Monday in Grand Cayman

I woke up again around 5am. Hubby and I watched some TV before we dozed off again. Our alarm clock went off at 6:30am and slowly we got up to have an early breakfast. We had an early excursion this morning and had to meet our group in the Princess Theater by 8:15am.

We arrived into Grand Cayman around 7am and anchored off shore. I thought we were the only ship in port, but it turned out the P&O Oceana and Cunard Queen Elizabeth also arrived and anchored nearby.

After we donned our swimsuits, we grabbed our snorkel bags and headed down to the Theater. We waited about 10 minutes and was called to board the tenders as a group. The water was calm and we had a short ride over to the dock. There we met our guide and we followed her for about a 5 minute walk towards a small beach area to hop onboard our snorkel boat.

There was about twenty of us from the ship which made this a nice and cozy outing. Paul and Jessica were our guides. We headed out and away from the Crown Princess and then cruised to the other side of the ship. Our first stop was a small reef. We donned our snorkel gear and most of us slipped into the water from the back of the boat’s platform. Hubby decided to do a “James Bond” off the side of the boat. The water was very pleasant and clear. I noticed as soon as I started to swim around the back of the boat, my wrists started to tingle. It was like tiny jabs of pain. I checked my wrists and did not see anything. As I continued to swim around, I noticed some tiny stringy things in the water. I think that’s what was stinging me. I swam fast towards the front of the boat and realized my wrists have stopped tingling. I swam around checking out the small reef and the beautiful fish. It was really nice to snorkel without running into other snorklers. This was a good size group.

As I approached the boat to get back on board, I noticed several tiny jelly fish floating around me. By this time, my wrists started to tingle again. Back on the boat, I asked Paul what the stings were from. He said the tiny stringy things do prick the skin and the pain and itching would go away within 20 minutes. It was weird that I was attacked around the wrist areas. Hubby got attacked around his chin area. Several hours later, I saw what looked like tiny rash spots on my left wrist. It didn’t itch, but when I touched the area it was a bit sensitive.

Our second snorkel stop was at the wreck of the Cali ship. Paul told us an interesting story about this ship. I planned on doing a Google search to get more details on the fate of this ship. Back in the water, we snorkeled over Cali. It was great to see all the different fish here. Some of the fish swam up to me and then turned around. It was almost like they were “checking me out” or maybe if I had some food to share with them. Really cool!

Hubby and I had a great time on this excursion. He was happy to be out in the water. It was a beautiful day in the Caymans.

After Paul dropped us off at the small beach area, Hubby and I wandered around town. Hubby wanted to try out one of the restaurants for lunch. We headed over to Breezes and enjoyed a wonderful lunch.
After lunch, we checked out some of the local shops. I noticed the prices were somewhat high. Paul had mentioned it was expensive to live in the Caymans. I was motivated to find an inexpensive Cayman Island t-shirt for myself.

We got back to the ship around 2pm. We pulled anchor around 4pm and sailed away. Goodbye for now. We will definitely be back for a land vacation and lots more snorkeling.

Our snorkeling activity had made us hungry. We visited the IC (deck 7) for a chicken sandwich for Hubby and a quiche for me. I grabbed some P&B cookies and we stopped by our cabin to drop them off. Hubby was worried that our room steward would take them away, so he hid the plate of cookies in one of the drawers in the bedside table. I missed that photog opportunity. We headed up to the Horizon (deck 15) dining area to get some veggies and cheese. That was pretty much our dinner.

By 6pm, I was exhausted from the day’s activities and probably all the food I ate. I wanted to go to sleep so badly. I left Hubby resting in our cabin and headed down to the Promenade deck to walk a few laps around the ship. I was able to see the sunset forward of the ship. Once more, I didn’t have my camera with me.

Our room steward, Henry, had a late start for the evening turndown in our room. Of all nights, this was one night where I wanted to wear my jammies at 7pm. Hubby and I sat in our balcony with our iPads in hand in the dark. Henry came into our room an hour later and did not see us on the balcony. He turned down our bed and removed our trash. He was about to lock our sliding door when we surprised him. Good thing he looked out in the balcony, otherwise we would have been locked out of our cabin on the wrong side. :)

I downloaded all the pictures from three cameras and could only review a few of them as my eye lids were very heavy. By this time, the ship was also on the move. This winning combination produced an early lights out for us by 9:30pm.