Micro-Shelling

This week we founded a new sport - microshelling. It consists of hunting for shells on the beach of a "micro" variety. Endless fun!

Stars...they're just like us

Maybe the sun or bug spray is getting to our heads, but everywhere we look, Karyn and I see movie stars at our hotel. Click on the name to see the real star's IMDB profile. Tell us what you think. Here's a sampling:

Forest Whitaker?James Cromwell? Ed Begley Jr?

Lost track of days, tired of blogging

Maybe I am getting used to Island life too much or I am just lazy. In any case, expect my blog posts from now on to be shorter with more pictures and videos. Recap of today:

* We slept in and went late to Breakfast
* Sat out at the beach (Matt snorkeled, kayaked (see video), and took the boat out)
* Lunch at Ismays - jerk chicken for matt, nachos for Karyn (better than the other day with crunchier chips and more guacamole
* Rained for a few minutes in the afternoon (we stayed at the pool)
* We're going to the bbq buffet tonight at the hotel

Click here or go to http://www.youtube.com/mattalevy to see all of the videos from yesterday and today.

Catamaran trip pictures and videos

Here's a video from our Wadadli Catamaran trip:

Rain

We are sitting at breakfast and all of the sudden black clouds descend and the sky opens up. It's pouring! After going back to the room and consulting weather.com, we cancelled our day sail. Then, after sitting in the room until 9, the rain suddenly stopped, and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. We headed down to the beach to see if we could catch the sailboat. Too late! It left 5 minutes before we arrived. Oh well!

10 minutes later we see another boat pull up so we hopped aboard! We went out on a Wadadli Cat catamaran. The boat gave us a tour of the western and souther coast of Antigua. We snorkeled off of the Cades Reef. In the middle of the trip, there was a huge squall line that came through so we swam in the rain.

Karyn's day

There have been some complaints that the blog is too focused on Matt's day and not enough coverage of Karyn. In order to live up to our reputation for "fair and balanced" coverage, today will be a day in the life of Karyn in Antigua.

6:30AM - Karyn wakes up
7:30AM - Karyn eats breakfast (eggs, toast, fruit)
8:00AM - see post re: rain
rest of day - Karyn swims, snorkels, observes bizarre species of sandals resort guest on boat
4:00PM - return to hotel, Karyn relaxes by pool and drinks a chocolate smoothie
6:00PM - Karyn and I head to town to have dinner at the Commissioner's Grill. Karyn enjoys her meal but matt feels kind of sick from it.
8:30PM - bedtime!

I'm sailing!

We started the day with breakfast overlooking the blue-green caribbean sea. We sat at the beach for a while and then I went for a sail (by myself!). I borrowed some snorkel gear and saw some small fishies. We had a delicious lunch at the hotel (pulled pork over salad and a cheesburger for me, eggplant parmigiana for K and unbornie). We hung out by the pool and then I got a swedish massage. The spa is outside and the massage room is in a treehouse.

Highlights from today - in pictures

Karyn at sunset

Catamaran sail with Miko (17 year old rasta girl)

Boardwalk in front of the beautiful ocean at the hotel

Still hungry

We are having a wonderful time. We went to the beach, sat by the pool, and lazied the day away. I took a catamaran sailboat trip (as captain). The boat was small, but Mico taught me well and I am now captain. We are staying at an ok hotel, next to Giorgio Armani's palace but I have some gripes about the accomodations. 5 things you should expect from a 5 star hotel:

1) They don't send you a note that your credit card was denied. I have impeccable credit
2) They have service at the pool and beach. Margarita please!
3) The chairs are new and mold free - teak with cushions please!
4) You can see the TV from the bed. I don't care if its an LCD if I can't see it.
5) Pants required at the restaurant? Please. Work on your ammentities and then come back to the dress code when you are through.

Now, it needs to be said that this hotel is the # 1 rated in antigua on trip advisor by far. There are barely any negative posts. So clearly, Karyn and me have ridiculously high standards.

One last negative, it's ok if they don't have big food portions at an all-inclusive hotel, but I shouldn't leave dinner hungry. I mean, I asked the guy - is it a big lobster? His response: "Oh yes sir, its a very nice size." And why does the ice cream sundae need to have so many nuts and raisins? And why was Karyn's dinner a ball of cous cous and a piece of butternut squash big enough for ian to eat in one bite. Are they trying to tell us something?

All in all, we really are having a nice time, but blogging isn't just about peaches and kittens.

It wasn't meant to be...

Hurricane Paloma developed out of nowhere to become the 17th tropical storm of the season. As it strengthened to a category 3 hurricane overnight on Friday and headed directly for our hotel in the Cayman Islands, Karyn and I knew that this wouldn't be good. But were we going to let that ruin our vacation? No. We spent all day Saturday telling our story to airline and hotel customer service agents. We knew that with the economy reeling, this was an opportunity to get a great last minute bargain. We found a lot of great destinations and decided on a hotel in Antiga called Galley Bay resort.