With hundreds of competitors churning up the beautiful waters of Seven Mile Beach each year, the annual Flowers Sea Swim is already well established as one of the most popular and spectacular events on the Cayman Islands sports calendar.
This year, however, the swim has a slight course change. Still one mile long and still promising plenty of excitement, the renamed ‘Flowers Recovery Mile Sea Swim’ has adopted a charitable theme sure to warm hearts both at sea and on land.
The focus this year is on a special prize-drawing after the race for three Caymanian families hit hard by Hurricane Ivan last year.
The families will win an impressive array of gifts. Eligible contestants, two from each district, have been nominated independently by the Department of Social Services.
‘We want it to be mostly fun this year,’ said Dara Flowers, the event’s lead organizer. ‘We’re excited because it’s for such a good cause this year. We have a lot of really good random prizes for people to win so it should be a great day. We want people to come out and have a good time and we also want to do something nice for families who can use some help.’
Included in the prize package are a year’s worth of utilities, Flowers bottled water, orange juice, free water sports, gasoline and more. The winner’s home will get some quality upgrades as well.
Overall, it’s a prize package worth approximately $20,000 for each family, said Ms Flowers.
The one-mile course begins at the Ritz Carlton site and ends at the Courtyard Marriott. There will also be a kayak race. The cutoff time is 75 minutes to be counted as an official finisher, plenty of time for slower swimmers to complete the course, said Ms. Flowers.
Although the ‘Recovery’ theme is only for this year, Ms Flowers said she would like to see the race retain some kind of a charity role in the future as well.
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