Bloggles the Mind Again: Grand Cayman

Our favorite port was Grand Cayman--Georgetown is beautiful, clean, friendly, laid back, and the wealth just oozes from the street signs. Even from the clock in the port plaza!

We waited at the port awhile for the tour groups to form, the guides to claim their groups and move on to the buses or nearby tenders. We boarded a tender and went a short way to our waiting submarine, the Atlantis.

Here we are inside, waiting for some "housekeeping". There were places for 48 passengers and there were 49 on board. The lady beside Muffin said she saw someone who was not from our cruise ship meet a couple and cut in line, faking a ticket. Finally another couple volunteered to get off, return to the port and take the second submarine excursion. They were the only ones on board who had that freedom, since most of us had booked a second excursion.

The reef was so beautiful. We learned that the extraordinary photos you see in documentaries are shot at night to show all the beautiful colors. We could actually see more color than the camera could, but everything was still either very blue or very white. This photo is taken as we are descending, looking at the changing coral and plants and ocean floor.

Here, fishy, fishy!

This is as low as we go.

Returning to port we ate a couple of Cliff bars and drank some water and waited for the second excursion tour guides to find us. It was really hot, waiting on the shady, humid concrete. My hair was not happy at all, but it was going to be unhappier still before returning to the ship.

Snorkel-ready Marmee. We bused to a vacant lot in a residential area where a dock at the back of the lot served as a parking lot for a tour boat in the canal behind some really lovely houses. Among our fellow snorkelers were a family from Austin with four sons, and a family of Texas Tech fans. Go Raiders! We boarded the tour boat, traded our shoes for fins, donned masks with our snorkel tubes and arriving at the barrier reef, began our first snorkeling lesson. Most of the others on board had previous experience, but we caught on fast enough I guess. The tour guides left us to explore the reef and went on to those who seemed truly terrified. I thought it was amazing! The purple fan coral was so beautiful, and just being able to see in the clear Caribbean water was wondrous. All in all, this was a three hour trip spent in pleasant company with great guides and God's amazing creatures.

After a very late lunch and shopping in the ship's gift shops we dressed for a formal dinner preceded by an early show. After dinner we watched Quantum of Solace from deck chairs with the wind blowing in our faces at the outdoor theater.