Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Honeymoon Day 6 Grand Cayman


So after our day of crisping in the sun in Cozumel, we were scheduled to make a second stop in Georgetown, Grand Cayman. When we got up, we heard all kinds on instructions. There was no dock here big enough for our boat. That explained why when I looked at the satellite view on google maps, I didn't see one, yet I saw big cruise ships out on the water. So, to get to land, we had to take a boat. Most of the other cruise ships just dropped a couple of their life boats and used those, but we were different. We used a boat shuttle service that was based at the island.

Jason and I didn't have to be on a boat for a little while, so we went to breakfast at "The Summer Palace" It was beautiful and the service was great too. It made me disappointed that we hadn't been there earlier. We had a nice breakfast and then got ready to go on our next excursion, the 7 mile beach break.

It. was. raining. It was raining when we were on the boat, and as we boarded the buses to go to the beach the skies opened up into a big storm. I was majorly disappointed. We all sat on those buses looking at the rain. Finally it started to let up. The guides said that it would be a great day now, but I didn't by it. I thought, ugh, no beach today, sitting on a bus instead. But, they were right! It cleared up and turned into a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky for the entire time. We got us some rum punch, a chair on the beach and an umbrella to keep some of the sun off of our sunburned backs.

We decided to go into the water and it was LOVELY! We found all kinds of pieces of coral on the bottom, and picked them up with our toes to take them home. The water was clear and nice, and it was a lot less crowded than the day before. I got out of the water because I wanted to read, and a few minutes later, Jason came up and asked if I wanted to snorkel. I was surprised, because he'd had more difficulty the previous day than I had, and I thought that he would never want to snorkel again. I wasn't too keen on it at the beginning, but Jason talked me into it, and boy am I ever glad he did. We got out there and there were all kinds of fish! The water was perfectly clear all the way to the bottom and we saw tons of stuff. One of the first things we saw was this little octopus. I wish I had a picture. He was exactly the same color as the sand beneath him, and you could only find him when he moved. That was cool too. He would put all of his arms together, and then when he'd reached his destination, spread them all back out. That was, by far, the best thing we saw when we were snorkeling.

Jason would have me mention that I saw a fish in a hole. Not only did I see said fish in said hole in the coral, I yelled this fact out though my snorkel. One of my endless talents no doubt. In my defense, it WAS really cool, and I felt the need to let Jason know about it.

We only had so long at the beach, so we got dried off and dressed and piled back onto the buses. This time I had a bag full of rocks. We were hungry so we decided to eat at this place called "Breezes" It was so good. We had conch fritters, then I had a whitefish sandwich and Jason had coconut shrimp. It was by far the best meal we had on the whole cruise. We were impressed. After that, we went shopping.

I wanted something from Grand Cayman that really said island to me. I was looking for some artwork, but I never did find it. Instead I got a really pretty silk tablecloth, and some rocks. Honestly? I really like the rocks. We looked all around and ended up in a little store that had sand for a floor. There, Jason found some hot sauces, and we heard a song that will never go away.

It was a rum cake! A rum cake!

Yeah.

We saw a lot of overpriced stuff, a lot of jewelry. I had mine, so I wasn't that interested. We had our picture taken in front of some stingrays. At one point, we were walking down the street and poof! Chickens! There was a mother hen and a whole bunch of really cute chicks! We also saw a policeman in Grand Cayman. This time he didn't have a gun. He had a GIANT Doberman pincher. It was a really pretty dog, but the policeman didn't look like he wanted us to pet it. We wandered around until it was, sadly, time to get back on the boat.
Why do I look scared? That's a giant shower. I was afraid it would turn on at any moment.


Overall, Grand Cayman was way better than Cozumel. The people were nicer, you weren't afraid you were going to get mugged. It was like paradise. I know we only saw the most touristy part of the entire island, but I sure wouldn't mind going back.

We got to watch a beautiful sunset as we were leaving grand Cayman. It was the prefect day.
That night we ate at one of the bigger restaurants on the boat called "Indigo" it was good, but evidently not too memorable, as I have no clue what I had to eat. Oops! We saw a second city improv and sketch comedy show that night. They were funny, but not as good as I hoped, with the second city name on there. We also went up to 80's night and were entertained by funny costumes and a cover band that was actually, really good.

The bands on the boat were strange. They had a 3 man kinda reggae band on the pool deck every day, and every night they had another cover band in the main lobby area. They were STRANGE. We heard Johnny Cash, The Beatles, and strangely the BeeGees.

What we didn't know yet was that Jason had incurred some serious sunburn from our two days in a row of snorkeling. I was red, but he had blisters. It really caused him a lot of pain for the rest of the trip. I felt awful, because there was nothing I could do. Okay, I did do something to him. One of the blisters popped. I was worried about infection. So I went down to the ship's doctor, (who could offer virtually nothing for sunburn, but was willing to charge us $75 to look) and got some bandaids and alcohol swabs. Did you know that Jason can jump 3 feet straight up off the bed from his stomach if you put alcohol on his sunburn? Yeah. He can. I don't think he'll ever forgive me.

Onward! To our last day!

2 comments:

Giraffeman said...

grand caymen was awesome. I think we could spend a whole vacation just there. I wanted to snorkle cause I saw a shark. It wasn't a bit shark but it was big enough I wanted to see it again. The octapus and the fish in the hole was cool. There were some big fish there that were so friendly. they didn't seem to care that we were there looking at them. The conch fritters were awesome too. I wish we had those here. The rum cake song is addictive. I have it on my ipod here at work and I was listening to it yesterday. It was a dumb cake. A dumb cake. An exceedingly stupid dumb cake.
And the island had a few nissan skylines and other cool cars. So much better than the beat up VWs and ford Ka's we saw a cozemel.
the sunburn hurt so bad. I tell people about it and they instantly accuse me of not using sunscreen. I had sunscreen. The sun is hotter and the water is clearer down there. I have never been burned that bad before. It hurt so much

Charlotte said...

We liked Grand Cayman better, too. I want to go back right now!