14th February - Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

This morning we awoke to a glorious day. We headed out the back of the hotel, right onto one of the best beaches in the world, Seven Mile Beach. Pristine white sand and turquoise water greeted us and all was good with the world after a crappy travel day yesterday. We pulled up a lounger and snorkeled and swam in the calm warm waters of the Carribean and lazed on the loungers on the beach. Bliss. Rain threatened, but never eventuated. We were suddenly very glad that our other hotel had been booked out!

After a couple of hours of lazing around we caught our shuttle out for our afternoon at Stingray Ally. Stingray Ally first started as fisherman used to used to park up in the smooth shallow waters and throw over the scraps of their days fishing and the stingrays soon got used to this and started coming and are still there for the benefit of tourists who feed them now.

We boarded our boat and headed out through the mangroves onto the water. After about twenty minutes we could see a blue turquoise colour in the distance. As we got closer, we realized that was actually the colour of the water and it was mesmorising. It was like the stuff you see in brochures but it was real. Visibility was amazing.
We hopped off the board and straight into the water. Our briefing told us to shuffle along the sand so we didn’t stand on any of the stingrays. Straight away they swarmed around us. They brushed and bumped against us. It was a little bit freaky to start with. We could touch the stingrays on their wings and they felt like rubbery slime.
We were told that because it was Valentines Day, if we kissed a stingray we would have seven years luck, so we gave it a shot. This stingray got double kisses!
We also got a backrub each with the stingray which felt strangely quite nice.
Dan held a small male stingray in the water.
Being out in the Caribbean, on a perfect day in crystal turquoise waters with stingrays is something we both will never forget. We hopped back on board to the boat to travel a short distance to some reefs to snorkel. Whilst the reef was fairly small, it held some beautiful fishes and we spent ages following brightly coloured schools of different fish around.
It was time to board the boat again and head back to shore, spotting the occasional iguana sunning themselves. We spent the afternoon snoozing on the loungers by the pool watching our first Grand Cayman sunset. As we were changing in our room for dinner, fireworks erupted and we thought can this day get any better?
We had some champagne to celebrate Valentines Day and ended one of our favourite days on this trip.

30th July, Raven Camp, SK

Today we received photos of the Slush Lake camp owned by Cameco Corporation, a major uranium player in the Athabasca Basin. The photos showed smouldering piles of core, millions of dollars, up in smoke. The bush becomes tinder dry within a few sunny days. With lightning strikes, the bush blazes away. Typically the authorities let the fires burn themselves out but only when they threaten reserves and towns they fight them. The core was from the Millennia deposit and is now wasted. The cost of drilling is comparable to Australia, but when you throw in all of the associated costs such as camp, flights, freight, wages etc. the real ocst is probably in order of $500 per metre of core!! Look at the photo and have a guess at how much core has been burnt out! Lots.
It was inspiration to give the “bone yard” or the historical core storage area a partial clean up. This also had a second agenda of we will be re-logging old core soon so it will improve access. Dan and I get stuck into with machete and axes. We cleaned up on row very well. Dave joined me in the second row and we had a good chat while we weeded and pruned the local foliage. Dave had a great plan. Let’s rip out the stumps with the quad bike and winch cable. I was quite dubious but after the first one we were really give’n’er.
We ended up ripping out about 20 stumps and small trees with the quad and the tree ripping was great fun. We got a bit ambitious towards the end and went for some full blown trees. We ripped one but it was a bit taller than anticipated, so Dave ended up with a face full of pine needles. A good solid afternoon.

That night our Canadian football league football and rugby ball turned up. So kick to kick in the camp with the semi-real football was in order. Leo and my football skills really became apparent.

Little Dave was keen for me to go the Paul Senior out of Orange County Choppers. So I did. I am now the proud owner of an awesome mean looking moustache. A real Boonie and Merv.

1st July - Canada Day, Vancouver

Today represents the 140th year of the proclamation of Canada. The Canadians are quite patriotic and love their Canada Day. We mosied on down to Canada Place to get into the celebrations. A large cruise ship was berthed and we watched while it was been loaded. There was a flurry of activity as the festivities were occurring. Kids stuff, "genuine smokies" - a smoked hot dog, army truck displays and free stuff. We got a small Canadian flag each and the obligatory maple leaf non-permanent tattoo.

So with our flag and tatt we felt truly Canadian. There were massive queues for the free stuff so we weren't phased getting anything. The surprising thing about the demographic was the high proportion of asian people. Brendo refers to Vancouver as "Hongcouver" due to the fact a lot of people from Hong Kong came here just before the transfer of Hong Kong to China.

That night we rushed down to see the fireworks at 10.30pm. You have to love this long twilight they have here. The fireworks were no "Skyworks" but were quite good. Happy Canada Day!!