Day 4 - Friday, December 6th, 2013 - Grand Cayman Island

Woke up with a bit of a hangover this morning, but had plenty to do, so I shook it off and we had breakfast. Omelette with english muffin. Just as I was finishing up, a quick rain came through and everyone scattered. I wanted to find out when our stingray dive was, but they said it was canceled for the day, too choppy for the 12 foot dive.

We decided to knock out a few other things we wanted to do, so we rented a car and headed off. It is a left hand drive car, like back home, but you drive on the left side of the road. And the roundabouts! So many roundabouts...

We went to the Cayman Turtle Farm. It was really cool. $18 entrance fee. We saw the sea turtles in their tanks, they breed sea turtles and release them to sea to keep their population up. We could pick up, hold, pet, etc. the turtles as well. I leaned over to grab one out of the tank and my hotel key slipped out of my shirt pocket and into the tank. The turtles wanted to eat it, but I got a staff member to fish it out. We watched a video about the history of the place, and Michael, the older guy from the bar, was on the video! Crazy. He was a researcher at the farm. We sat down, had some water and fried plantains for a snack. Bought a few souvenirs and headed on.

We stopped at Foster's Food Fair and got some things we needed, then visited a bird sanctuary. It was smaller and less funded than expected, but we had a nice little sit down moment. We saw a heron.

There were several small birds and about 10 turtles and some dragonflies hanging around. Got some neat pictures and then we went and found a place to eat.

It was a little place off the side of the road named Chester's. We ordered a coconut water, snapper, conch stew, and Rachel got curried chicken. The chicken was full of small bones, the snapper was not hot, the stew was “interesting” and I had never had coconut water...not for me. We brushed off the experience and drove to the botanic gardens.

It was awesome! The first part was a long walk through some indigenous plants, trees, and flowers. Besides the iguana we saw, it was kinda boring. We got to another area, a lake with palm trees that was gorgeous, then onto a flower rich area where the flowers were separated into colors. Purples, reds, blues, yellows, whites, pinks. We saw a lot of fruit and nut trees, didn't realize what half of them looked like in real life. Pretty cool. Saw a giant blue iguana near the cactus area, he walked right by us. We walked through a boggy tree filled area that was all orchids. Most weren't in season, but some were very beautiful. Then we were met by the giant blue iguana again, blocking our path out. Rachel crawled over the railing to get out, I grabbed a stick to keep him moving, but it didn't really work, and I didn't want to poke him, so I followed her lead. We had about an hour to sunset at this point, and we headed to our last destination, Rum Point.

Pulled into Rum Point and it was lovely. This side of the island has fine white sand, our side has rocky, coral beaches. There was a nice setup with shade covers, tiki torches, beach chairs, tables, and a nice pier. Rachel and I ordered a couple Blue Iguana cocktails and watched to sun set. It was pretty unimpressive, comparatively, but we had a nice time and got to relax a bit.

After it got dark, we drove the hour drive back across the island to our hotel. We were just in time for dinner. Rachel had snapper and shrimp with a buffalo mozzarella salad. I had calamari and pork tenderloin. Snapper was good, shrimp and pork were overcooked, calamari and buffalo salad were good, and I had some mango sorbet to top it off.

We saw Allen, Allen, and Liz at dinner and asked if they wanted to go with us to this thing we heard about on the radio on a beach in Georgetown. Local live music on the beach. Allen Jr. said he would go, so Rachel and I showered and got ready.

We met Allen down at his room, and he answered the door wearing his cardboard mustache from the Caybrew coasters in the hotel. The coasters have a cutout in them where you can punch out a mustache and its got two little prongs on it to stick in your nose so it looks like a real mustache. The local beers here are mostly good. Ironshore is a bock, kinda tastes like Fat Tire. Caybrew is a light lager, kinda has a funky aftertaste and White Tip Lager is a nice, smooth light lager.


We headed down to Seven Mile Beach to find Calico Jack's and see some live local music on the beach. We missed our turn somewhere so we stopped at an Irish pub named Fidel Murphy's to grab a beer and ask for directions. Colin, the bartender from the hotel, said the place was not worth the trip and he's Irish. He said he wouldn't wash his feet with their Guinness. We all had an Ironshore and it tasted like crap. I don't think they clean the lines there. We got our directions and moved on. We found the bar, walked across the sand to the bar and checked out the music.

98% sure we saw Eric Ripert at the bar. Come to find out, he owns a restaurant there, so it was entirely possible. We watched the end of the 1^st band's set, a mediocre all cover band. Had a few beers and watched the 2^nd band, mostly covers, but pretty good and interesting. Meatloaf's look-a-like was on drums, 1^st band'd bassist stood in, was way too into it, wearing his clever Target shirt with a dinosaur on it that read, “all my friends are dead.” Asian guy wearing suspenders and capri pants on guitar and two others.

 The crowd was fun and dancy, and we had a great time. Retired home and went to bed right after.

For photos from this trip click here.