Grand Cayman

Grand Cayman was our earliest and shortest excursion day. We decided to use the local bus system and jump our way around the island to hit the major snorkeling places we read about. But first, keeping with our tradition of making Barry pose with funny life size creatures, Barry had to stand by a big fake pirate. They had these all over the island... like Plainview and their cows:) Although I have to say, the pirates are so much cooler!


We started out at Turtle Farm on the north side of the island. We read it had amazing snorkeling, but we weren't terribly impressed. It was overcast and the water seemed colder than it was in Jamaica. The tides were ALOT stronger, so we had to be careful getting in and out of the water since this place was super rocky. Here I am getting started...


We were both a little fearful with how we would do with a snorkel, but it turned out to be really easy. We were really happy we decided to spend a little more and get a snorkel with a valve in it so water didn't come in the top!


The coral just looked really rocky here. There wasn't a lot of variety in the shapes/types. It was hard to get good pictures of the fish and all their colors because the sun wasn't out much, but Barry got this good picture of a cute yellow guy swimming around...

Here's a little school of bright blue fish (again, much more impressive in person...)

This was what we were having to avoid smashing into...

Pretty in pictures, not so pretty with tides slamming you all around!

Speaking of making some pretty picture back drops...

Then we caught the bus a couple miles south to Cemetery Reef named for the cemetery it's in front of...

All of the real estate along 7 mile beach was developed, but every couple blocks they would have a sign and a path between properties to get to the beach...

The tides were even stronger at Cemetery Reef. I would be snorkeling, looking at something, then all a sudden fall several feet and fear I was about to smash into the coral. I thought the coral was boring here. Even our bus driver said this was the best snorkeling spot, so maybe it's alot cooler if the sun was out. You can see a lonely little blue fish at the bottom on the picture...

Barry was happy to find "Dory" (from Finding Nemo.) He told Leslie that she was all by herself and acted lost, so he asked her if she was Dory and needed help finding her way home. But she couldn't remember who she was or where she going. Funny Daddy...

I swam out to all the close buoys they had marking the formations, then headed back in. There were some more buoys alot further out, but with the tide so strong, I didn't feel comfortable getting that far out. It was hard work swimming in that water! I was really glad I am such a strong swimmer. So I came back in and played in the sand some while Barry finished snorkeling. It was white and soft here!...

Barry likes taking pictures of his feet which sounds silly, but this one turned out pretty good I think...

The tide was coming in and there was this perfect rock sloping out of the beach, so we couldn't pass it by without doing a Little Mermaid reenactment...

"Some day I'll be, part of your **splash** world"

The final snorkeling spot we hit was the Wreck of the Cali. None of our bus drivers even knew what we were talking about which stunk because we weren't real sure ourselves! Luckily, one of the locals we stopped and picked up knew what we were talking about and told the bus driver where to drop us off. We had a picture of the beach/cove that you are supposed to enter from, so we just started walking around looking for familiar rocks. We figured out it was the beach directly beside the cruise terminal. And once we started looking, we noticed several little boats out a 100 yards or so and people snorkeling. We didn't take this picture, but it gives you a good idea of just how close it was to the beach...
Right before we got in the water, one of the locals threw a bunch of food scraps in to the water and a huge school of these HUGE fish went crazy! We actually left that little cove and entered from the next one over. As we were swimming out, one of them swam right in front of my face and screamed through my snorkel, made a right hand turn, and started kicking my little legs as fast as I could to get away!

Then when we got out, I told Barry about how close one got to me, and he starts telling me how he was chasing several of them! Crazy!

Barry also got this great picture of a rare wild North American Snook! The picture doesn't pick it up well, but there was a big school of yellow fish swimming all around me. It was really neat to see them so close!

We kept swimming and swimming... further and further out... we were starting to get worried, but luckily we had the excursion people to copy from. So we swam over to the middle of all the little boats and kayaks and all of a sudden, there was a GIGANTIC sunken boat! Barry was really good at the whole snorkeling thing and was able to dive down and get some cool pictures.
Everything was covered in coral. It was amazing to see how colorful and diverse the coral was since the boat has only been down there a little over 60 years.

Here's a close up of the engine best we figure...

There were pieces parts scattered all over. We both wished we had more time to explore.

But it was getting close to last tender, and it was a LONG swim back to shore against the current. Once again, super glad I am a strong swimmer.


And here we are on the ferry back to the boat with Grand Cayman in the background...

This was such a short, early, and busy day that we never stopped to reapply sunscreen, so we got a little pink this day. This was by far our favorite day and place! We were scared of showing up to a new place without a set excursion, but it turned out to be perfect! Just too short!

That evening we decided to just chill by the pool and watch a movie they were showing on the big screen TV over the main pool. It was a nice relaxing end to such an exhausting day...