Grand Cayman

Thursday, June 17th – Grand Cayman

Once again we did the tender routine instead of docking. Bob was nice enough to go to the Normandie Lounge to gather tender tickets for the four of us and ended up waiting in line for 45 minutes. The “tickets” are just self-stick labels with a number printed on them…nothing else. No one ever asked to look at our tickets so I’m sure we could have just skipped this step, but I am a conformist…I always play by the rules!!

The tender ride in Grand Cayman is MUCH shorter than in Belize and only takes a few minutes. Once on shore, we split up with Kent and Laurel…they were headed for a tour with Nativeway to see the stingrays. Bob and I were going to Abanks Dive Center a 5-10 minute walk from the tender docks. We had done the stingray tour on our last cruise so decided that we would both dive in Grand Cayman. I am not certified but had booked a “discover scuba” dive with Abanks. The dive was scheduled for noon and it was only 10 a.m. We started walking towards the dive center in hopes that we could dive sooner. Bob had all of his scuba gear (plus my snorkel stuff) in a large bag that could either be rolled or worn as a backpack. Rolling it wasn’t working too well with the crowds and bumpy sidewalks so he resorted to carrying it…definitely a heavy load.

  

Other ships included a Royal Caribbean... 

...the much larger Carnival Conquest...

...and us, the Carnival Paradise.

By the time we reached Abanks, I was getting pretty hot. We checked in and were told they had no record of us scheduling a dive or paying the 20% down payment (which I had done online.) Like an idiot, I had left the email confirmation back on the ship so I had no proof that we had paid. John, whom we were dealing with, said we could either pay the full $75 and lose the $15 deposit I had already made or go back to the ship to get the confirmation. Now I was really hot…and not just from the heat! There was no way we were going to lug all of that gear back to the dock and take a tender back to the ship just to get the confirmation. But on the other hand…I didn’t want to have to pay the full amount when I had already made a deposit. I had booked the dive through a group called Island Marketing so Bob suggested that John give them a call (duh…why didn’t I think of that?!) The phone call cleared up the mistake so all worked out, but it put a damper on the day having to deal with the mess.

This photo was taken from the tender dock on a cruise we did in 2010. You can see the dive center on the far right of the photo. It was just a few minutes walk from where we got off the tender.

After being so upset with John, now I had to switch gears because he was going to be the one who dove with me! I explained to him that I had gone through the classroom portion and confined water dives with PADI…I just didn’t follow through with the open water dives that it takes to get certified. Instead of spending lots of time on the scuba instruction, John just did a quicky “refresher” course on the basics. As we were doing that, Bob was getting suited up in his gear. I actually got through my “training” before Bob was even ready…that’s how quick it went.

I had bought two underwater disposable cameras for our cruise…a Kodak that was supposedly good down to 50 feet and a Fuji which was rated to 35 feet. We had used the Fuji when we were cave tubing in Belize but I wanted to make sure to take the Kodak on the dive (since I wasn’t sure just how deep we would go.) As Bob was getting ready to get into the water I noticed he had both cameras. I told him to only bring the Kodak and to go put the other one back into the locker we were using.

Our dive was to Eden Rock, a well known dive site located just offshore from Abanks dive center. Getting into the water was a bit of a trick…it was very rocky and the waves splashing up onto the shore were hard to deal with. While Bob was taking care of the camera issue (or so I thought) John had me doing a few drills…flooding and clearing my mask, dropping my regulator, etc. I appreciated the fact that he didn’t rush me and let me take time to get used to breathing through the regulator. If he had pushed me to go faster I would have probably panicked and not gone through with the dive.

Immediately as we went under the water, we began seeing fish…BIG fish! I have no idea what kind they were; I was just impressed with their size (two to three foot long!) I was busy taking in all of the sites when I realized that Bob and John were both grabbing at something in the water. I then realized that John had brought a container of bait along and somehow it had spilled. The three of us were snatching the little pieces trying to capture them and put them back in the modified bleach bottle that he was using as a bait carrier. A large brown fish showed up trying to get a snack and ended up following us on the entire dive! It sort of reminded me of a little puppy…he stayed right with us and several times we would have to push him aside as we were swimming!

As we dove, I started to become aware of salt water in my mouth. I’m not positive, but I think my regulator must have been letting in small droplets of water. Not having much experience as a diver, I can’t be for sure, but I don’t think that was supposed to happen. I was very much aware of my throat starting to burn, but I was determined I wasn’t going to give up and ruin the dive for Bob. I tried to take my mind off the discomfort by concentrating on the beautiful surroundings. There were huge mounds of coral and before I knew it, John was motioning for me to swim through a small passage. Being a novice I do not have a lot of control over my buoyancy and I was pretty nervous about going through the small opening…but I made it!!

At one point in the dive, John motioned for Bob and I to come down on the sea floor and lay on the sand. There was a small opening under some coral and he had his hand out holding a piece of bait. After a second or two a VERY LARGE (5 foot maybe??) fish darted out and took the bait from his hand. (Later John confirmed that this was a nurse shark!!) This happened several times! Right next to this spot was another opening and here John just opened the flap he had cut on the bottle and held the container out in front of him. A huge green moray eel came out and stuck his head in the opening and helped himself to some food! As this was happening, I motioned for Bob to get a picture. He shrugged and indicated he didn’t have the camera. UGGHHH!!!

Just when I thought I couldn’t stand the burning salt water in my throat for another minute, the dive was done. Back on shore I questioned Bob about the camera. He wasn’t sure what had happened to it and just assumed he had lost it in the water. John said if he had, then it was hopelessly gone by now. I was not very happy at that point. Upon opening the locker, Bob discovered that the Kodak camera was in the locker so it was the Fuji that was missing. Now I was really upset. Not only did he not get the pictures of our dive, but he had lost the camera with all of our cave tubing pictures!!!

It took Bob an incredibly long time to get his gear off and rinsed or maybe it seemed that way because I was in such a bad mood. In retrospect, this turned out to be a plus because while I was waiting John found the missing camera. Turns out Bob left it sitting on top of the locker when he was putting away the second camera and someone had turned it in!! At least I still had my Belize pictures!! The only picture we ended up getting in Grand Cayman was Bob next to a statue of a pirate named Big Black Dick advertising rum! Hopefully people will believe me when I tell the story of the shark and moray eel because I don’t have pictures to prove it!!

Eden Rock is not just for divers and if we ever go back to Grand Cayman again, I would be tempted to just spend part of the day snorkeling there. Since we have our own equipment it would be a fun, free activity. (We did end up doing that when we went back to Grand Cayman in 2010 on a family cruise. You can click HERE to read about what we did that day!) Abanks did have snorkel equipment to rent and several people were there snorkeling. There is no beach, but there are a few picnic tables near by. There is a restaurant on the property so I assume they would prefer that you purchase something to eat if you planned to sit at their tables.

*We did end up snorkeling here in 2010 when we did a family cruise.

Since we had been able to dive right away, we were packed up and ready to leave Abanks by noon (the time we had originally scheduled to dive.) Bob’s “scuba luggage” was now heavier than ever because it was all wet. Slowly we trudged down the sidewalks towards the tender dock. On the way I stopped at some pay phones to attempt to call home and check on the kids, but I never could figure out how to use my AT&T phone card to make a call so I gave up.

There was no line for the tender in the middle of the day and it really didn't take too long to get back to the ship. While Bob was unloading all of his gear to dry, I hopped in the shower. He spread towels out and then laid out all of his stuff on the ledge below the portholes. I'm not sure where the stuff would have gone (probably the shower I guess) if we hadn't had that ledge. 

We were both starved so headed to the buffet to grab something to eat and then took another tender back to shore. We wandered around going in and out of shops, but neither one of us were really enjoying ourselves. None of the jewelry or high-priced items were of interest and we didn't want any souvenirs. After an hour of this, we were hot and decided to head back to the ship. 

Three straight days of ports and the pace had caught up to us! Once in our room we crashed and slept for a couple of hours...it felt wonderful! Thursday was the second formal night and while I putzed around the cabin getting ready, Bob went up to the Paradise Bar in the atrium. He took along his dive log book to fill out while he listened to the Summer Trio play classical music.

At dinner time we caught up with Kent and Laurel. They loved their sting ray city tour and Laurel said she was getting the hang of snorkeling! She had given up using the cheap Wal-Mart set I loaned her and used some offered by Nativeway.

  

After dinner we took turns taking pictures of each other in our fancy clothes and went to the evening show…Shout. Although it would have been more fun to see new shows (we had seen Shout on our last Paradise cruise) it was still enjoyable. Following the show we roamed around the ship and ended up at Karaoke in the Leonardo Lounge. The place was packed and after standing for some time some chairs finally opened up. We sat listening to the performers until I realized it was almost time for the Gala Buffet!

The Gala Buffet is actually set up in both dining rooms. The Elation was open first just for picture taking and was a little more elaborate than the buffet in the Destiny dining room. We stood in line with many others to get a chance to snap a few photographs of the food displays. Can you imagine people actually line up at midnight to take pictures of food!! But where else can you find a “jazz band” made of roasted chickens playing vegetable instruments!!

Rather than wait until the Elation dining room was ready for “eating” we went directly to the Destiny to sample some of the yummy stuff they had. This also gave Kent and Laurel a chance to see what the other dining room looked like. None of us were really very hungry so we didn’t take much. There were waiters waiting to seat people as they arrived…we were seated in a booth with another couple we didn’t know. Although Bob and I were feeling pretty good due to our long afternoon naps, Kent and Laurel were beat so as soon as we were done eating we called it a night.