waiting on immigration to give me my temporary work permit so that I can get going. I have started purchasing the things that I think I will need though. I have purchased some luggage and toiletries. I have also bought some electronics such as a webcam and a skype phone. That reminds me, if anyone needs to call me once I am there they can skype me, my user name is j..webb