Grand Cayman is a special kind of beautiful to me. When I first thought about the island I imagined gorgeous beaches and colorful fish. I quickly learned there was much more to it than that. Before beginning our time, we first had to take a tender boat from the ship to shore. The ship will drop anchor a short ways from shore because there is no cruise pier due to protecting the coral reefs surrounding the island. The tender ride is only about 10 minutes, and personally I like it. I have heard others that don't care for the process though. Possibly because it's time taken away from the day. Especially if you have to wait in line. Or maybe because since it's a smaller boat, one might be more prone to sea sickness. I'm not sure. I think it's fun though.
The
first time we went to Grand Cayman was in 2009. Our plan was to take the tender boat in, after dropping anchor nice and early, and then do a little exploring before going to this snorkeling place I had heard about. What actually happened, was that nothing had truly prepared me for just how beautiful Grand Cayman really was. We spent the whole time in port walking around. It just might be the most beautiful island I have explored or shopped on. Everything was bright and clean. The locals were so friendly!
Eventually we got hungry so we decided to try out Margaritaville. I had a delicious turkey wrap with some sort of jerk spice sauce. I can't remember what Scott had. After we finished eating we went up to the second floor where the water slide started and saw a neat view of our ship.
We didn't end up making it to
Eden Rock Diving Center. (The blue building in the picture below. The picture was taken from the ship.) It sounds very official, but really, if you're not interested in hiring someone to take you out to a dive site, you can just drop your flip flops and hop right into the ocean to snorkel along the reef. It's completely free! Well, it's free if you take your own snorkel gear. Otherwise you can rent it from the dive shop. I promised myself that we would make it to this place whenever, not if ever, we visited Grand Cayman again.
We got so caught up in walking around and shopping that we were among the last couple tenders to get back to the ship. It was a seriously wonderful experience!
Our next visit was
when we sailed with my brother and his wife. I knew I wanted to be sure to make it to
Eden Rock. It's free and within walking distance of where the tender boats dock. Perfect! Eden Rock is about a half mile walk. It can be a short walk, but if you get distracted by things to photograph like I do, it can take a little longer... :)
When we finally made it to Eden Rock we found a place that was out of the way, put our bags down, and eagerly got into the crystal clear water. Among the coral we saw small colorful fish. I've heard amazing things about snorkeling at this site. We did see some beautiful things, but I think if we had hired someone from the dive shop, they could have taken us further out and there would have been so much more. I do not regret our choice though. We spent hours snorkeling along the coral edge of the island. We even saw a school of squid swimming within arms reach of us!
Snorkeling is hard work and after a while we all realized how hungry we were. We decided to walk back towards the main part of town, stopping along the way for more pictures, and went to a restaurant called Breezes. We were able to get a small table for the four of us on the deck overlooking the shops and ocean. There, we shared some yummy nachos and a little down time before doing some tourist shopping.
It was a long and tiring day, but so wonderful that I just didn't want to leave! We waited as long as possible to get in the tender line, which of course made for a longer line, but that's ok. It was a quiet ride back to the ship. I think we were all resting so we could be prepared for the activities onboard that night. :)
Our third visit in
the spring of 2016 was great! Scott and I decided to take our son and daughter back to Eden Rock so they could have their first snorkel experience in a location we knew we enjoyed. We walked from the tender pier to
Eden Rock, stopping for photo ops along the way.
We rented snorkel vests from the dive shop for $6 each. As we were putting our gear on it started raining pretty hard, so we also rented a locker, which was $5 for as long as we were there, to store our stuff. It continued to rain for 15 or so minutes, but that didn't stop us from snorkeling. It was actually pretty neat to snorkel in the rain! There are two different ladders to get into the water, one of them had a ton of sea anemones among the coral which made it a little nerve wracking to get in. We used the other ladder after that. There was still anemones in the coral, but there wasn't as much coral by the other ladder so we could stand in a few places. Swimming away from the ladder the water gets deep pretty quickly. There were a ton of fish. We didn't even have to swim very far out. The lady that helped us in the dive center said we should see some really great ones further out by the buoys where the diver's boat anchors. I went out ahead of my family and didn't really see anything. I saw the most fish about half way between the ladders and the buoys. It may be different from day to day though. The seal on my waterproof case was leaking so I didn't get any good pictures. It was very disappointing because we saw some really pretty fish! Before leaving we watched a water spout form over the ocean. I had heard about these, but never seen one. It's neat, but also disconcerting. It dissipated almost as quickly as it formed.
Around 11 we decided to go shopping. Most of the shops are fairly expensive (in my opinion) but there's good stuff. My favorite place to shop is the craft market. The vendors are friendly and the prices aren't terrible. It is located on the main street that goes along the oceanfront, between the pier and Eden Rock.
Lunch was at
Breezes. I had hoped to introduce the kids to conch fritters but they weren't in season. Instead we got Market Catch Ceviche (SO GOOD!!) and Jerk Chicken Poutine (Delicious!). The two times we have been to Breezes service was a bit slow, but the food is yummy. So if you're not in a hurry, it's a good place to eat. Plus, there are seats outside which we love.
After lunch we shopped a little more before getting back on a tender boat back to the ship.
No comments:
Post a Comment