Grand Cayman Part I

We had a great time with the Basshams in Grand Cayman this past week. Ryan's parents went to Cayman about 25 years ago, so as you can imagine it has changed a lot since then! But, it has turned into one of Ryan's and my favorite vacation spots. Bill and Cherie, we can't thank you enough for the wonderful trip!

We started our trip with a little bit of snorkeling. Cayman is know for some great snorkeling locations. The first stop was Smith's Cove.

Also, we went to Hell and back. No really, there is a little town named Hell. And we went there. It is named that because of the rock formations in the town. The formations are very jagged and sharp, I guess like the formations you would find in actual hell.The Devil himself...So angelic. Apparently there are roosters in Hell too...

And tornados...we didn't have the greatest weather while we were there.This is George Town. This is where all the shopping is done. Cruise liners achor in the bay and people can come here and shop for the day or go snorkel or whatever. It was a cute little town but parking was a nightmare.For Christmas, "Santa Claus" paid for us to go on a submarine ride while in Cayman. Below is the submarine that took us 100 feet below the water surface. We explored the Cayman Wall (A reef that drops 1600 feet or so below the water.) I was good with just seeing the first few feet. I find the deep ocean just a little erie. But what a fun experience! It was a night dive, so we didn't see much fish, only tarpon really, but we did see three sea turtles swimming around. It was really cool to see them in their natural habitat, not in a zoo or something.In the harbor there are several pirate ship replicas that will take you out for a ride. They serve you dinner, drinks, whatever. We didn't get a chance to do this, but if we ever go back I think it would be fun to ride on the pirate ship and pretend we are Captain Jack Sparrow. We would be nice pirates though.The sunsets were so lovely...One night we ate at the Grand Old House. It is a restaurant that used to be a hospital, school house (I think), and several other things. In its 100 years it has survived two hurricanes. Bill and Cherie ate there 25 years ago when they visited the island, so they took us there for a very nice dinner by the water. While in Cayman we went to Sting Ray City. If you ever go to Cayman, this is a MUST! We went out on a boat, snorkeled two different reefs, and went to the sand bar to feed the sting rays. The snorkeling there was the best we had all trip. We saw all kinds of fish, lobster, and conch. Bill and I even found a shark....YES....a SHARK. I swam with a shark. It scared the crap out of me. The black spots in the picture are the sting rays out at the sand bar. There were about 30 of them swimming around. They would rub up on us smelling for food. Well, stay tuned for Grand Cayman Part II.......