Wednesday-Day 11: Grand Cayman

Warning:  another picture intensive blog post.  Enjoy!

Our alarm went off very early as in 5:50 am.  We have a swim/snorkel with the stingrays and beach break excursion for today and have to meet our group in the Princess Theater by 8am.

We arrived into Grand Cayman around 7am along with 4 other cruise ships:  2 Carnival, Celebrity Eqinox, and Norweigan Getaway.  Wow!  That's a lot of passengers!  Especially for a tender port.  

We are in the Princess Theater by 8am.  We are given a group number (purple 27) and shown where to sit.  Five minutes later we are heading out of the theater and heading down to the gangway.  Security scans my cruise card and...Bong!  It's working!  Life is good!  

They pack us in the tender like sardines while the tender is bobbing up and down.  At one point the tender is like 12 inches lower than the ship and goes up a few inches and then is level with the ship.   Interesting to see and feel this motion (we like it).  

The tender ride takes us about 20 minutes to reach the South Pier/dock where Princess has setup "home".  I look over to the North Pier and see Norweigan has setup "home".  The North and South pier is tiny and can hold two tenders at each dock.  

We follow a few groups of fellow cruisers to a waiting area and then the announcement is made by one of the guides: we're sorry but such and such excursion has been cancelled.  The sandbar has been closed by the authorities due to the extreme weather conditions.  We had heard the weather today was one of the worst they have experienced in awhile.  Hard to believe from my pictures.  The authorities are talking about the unusual high winds that would make the sandbar unsafe.  

We decide quickly to head back on the next tender to the ship to unload our snorkeling gear and get some money.  Normally, our back up plan would be to go to the beach as in the famous Seven Mile Beach.  Since we have to be back on the ship by 3pm (too early in my opinion), we knew we did not have enough time.  Plus with all the additional passengers from the other ships on the island we did not want to take a chance on trying to find transportation back.  Also there would be a long line waiting for the last tender.  

After our back and forth tendering, we finally had a chance to go exploring in town.  We headed away from the crowds  and towards the direction of where our ship was "floating".  I notice our Regal is not anchored, but the other four ships have their anchors dropped.  My inquiring mind is curious.  I make a mental note to ask Captain Perrin when we see him again at the Captain's Circle party on Friday night.  

We come across Eden Rock, a dive center:

Here we see a few folks snorkeling from a platform: 

The water is quite clear here and I start to see other snorkelers quite a ways out.  

Hubby is looking at the crabs:

The Regal is on the left and the NCL Getaway on the right:

Hubby has a knack for finding tiny creatures like this lizard and is always pointing out photog moments:

As we're heading back, we come across Paradise Restaurant and next to it is another entry point for snorkeling/diving.  Next time we'll come to these two locations and snorkel from their walk on platform/pier: 

Along the way, we come to a craft market and I spied these colorful scotch bonnet peppers.  My older brother D, would have enjoyed these:  

Here's a rather large photo op, an iguana:

We walk through crowds of people and see this beautiful mural:

One of several shopping areas:

We had a really nice meal at Breezes on the bay:

While eating our lunch with a view like this:

We head back to the Princess tender area/"home" to find a long line and another photo op.  Isn't the water just gorgeous?  

The Regal Princess is the first ship to sail out of Grand Cayman in the late afternoon.  Hubby and I had a wonderful time here hanging out with the locals.

Next time, we are heading to Eden Rock to do our own snorkeling excursion.  Ming says she'll be ready as well:

Monday (01/12): Grand Cayman!

Grand Cayman (anchor/tender):  7am-4pm
Temperature:  81 degrees

Princess Patter-Today's Activities:  Bible Study/Singles & Solos Get-together/Cards & Board games/Backgammon Players/Knitters & Natters/Quiet Room (Skywalker's)/Paddle Tennis/Ping Pong competition/Brunchtime Trivia/Pictionary Challenge/Party Bridge Play/Bean Bag Toss/Top Deck Tunes with Sugar Cane Duo/Basketball Shoot-out/BOGO Happy Hour/Pop Choir Sign Up and Rehearsal/Afternoon Tea/Poolside Golf Chipping/Piano Melodies with Krzysztof Jankowski/Afternoon Brainbuster Trivia/Rapid Fire Art Auction/Caribbean Treasures-Roatan & Cozumel Highlights/Free Hair Consultation/Crab Shack (Cafe Caribe)/Jackie Kennedy Unveiling/Casino Introductions/Science & Nature Trivia Challenge/Production Show: Stardust/Cocktails & Dancing/Portrait Raffle drawing/College Football:  Oregon vs Ohio State/Karaoke Power Hour/Music & Dancing with Massina Duo/Texas Hold'em/The Ultimate Deck Party/Jackpot Bingo

Cruise Life:  Our alarm buzzed around 6am. I was incredibly tired as I didn't sleep well all night. The room was quite warm as Hubby forgot to set the temperature back to cool for the evening.

We sailed into Grand Cayman around 6:30am and dropped anchor. It was still dark out, but I could see the lights from the island. We quickly got dressed for our snorkeling adventure and slathered on some good ole SPF 30 for me and SPF 70 sunscreen for Hubby.

Sailing into Grand Cayman

Coral Princess already dropped anchor

Coral Princess

We met our group at the pier sometime after 8am and then walked over to some mini-buses that would take us to another pier called the Yacht Club. Our snorkeling adventure for today: Stingray Encounter, Reef, Snorkel, Beach, and Lunch! Yes, it's basically a full day out on the water with some beach time.

Sailing out the channel...lovely homes

After a 30 minute boat ride, we arrived at the Stingray Sandbar. It was fascinating that we're miles out in the ocean and yet we can stand on the sand with water that is waist deep! As I entered the water, the stingrays were all around me. I squealed with delight and also frightened at the same time. The stingrays were HUGE! I immediately put on my mask and snorkel tube and swam around while others stood on the sandbar. I left Hubby alone with his new GoPro camera. He was taking pictures and filming the stingrays underwater. I was capturing underwater shots of these beautiful marine creatures. They are sooooo graceful.

I took a few pictures of Hubby and a stingray trying to nibble at his GoPro camera. That was so funny to watch! Every now and then he would point his GoPro at me and I would smile and "bloop bloop bloop" water would enter my mask. Yeah, after a few times I stopped smiling. We had a blast here watching the rays glide around us.

Our next stop was a small/tiny barrier reef. Our guide mentioned this area was 8-10 feet deep. The minute I jumped into the water I felt like I was in a gigantic aquarium. The water was so clear and the fish were right in front of me. It was awesome!

We left our second snorkeling site and headed to Rum Point Beach to have lunch and enjoy some beach time. We sat at colorful picnic tables overlooking the beach. Hubby and I had ordered the traditional meal of Jerk Chicken with rice and peas, cole slaw, and corn. Our plates were huge. This was definitely a traditional meal for me and reminded me of the food in Jamaica.

We had a total of two hours of beach time here. Hubby and I wandered around and found a set of lounges to camp out on (hint: nap time!) and do some people watching. Hubby had found a Cayman Island Dining magazine. We noticed there were lots and lots of places for fine dining. When we were sitting at the picnic table I overheard a conversation between two couples. They were complaining how expensive the mixed drinks were at this beach. They each had an equivalent of a small Solo type cups and paid $12 for each. Now, it took them awhile to figure out the conversion rate and figure our how much they spent. Hmmmmmmm...I would have asked for the cost in US dollars before I ordered. But that's me.  It is expensive to live in Grand Cayman. Regular gas was $4.70/gal.

Our boat ride back took about 45 minutes. Our mini-bus was waiting for us at the Yacht Club pier and ready to take us back to the ship's pier. By this time it was 2:30pm and we had an hour at the ship's pier before the last tender departed back to the ship. We walked around inside the terminal area and found a kiosk that had "patties". We ordered an ackee and salt fish patty to share. It was just okay and not like the ones you find in Jamaica with their flaky crusts. Hubby was looking for the Matouk's hot sauce after the first bite into the patty.

Our tender ride back to the ship took only 5 minutes. We were sad to leave this beautiful island. We had a wonderful time on our excursion and would definitely come back to see the rays!

Not much was going to happen this evening as we were both tired. I was exhausted. I did manage to rinse our snorkeling gear in the bath tub and wash our swim wear in Woolite. We had dinner at Horizon Court buffet. I had a small portion of pasta that was cooked in front of me (while in the buffet area) and a small portion of fish. I had a lot of plate exposed in comparison to the food portion on my plate. I didn't feel like eating. I did manage to get a picture of a dessert that was getting ready to be put on display. To give you an idea of how big this was: the words Tiramisu was handwritten on top. Yes, I took the picture with my iPhone and yes, I will post it here when I get back to US territory.

Speaking of iPhone. I forgot I had the GoPro app on my iPhone. I turned on the Go Pro's WiFi and synced it to my iPhone. I tapped on the application and was able to download a couple of pictures and a few videos that Hubby took. I have to stop and explain something. The GoPro Hero 3+ doesn't have an LCD screen on the back of the camera. So Hubby can't see what's being captured. He can only point the camera and hope he gets the shot or video. One of the things I love about the GoPro is that it has the fisheye capability. So, I know besides the main subject, most things in the background should be captured as well. Hubby was thrilled with his results and the camera's capabilities. He caught some cool stingray interactions on video. That's why I was carrying around my iPhone on the ship this evening.

While we were eating dinner in Horizons, we were watching the videos. I also wanted to show Gigi, a Princess photographer who works at the Photo Gallery, our video adventure.

Movie at MUTS:  None.  Just the National Championship College Football with Oregon vs Ohio State

Tonight we set our clocks back one hour. Tomorrow we'll be on the island of Roatan in Honduras. My eyelids are getting heavy. I'll be back tomorrow....