Birthday 2013 - Grand Cayman

Since realizing that Grand Cayman was a tender port that can sometimes be missed if the seas are too choppy. I had been praying for calm seas. The sea was as flat as could be this morning.
 



Another one of my favorite mom pictures



I think this pirate ship must have been sort of excursion.  It looked like it might be fun.

While I remember it, the ATMs on Freedom are actually BB&T ATMs. We actually bank with BB&T. Although we never got a chance to use them since they were broken the last two days, when we wanted to use them. But it was only 3% charge in the casino, which worked out to only $1.20, so very cheap.


The night before I had used a minute of internet time to go to cruise critic and search for the cheapest way to get to the Turtle Farm. I very quickly (fortunately) found that the public bus can be taken for $2.50. With some effort and asking around, we were able to find where to catch it. People did keep trying to point us to the tour buses, but a $8 per person each way and that was more than we were prepared to pay.
It was a nice little bus ride (really just a van). The driver was very nice about getting my mom’s wheelchair loaded. The ride took around 30 minutes with all the various drop-offs and pick-ups along the way.

The turtle farm was in general wonderful.

We made a quick stop to look at the large turtles and put on sunscreen. Mom and I both burn very easily.



There were several iguanas ont he beach where the turtles could go to lay eggs.

We then started with the aviary. On the way to the aviary, we happened to see the small turtles in the lagoon getting fed. We could see then there were lots of turtles in there where we would later be swimming.  For some reason though I didn't take any pictures of them.

I did take a picture of this rooster on the way to the aviary.  There were lots of chickens just running around all over Jamaica.

There was supposed to be a bird feeding at the aviary about an hour after we got there, but we didn’t stay in the aviary long enough to see it. It was just too warm out, but we enjoyed seeing all the pretty birds.

Be warned, some people did get hit from above.

We then went to find out when the lagoon opened for snorkeling and swimming the small turtles. It was soon and was just enough time for mom to get changed into her suit. The lagoon was tons of fun to snorkel in. There was a ton of fish, especially over by the bridge and glass wall to the predator tank. And even though I know there were lots of turtles in there, since we had seen them earlier being fed, I only ever saw two when we were swimming in there. The guy at the snorkel desk had told us that the turtle like to hide, and apparently they are very good at hiding. It was still fun though with seeing all of the pretty fish.

I had given mom my iphone in it's waterproof case so she could try taking some pictures.  She had difficulty with it and here's her most interesting picture.

But to be fair, while I got a good movie with the iphone, the picture taking did not work well for me either.

This is a compilation video I took with my real camera in its waterproof casing with the boring just water portions mostly edited out.

I also have this video from the iphone.

We saw these birds on the island that were rather pretty.

This is the money turtle shot pulled from the good camera video.

We really did have a good time in the lagoon though, even though we didn't see a whole lot of turtles while in it.
After getting out of the lagoon and showering, I then raced over to the predator tank in time to see the predator feeding. It was cool, although I didn’t really get any good pictures of it since I got there too late and all the prime spots on the bridge were taken.

Use your imagination a little, and you can tell that these are pictures of nurse sharks.  LOL. So I’d suggest getting there early if you want to a good view of it.

We then stopped by the large turtle tank where they were feeding them. It was fun to watch them come up after the food.

Next was the alligator feeding. My best photo of it was with my iphone.

By the time I got out the good camera, the exciting feeding parts making him jump for it were done.  But I did get this one video.

It started to rain after this so we ran for cover after this near the yearling turtles. In a break in the rain, I went out to catch and hold one of the turtles. Mom took pictures from some distance away still under cover (these are zoomed in and cropped).

When there was a decent break in the rain, mom got a couple of turtles to hold.

This guy showed us that if you pet the turtles under their necks, then they calmed down.  It worked too.  It was fun.

After washing our hands, we took a brief tour of the hatchery museum. It was kind of interesting. It was raining pretty hard by then, and we decided it was a good time to head back to the ship.

We just sat under cover for a little while just outside the entrance. The first driver had told us that buses come by every 5-10 minutes. We saw some get off one of the buses, and he told us we had to wait right by the street for one. So we did, and then, of course, one pulled into the driveway. With the rain and everything, I was a little frustrated by this time. In getting mom into the bus with her chair and everything, I had set the bags on the ground. Apparently in the confusion of getting everything loaded, I left our Del Sol bag on the ground in the driveway of the turtle farm. In this bag, we also lost mom’s entire swimsuit and the skirt bottom to mine, as well as our sunscreen and my flip flops.  In the end, around a $40 loss probably.

When getting off the bus, I realized we were missing the bag. Shortly thereafter, I realized I had also lost our sea passes. I know I had put them in my shorts pocket after getting off the ship. I’m not really sure when they got lost. The shorts were in the lost bag at the point when we went snorkeling, but who knows. So we went to the port, and explained our loss. The first guards let us through with an understanding nod. When we got to the point where you actually have to show them to get to the tenders, they asked for our ids. I gave them our passports, they came back with our sea passes. Someone had turned them in. We asked if maybe a bag had been turned in with them, but no luck. We then happily got back on the ship with our sea passes.

After a quick stop at the next cruise desk to make an appointment for later, we then enjoyed a late lunch in the WJ. We then relaxed for a while in the room, watch the Love & Marriage game show re-showing on the television, until the time for our appointment. It was fun. The next booking was easily made as all we really needed to do was pick out a room. We had already decided pre-cruise on the Serenade of the Seas out of New Orleans for next year.

This was the 2nd formal night, and since it was still like only 5:30 and our dinner wasn’t until around 7, we took the time to sit on the promenade and people-watch. It was great fun to watch all the people in their outfits. Many were quite beautiful, and others, well, we had fun watching them together.

For dinner, shrimp appetizer for mom, mushroom gravy pastry thing for me. Mom was starting to get very tired of shrimp by now. For entrees, we each had one plate with two lobsters for each of us. I then had the prime rib as well. I liked the prime rib better. Mom had the sugar-free coconut-lychee mousse pie, and found it to be quite good. I tried the baked Alaska (really like the marshmallow topping), and the mousse with fruit (it was okay).

This night was the Once Upon a time show. I liked this show, although I ended up with the song “Popular” from Wicked stuck in my head. But it was a fun and well put together mish-mash of songs. After this, we went to watch Quest. I prefer Quest on the smaller ships. I know they can’t do it the same on the larger ones, and it was okay but not the same. The best part was when the team was supposed to make a ball with 4 people. Then the ball was supposed to roll, as balls should. It was a trip to watch them to try and roll their bodies.

Finally at my nightly stop to look at the cookie selection in Café Promenade, they finally had chocolate chip cookies.  I went to Cafe Promenade almost every night in order to get mom hot water for her nightly tea.  And of course, there's always our nightly towel animal/person.

It was a fun day despite the lost bag.