The Cayman Islands

Who knew that the Cayman Islands were the islands MOST hit by hurricanes!!! After booking our weeklong vacation at the Turtle Nest Inn, I never even thought about hurricanes b/c they're never mentioned in the same sentence as the Cayman Islands. But, we timed it perfectly.... we landed right after Fay rolled through, and left right before Gustav arrived.

The Caymans are a British colony, thus you drive on the left hand-side of the road, in a right-handed steering car. It was going to be one of our challenges during our vacation b/c the package involved a rental car, an economy-sized Daihatsu Charade! Since the Caymans are British, and they take the Cayman Dollar, as well as the American dollar, the exchange rate makes this an expensive destination. $4 CI equals $5 US dollars!!! But we knew that going into it, so we were prepared

Our non-stop direct flight to the Caymans took 2 hours, 30 minutes. We arrived to a GREAT airport, walked across the street and picked up our rental car from Avis. After getting lost a few times while in search of our condo (apts on the left, condos on the right), we managed to find it and it was FABULOUS! No wonder the place was top-rated on Trip Advisor!! We toured our two bedroom, 2.5 bath mansion, with lovely views of the beach all while listening to the Eric Clapton wanna-be across the street go through a few tunes....he actually is quite good!!

We decided to hop in the car and head to 7 mile beach in search of a simple dinner. We chose "Deckers", aptly named b/c the bar was made out of an old Double Decker bus. Tuesday night just "happened"to be "all-you-can-eat lobster tails night" !!! The way it worked? The first plate has two "pretty" lobster tails, and a few vegetables. When you want another order, they bring you two more lobster tails at a time. I managed to eat 6 tails....rather disappointed, I thought I could go for at least 9, but these tails were HUGE!! Kristy had a fish dish, while I feasted on lobster.

The beaches were excellent on Cayman. We had a great snorkeling site, right out our back door. There was also, "Chicken Beach", just a hop down the road. No, that wasn't the real name, we named it that for obvious reasons. It was just surreal to see this beautiful deserted beach with chickens running around. Ends up the water in that area was too dangerous to swim, so the chickens took over!

After spending our first morning and early afternoon on the beach, we decided to head over to the North-East side of town for dinner @ "On/Over The Edge". But on our way, we wanted to stop and hike the famous Mastic Trail. (The largest area of untouched, old growth area on the island) Our excitement contained, we found the trail, but only managed a short part of the hike, b/c the trial was flooded from Fay's arrival. Not to worry, we found "Over the Edge" (after getting lost, twice), poised for a few pictures on site with our first local beer, CayBrew, fried bread, a local "thang", and had a great fish dinner of my Red Snapper and Kristy's Wahoo, add a beautiful sunset, and a 10% discount for staying @ the Turtle Nest! During our drive back in the dark, we discovered the CRABS! These huge land crabs would run across the streets towards the beach, and we couldn't figure out why. Only when we got home and and zoomed in on the picture did we discover the reason. They were full of eggs, and they were depositing their eggs into the ocean.!!! Very Cool!!!

On Thursday we decided to do some more sightseeing. On our way to see the famous "Blue iguanas", we drove by the equally famous "BlowHoles". Although the maps depict the destination as blowholes (w an "S"), we could only find one of them. When the waves cooperated, the effect could be quite spectacular! The blue iguanas are housed at the Queen Elizabeth Botanical gardens. When we arrived @ 10:00, we were told that the 11:00 tour was postponed until 2:00 pm. We found out later that they were chasing a dog who was killing the iguanas, that had made his way into the park. Anyway, the blue iguanas were amazing! We had a private tour (nobody else braved the 2:00 heat), and met the local blue dragons. These are unique b/c of the red eyes, the blue color , and their impressive size. This guy was about 5 feet long. Unlike MY vegetarian iguana these guys LOVED to eat these particular caterpillars, when they fell from the trees.

I think this was the day we actually discovered this photo-op. I must say I think this is my favorite picture from the trip. No, the sign was not altered in PhotoShop.

Our fancy dinner was @ Grand Old House. We stopped for the sunset at a public beach on our way, and also posed w/ the beach iguana. The ambiance at the restaurant was perfect... we sat on the end of a pier, while fish swam around the pier waiting for the nightly feeding. I had the New Zealand Rack of Lamb, served w/ pancetta wrapped green beans, tomato & olive cancausse in a Merlot reduction, while Kirsty had the Seafood Symphony, described as "a fresh caught sea treasure prepared three different ways with grilled vegetables, Mediterranean cous-cous and basil aioli". We even topped this one off w/ a dessert of "Baked Alaska" It ALL was excellent!!!!! If anyone goes to the Caymans, "Grand Ole House" should definitely be on your list......just make sure you save up!!!

Friday was Swim w/ the Rays day!!! We booked a 4 hour tour on Captn Dexter's trimaran boat. We settled in on the netting for the 30 minute ride to the site, enjoying the scenery. I must admit, I was terrified at the thought of being in the water w/ these guys. And after seeing their size, I was even more terrified, but since wifey wasn't worried, I wasn't going to worry about it. While Capt Dexter gave us a quick lecture about the stingrays, his shipmate (Steve?) jumped in and starting playing w/ the things!! These things were EVERYWHERE !!! The Captain showed us how to hold them, and we jumped right in. Kristy held hers first, and after much intrepidation, I followed suit. The rays were a thing of beauty, and I would do it again in a New York Minute. The actual sandbar itself was beautiful, so we had to poise for a pic . After an hour w/ the stingrays, we headed over to a snorkel site and snorkeled for another hour. The fish and scenery were good, about as good as any other spot we found on the island.

Since it was getting late in the week, and we were getting "fished-out", we decided to try a recommended thai restaurant, The Thai Restaurant. I had the classic Pad Thai, while Kristy experimented w some curry dish I can't recall. The food was great! My only regret was that I asked for my Pad Thai, spicy. The heat disturbed the balance of sweetness, but it still hit the spot.

Our favorite "shelling" beach was a public beach (signified by the painted iguana) located about a 20 minute drive East from the Turtles Nest. This place was AMAZING when it came to conch shells. Within 10 minutes we each had a collection of 15 "keeper" shells. But we finally decided there was NO Way we could take all these shells back. So we picked out a few perfect shells and left the rest for other tourists. These shells were obviously caught for food. The chip or gash at the top of the shell is the clue. To get the conch out of the shell, you chip out a section at the top of the shell. This breaks the suction of the mussel, and then you can pull him right out.

Saturday Kristy decided we needed an entire day to devote to "sightseeing" items. These items included, finding & purchasing Cayman Island sea salt, the butterfly farm, feed wild iguana's bananas, Hell, and the sea turtle farm. The sea salt is hard to find, we found it @ the Ritz Carlton. The butterfly farm was informational, and had some gorgeous butterflies. The wild iguana feeding didn't work out at all. They would just run from us, and when we finally ended up pitching bananas at them, they ignored them!!! Hell, is a tourist trap section that offers views of some lava rocks, and a post office. 'Course they also have places for various photo ops( Not really a MUST SEE, but we were in the area to see the Turtle farm!) The turtle farm was awesome. Even though it's primary purpose is to provide food for the locals, it's still amazing to see these reptiles. We got to pick them up, and Kristy was in heaven. Hard to believe these guys will end up on a dinner table. We finished this day with a dinner from The Brickhouse, an americanized pizza bar. We just wanted something causal, and it was late, so I had a 4 seasons pizza (artichokes, ham, mushrooms & pepperoni, while Kristy had vegetable penne pasta Sunday This was also the day I was going to try one of the local "jerk" shacks for lunch. I really wanted to try Vivians Kitchen, but she was only offering Curry Chicken on that day. So we headed over to Chester's, for the jerk chicken. If you buy the "large" platter, you get a free "FANGO" soda!!! It was AWESOME!!! Spicy and tasty. We enjoyed a picnic outside of our room, and shared the deck with "Blacky" one of the Turtle Nest's permanent residents. Throughout the week, we got to visit w/ the whole group, Calahoo, a cat I forgot b/c we never saw it, and Vitamin, who visited our room every morning for some "loving".