Well, finals have begun and the last time you heard from us (on the blog) was the beginning of the semester. We are still getting along just fine as you can see!

Hard to believe another one has gone by, but Kater has been doing really well again and surely will get through it without a scratch!

We've had a lot of fun this semester and Kater has even gotten a few chances to get away from campus and snorkel with me. We got a new underwater camera, thanks to Liz and Sam's wedding gift! It's only been out once so far but the pictures were great:

... As you can see!

I've also been doing quite a bit of hiking. We have 1500' hill across the street from us with a radio tower at the top. There is an access road we use to hike to the top. It's a definite leg burner but a short hike; takes about 45 mins to an hour to reach the top. Great views.

I've hiked D'os Dane Pond (pronounced doe daan, at least according to our guide), which is a small pond high in the mountains, probably close to 3000'.

I've also hiked to the bat caves in the hills near the famous 'Bloody Point'. This was one of the most unexpectedly beautiful hikes so far. We essentially follow the bottom of a huge gorge (here, called ghauts), winding back and forth eventually to the bat cave, and ultimately to a nice waterfall.

Next weekend myself and some VIP friends will be hiking to the crater of Mt. Liamuiga! Finally!! We're really excited.

Our Kittitian friend Wayne is also a hiking enthusiast. He has taken us up each time to share the mountains with us. He is a great guy, charismatic and energetic Rasta man- perfect for a leader of long hard hikes. He knows the area incredibly well.

This a photo after one of our hikes with our guide Wayne (tall dark guy on left) and his friend Bertrum (on right) who often comes along as well.

So, obviously from the looks of it I've been having way more fun than Kater- but don't worry, I'm making sure to take very good care of her every day. I've been keeping up with the cooking, cleaning and laundry, as well as many many other every day tasks.

The up-side however, is that next semester Kater will have much much more free time to use how she likes, and reward herself with fun things. She will definitely be going for hikes and snorkels with me. She has even been talking about possibly getting scuba certified!

On the down side of things, we (Jules' owner Paula) and I had to put Jules down a few weeks ago. Her cancer had gotten to be too much for her, and although she still seemed to be happy and having a few good days between bad ones- it was clear that she was in a constant state of pain and discomfort. She was not able to get comfortable for more than a few minutes in most positions, and had little energy. We made the decision that her quality of life was not what it should be, and it was time. We put her down in on a beautiful property, owned by a friend of Paula's. The doctor came on location to administer the euthanasia. It was incredibly sad and hard, but we have had a lot of fun times together and she will always be remembered. We all miss her very much. She has a beautiful grave site now, that I visit from time to time. It is covered with beach stones, coral, and large conch shells. It is very pretty and since she loved the beach so much, we figure she would really appreciate being a little closer to it all the time.

One more picture for old times sake.

What else can I tell you? I've been working on a design project for a startup business on the island called Pondego. Pondego is a creole expression for 'on the go'; "upon the go, up on the go..." You get it. It will be a delivery grocery service for anyone who wants to order their groceries online and have them brought to their house. I think it will be a very successful venture for these guys. I'll post images when I'm finished. My responsibility is to design a logo, banner, and a mascot for the company. I'm almost done. It's been a pretty fun project, and it feels good to be working on art again.

We finally just started the turtle tagging again. Last week was our first outing and we caught two hawksbills who were already tagged. It is important to still catch them and update their information for our systems. We saw a green sea turtle but were not able to catch it.

That's about it for now. Catch you next time!

Thanks for reading.