Cruise Part 2 - Day 6

Day 6 June 18th 2008 Cayman Islands

We woke up and had breakfast delivered, we both were feeling yucky today, my cold had developed into a congested runny nose and Karl had the Nora Virus, he was in the bathroom a lot. Once we got going we felt better. I looked out and saw Grand Cayman, it looked like a flat island with beautiful jewel colored ocean. There were a lot of buildings, they were nice looking buildings, not like Jamaica. When we left we boarded a smaller ship and when I looked into the water I could see straight down to the bottom, it was clear, clean and just plain out breath taking. We went to the port where we waited for our shore excursion, they had a band playing island music and it was warm and humid, but it really didn’t bother me. After waiting for a half hour, we took a short bus ride to the boat and the driver sang songs for us the whole way. We then loaded onto our boat for the afternoon. The boat cruised out down a small waterway with houses lining the sides and there were about a hundred iguanas sunning themselves on the sides of the waterway. When we were getting ready they gave us some instructions on how to interact with the sting rays. When we arrived at sting ray city it really blew me away, the water was beautiful and there were tons of sting rays swimming everywhere, they were beautiful majestic gentle creatures and I was in complete awe. When we got into the water it was warm and refreshing and the sting rays were coming right up to us, they felt like really soft smooth rubber and were like puppy dogs of the ocean. There were about ten different boats with snorkelers that all lines up on this sandy area out in the middle of the ocean, it was about waist deep water and there was soft white sand underneath. I remembered my snorkel and goggles today and that was nice to have my own equipment. We played with the sting rays for about 45 minutes and got a chance to swim, snorkel and interact with the sting rays and I accidently stepped on one that I didn’t know was under me and I felt really bad about that, but he swam away safe and sound. While snorkeling, I saw two huge trunkfish and a trumpetfish. We loaded back onto the boat and headed back to shore and when we got back to the port we hit the small stores there and each bought a t-shirt and some chocolate, after spending some time at the port it was time to take off so we loaded up and took a shuttle back to the boat. I had a really great shower again but the only bad part is I got really burned today, I even loaded up with sun block but my skin is too white for this penetrating bright sun. In the evening Karl put on a movie and I took a nap for about an hour, after I woke up Karl felt like going out but I was feeling like laying down some more, so Karl went gambling while I watched TV, I couldn’t sleep anymore so I joined him around midnight. When I went down to the casino I found Karl right away and asked him how he was doing. Karl told me he was down $200 and I was kind of sad and then he said just kidding I’m up $700, I did a little dance, he always does so much better without me there, Karl calls me “The Cooler” when it comes to gambling. After that we went to bed. This has been my favorite stop so far and I really enjoyed the weather and water, the water kept fading into these beautiful clear jeweled colors of tanzanite, aqua marine, emeralds, blue sapphire and blue topaz and near the sand it looked like yellow diamonds. Karl and I have decided to plan Grand Cayman as our next big trip, it’s so beautiful here and I would really like to spend a good 7-10 days here on vacation. Hell, I would like to move here.