Port #2: Grand Cayman

Laying in bed last Wednesday evening, I reflected on how long the day seemed. I was exhausted and Catherine and I were in bed by 11:00 and passed out quickly. We'd woken up around 6:30 that morning to the sight of us docking in Grand Cayman's bay, surrounded by 5 other ships. One of the other ships was the Royal Caribbean's 'Oasis," that carries over 6,000 passengers. That's almost twice the number of passengers that our measly little Carnival Freedom can hold.

View from our balcony when we woke up in the morning. Shore of Grand Cayman in the distance.

Three other ships that we were joined by in that morning when we docked at Grand Cayman.
There were others on the other side of the ship as well.

After quickly dressing and spraying ourselves with copious amounts of sunscreen (seriously, at this point we'd already blown through like four bottles of the spray-on variety), we boarded a "tinder boat" and made our way to the island. There we met up with the excursion group, were given our "cranberry" colored wristbands, and herded to a mini van that drove us to our destination, Dolphin Cove. That day we'd signed up to partake in the "Dolphin Swim and Sting Ray City" excursion - thank you again mom and dad for this wonderful Christmas present! :)

View of the Carnival Freedom from the dock at Grand Cayman.

The very well trained parrots that met us when we
arrive at our sting ray and dolphin adventure.

The "cranberry" (they were really just red, but I guess they wanted to make us feel special?) wristband group headed out to Sting Ray City first. We hopped on (yet another) boat and took a 30-minute ride out to the sandbar populated by all the sting rays. All the while I was having visions of a Steve Erwin-like incident taking place. I'd also seen too many sting ray episodes of 'River Monsters' to not at least have a healthy appreciation for the damage that barb can do when the ray puts his mind to it.

Sting Ray City.

The water at sting ray city was waist deep and crystal clear. Seriously, crystal clear... the pictures don't even do it justice. Catherine and I seized the opportunity to hold and kiss a sing ray and got some pretty sweet pictures as well. I also managed to get some pretty cool pictures on the GoPro (thank you again, Kellie!). There were some serious monster rays out there!

That's my leg! Ahhh!

Catherine and I holding a large sting ray.

Pucker up!

After about 45 minutes to an hour, our tour guide blew his whistle calling us back to the boat. It wasn't until after I'd reboarded out boat that Catherine let me know that our "sting ray handler" (guy on the right side of the photos above) had been stung in the ankle/lower calf area. Catherine said his wound didn't look too serious and the guide was all bandaged up and in good spirits on the way back, so I figured he was okay. He's been doing this for 30+ years and he said he hadn't been stung since the mid-80s.

 I took this picture shortly after getting out of the water at Sting Ray City. In my mind, it's the best representation of how beautiful the water was:

After taking our boat back to Dolphin Cove, we swam with dolphins. Our dolphin's name was 'Sally' and she was 11 years old. We got dolphin kisses and belly rides, but no pictures because they wanted to charge an arm and a leg for them. I think I'll stick to the memories and hold onto that $100, thank you very much.

The big tank where we swam with dolphins.

After our mini van drive back to the port area, Catherine and I grabbed lunch and drinks and 'Breezes' and enjoyed the view from the second deck while I perused photos I'd taken on the GoPro. I was pretty surprised at how well they turned out, particularly because most of the time I didn't know quite what I was aiming at.

View from the patio at 'Breezes.' Our ship was to the far right behind some of that heavy equipment.

After lunch, we did some quick shopping and took the tinder back to the ship. I was exhausted and may or may not have fallen asleep on the tinder while waiting for everyone in front of us to disembark, which is a feat considering how rocky the boat was.

Once back aboard, I took a nap and we walked around the ship before showering and prepping for another "elegant night" dinner. As always, it was delicious!