Grand Cayman
November 2013
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I arrived on Grand Cayman a little after 12, but they had some sort
of medical emergency on board and we had to wait while they offloaded
someone that seemed mostly ok; then clearing customs (although since I
had no checked baggage I was near the front of the line) and immigration
took a little while, so I found myself walking to the Hertz rental place
(the airport is that small) about 1 PM.
A short discussion on roundabouts (of which there are many on Grand
Cayman, but then they have a giant picture of Queen Victoria up on the
wall behind the customs counter, so go figure) and whether it was a clockwise or
counterclockwise entry and I was off in a car for the "East End." Then it was
learn-to-drive-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road time (but if you just
follow the guy in front of you it’s not too bad). It took about an hour
to drive to the resort, stopping a couple of places along the way to
admire the view; it’s probably 45 minutes at a straight shot (didn’t
know Grand Cayman was that big!).
Checked in, signed up for one tour, and stopped by the sports activity
shack to buy sunscreen only to find out they had a “sail and snorkel”
trip heading out in 5 minutes so I changed, sun screened up and went.
About 30 minutes of sailing to a shallow reef, then drift-snorkeled (let
the current pull you along, the boat just goes to the end of the reef
and picks you there). It was nice, but not as good as some places I’ve
been (Aruba and Belize), but it was great to be out doing something fun
five minutes after arriving. |
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| It took a lot longer to get back (tacking against the wind) but it
was pleasant. Shower, grocery store run (for breakfast stuff), and
grabbing a Subway sandwich (they have one in the resort that is just
like it’s US counterpart, and while it doesn’t sound like that great a
dinner, the lettuce and tomato and peppers were actually pretty fresh
looking, unlike the produce in the grocery store, which they refer to as
a “supermarket” but is more like a country store). Ate in my room but
I went to the bar long enough to get a Grand Marnier and sat there for a
while. Nice to sit out in the tropical breeze, nice temperature,
no insects, but boring by yourself. So I
went back to the room, settled in, read until I was feeling sleeping
(and having gotten up at 3 in the morning I was pretty sleepy). |
| Friday |
| Friday I did two dives with Tortunga Divers at the resort next to
the one I was in; they did a wall dive called "Pat's Wall" and a
shallower dive in "Grouper Grotto". The wall dive was cool; they
took you through a chasm that opened up to the deep side
of the reef, which makes the entry onto the wall a lot more dramatic.
There were a couple of six foot reef sharks roaming around,
dangerous looking things but interesting to see. The visibility wasn't quite as good as
Belize or Bonaire, but it was still a good dive. Grouper Grotto
was, as it turned out, full of four foot Tarpon... sometime dozens of
them, and they were not afraid to get in your face. I did another
dive with the same group Sunday morning with the same format; this time,
we did Lost Wall, swimming far enough to see one of the three pinnacles
called the "Three Sisters." But visibility wasn't as good as the
first wall dive. Second dive was Kelly's Cavern, which didn't have
the Tarpon but had a large number of coral canyons and short caves that
were a lot of fun to swim through. Here's a collage from all four
dives: |
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| Friday afternoon, I did the Mastic trail hike just to do something
out of the water. It was a tough hike; out of the sun, but hot and
extremely humid. The path was well marked, but it was mostly lava
with sharp, jagged edges, tough to walk on even with the thick soled
running sneakers I was wearing. On the drive over, I passed a
couple of snowy egrets, a parrot with emerald, yellow, turquoise and
neon red that was about the size of a bald eagle
(well, it seemed big), and a short while later, a weird thing that
looked like a cross between a rabbit and a pig (an Agouti, as it turned out), so I
had high expectations about seeing all sorts of fascinating wildlife on
the hike. The reality, not so much. |
Fortunately, I beat the mad rush for the two parking spaces |
This is the biggest hermit crab I've ever seen |
I did see this cool bird, which I think is a newly discovered
species |
And this cool butterfly. |
And this is either the furry butt of a Agouti or a tribble |
Another new species I discovered. Or a pigeon. |
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| Friday night, it was off to George Town, the largest city(?) on the
Island, for a Pirate celebration, part of the week long set
of "Pirate's Week" activities. I took the shuttle from the
resort... parking was supposed to be difficult, and I didn't want to be
driving back late anyway. This particular evening was supposed to
be street dancing and fireworks. There were a lot of people
dressed in pirate outfits, some of which were quite good: |
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| There were street vendors providing authentic Grand Cayman cooking
(I say cooking instead of "food" because like many Caribbean islands,
Grand Cayman imports almost all of it's food), a bandstand, and a very
crowded shorefront road that had been closed off by the police for the
evening. They had a kids' pirate costume competition (which was
cute) and a multi-island pirate-themed-beauty pageant (which was
amateurish) and gigantic speakers all along the waterfront (which were
loud). I think the idea with the street dancing was that people
would just spontaneously begin moving to the music like one of those
stunts they pull in crowded public buildings from time to time, but the
street was too jammed and it was too hot. The fireworks were out
on the water, and other than a couple of cargo cranes that looked oddly
out of place in the rocket's red glare, were pretty spectacular.
But afterwards, there wasn't much to do other than get cheap rum and
cokes off of the street vendors, so it was kind of a mixed bag. |
| Saturday |
| Saturday was the big day;
Stingray city in the morning and a
wreck dive, the Kittiwake,
in the afternoon. Stingray city was fun (although the Pentax Optima
snorkeling camera leaked by the seals and is now a brick... plus smoked
the SD card and everything on it; fortunately, I've been backing up photos to the laptop every day,
so I only lost the Stingray City photos). But the attached photo
(which I grabbed off the internet) might as
well be one from my camera. The Stingrays swam out to meet the
boat, and they rivaled Tasha for being pushy about getting food... they
would deliberately bump into you to let you know that they were
expecting squid stick treats... right now. One of them mistook my finger for a
squid treat, and it was a bit startling to get a stingray hicky as it
sucked my finger into it's mouth and tried to gum it to death (they
don't have teeth).
Afterwards, we did some snorkeling along the outer reef, where a
shipwreck provided some entertaining debris along the bottom (fish
swimming around in a toilet bowl, that kind of thing). |
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| But the Kittiwake was the coolest thing I did. It's a 251 foot
long, 42 foot tall US Submarine rescue ship that was sunk as an
artificial reef and recreational diving spot, and it was specifically
modified to make it fairly safe to enter, so with a dive master that's
trained on the ship, you can do a "penetration" ... that is, go inside
the ship. I dove with three other people and the dive master (the
guy in the photos was one of the three). |
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| Sunday, minus the morning dives I
already talked about.... |
| Maybe not quite as cool, but an interesting diversion,
was the Queen Victoria II Botanical Park. I went to see the Blue
Iguana habitat (despite thinking that it's some kind of trick... Iguanas
change color... maybe they were just holding their breath?). It was closed, but there some wandering around the
park so I did get a chance to see two of them. But the fun thing was more the
vegetation; a variety
of tropical plants that really brought home just how diverse our
ecosystem really is. Plus, I saw a tree full of wild parrots
(I noticed the unending streams of guano dropping out of the tree), and
almost stepped a snake. It was only an hour or so, but it was more
entertaining than I expected. |
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| And, finally, a spectacular sunrise and... |
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| The view from my patio |
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