…so I’ve gotta go and get another one – pronto! It seems like years since our Cayman Islands holiday (even though it’s been barely three weeks), and I’m back in the old mode of work/eat/sleep and not a huge amount of party time. Something must and shall be done about this! Cayman was absolutely awesome, though – more of that shortly. Meanwhile…
Next on the list of foolhardy adventures is to go and learn to snowboard in the duty-free snowdrifts of Andorra. Or, as I remarked to someone last week, I’m going to Andorra to spend a week falling off a snowboard! I’ll never learn, will I??! The words “pig”, “ice” and “on” spring to mind, in no particular order…
Back to Grand Cayman, for a brief recap: the weather was gorgeous, running at around 30° Celsius (or 86° Fahrenheit, in old money), with light-to-medium breezes keeping us deceptively cool, white sands, blue sea, the lot – Fi was in her element… By contrast, the last day was overcast with showers, and the temperature plummeted to a bone-chilling 25° C – we could cope with that! 🙂
Much time was spent snorkeling around the artificial reef that existed just off the beach at our hotel, communing with sea-life and grazing knees on the rocks – and we even took a “Snorkel Safari”, which entailed renting a Waverunner (big 3-seat jetski), blasting along the shore to a bigger, natural reef and admiring the critters around there. Waterproof cameras notwithstanding, I don’t have a whole lot of pics from those activities, so don’t hold your breath.
Of course, the bit I was really looking forward to was the scuba diving, and that was a lot of fun. I managed to descend too quickly on the open water part of the dive and give myself shocking earache, but you’ll have that. More annoying were the flooded ear canals that plagued me for a couple of days afterwards, with each ear taking it in turns to exhibit almost comic deafness. But I wasn’t put off, despite trying to handle a waterproof camera along with all the other paraphernalia that come with a scuba dive, which made my efforts somewhat akin to mowing the lawn while performing complex scientific calculations – next time, no camera; I’ll leave that to the pros. I came away with a funky card that declares my completion of a resort course dive, which counts towards any certification that I might decide to take in the next year. We’ll see; having dived in what is generally regarded as being among the best diving water in the world, I’d have to go back there to finish it off, I think.
Of course, not being able to sit still, we had to hire a jeep and go and look at the other side of the island – which didn’t take long, as it’s not a big island. It was a good plan, as we saw lots of bits that we wouldn’t otherwise have seen in our short stay. Surprisingly for such a small island, it does have its contrasts, and it was good to see. Another strange feature was that they all drive on the left, courtesy of the sway the British government holds over the place – they even use UK road signs! Georgetown was full of cruise ship passengers; on any given day there would be between two and five liners standing at anchor in the bay. Oh – and pirates; they definitely take the whole “Pirates of the Caribbean” thing very seriously. In a light-hearted Caribbean way, of course.
The food was awesome; top of the list was the Calypso Grill, which required a taxi trip up to the northern part of the island, and it was well worth it to sit on a deck right on the water and eat locally-caught fish and drink fine wine. And there’s no shortage of fine dining on Grand Cayman; I suspect the financial bods have quite a say in that. Cayman’s version of the ‘burbs is a series of canals linked to the bay at the north of the island; every house along there backs onto a canal, with the residents’ yacht moored at the end of the garden. Budget living it ain’t!
Anyway, gotta leave it there. I’ll be writing more about Cayman at some point, and the photos will be online RSN. Tune in next time for news of broken limbs and frostbite!