Grand Cayman

Last year, Mark asked us if we could do something for his spring break.  Considering all of his other vacations up to this point (since returning home from his mission) had involved a certain someone who will not be named, I could hardly deny him the time that I had craved having with him.  He tells us now that he meant it rather jokingly, but as anyone knows who knows me, I never joke about traveling!

Going to Grand Cayman was an easy choice with little to arrange.  We spent four full days there, and had a delightfully relaxing time, SCUBA diving, resting and eating a lot of really good food.

Since I keep a detailed dive log, most of the amazing details are in there.  However, I must post pictures from our one dive at Stingray City Deep.  I've been trying to return there for a couple of years, but the weather hasn't been cooperative.  However, we hit days when the water was like glass, and Mac was more than happy to take us there.

It's only about twelve feet down, but we weigh ourselves with double our normal weight, so that we can just rest on the bottom.  We bring squid down, and within minutes of waving the container around, the stingrays appear.  They can be rather scary at first, because you've never quite sure what to expect, but it only takes a minute or so to realize that they are very friendly.  Like all SCUBA experiences, it's overwhelming to me to see the beauty of all that God has created.

No joke, this stingray posed for the picture...and SMILED!

Their "noses" are where Mark has his hand.  You can lead them all over the place, like a dance, before you actually give them the squid in your hand.

I don't know if this is the same stingray that posed with Mark, but he obviously hams it up for the camera.

After a while, they get full on the squid and just lay down in the sand.

The only problem with this day was that we somehow ended up doing FOUR dives.  Trust me, that is a LOT of diving in one day, especially since they were a.m. and p.m. dives.  Lisa brought us Subway for lunch (which we ate on the boat), but honestly, I don't like to eat when I dive, so by the time we got home, we were EXHAUSTED!  John, of course, wasn't exhausted enough and went running.  Mark and I couldn't shower fast enough before heading down to our favorite eating spot, Stingers.  How grateful we were when our waitress could see how completely tired we were, and just brought us pitchers to drink our water from.

Mark actually ended up falling asleep at the table!  My favorite meal of this trip ended up being grouper of all things.  I don't like sea food, but when it's as fresh as it is on the island, it's absolutely delicious.  I actually forgot to take a picture of it before I started eating it, because I was just that excited to dig in!

This honestly makes my mouth water, just seeing it again.

Too, being out in the sun for so long not only exhausted us, but we didn't take quite the necessary precautions for our lily white skin.  Mark got the hardest hit.

Every afternoon (besides that crazy one), we came back to the hotel, sat around the pool and relaxed.  I would like to say it's my favorite part of the vacation, but really, everything in Grand Cayman is my favorite part of the visit.

Another novel experience from this trip was visiting the Kittiwake.  It's a ship from the 1940's that was sunk just a few years ago off the coast of the island.  When we visited it a couple of years ago, we were with a different dive operator who basically just shuttled us through, and I left very disappointed.  I didn't really have any desire to return, although Mac assured us that he could show us a better time.  And BOY, did he!

The wreck was amazing.  Great fish life, and Mac let us stay down as long as we wanted.  It didn't hurt that as we approached the wreck, we caught sight of an eagle ray.  We actually ended up seeing one every day we dove which is a first!  We did all the swim throughs and then just spent time swimming around it.  Mac, in his infinite wisdom, had chosen a time and day when it wasn't busy, so it felt like just our wreck.  It was incredible.

I think a huge reason that we continue to return to Grand Cayman is because of Mac and Pirate Divers.  He always shows us a good time, and he's really a great guy.  I can't believe that he still hasn't met Ethan or Hannie, but he keeps up-to-date on our lives, and Glo's through Facebook.

Crazy thing?  Divers are some of THE nicest people.  It doesn't matter that two random divers are in our picture--we'll remember them and the fun times we had over the four days.

 And a trip to Grand Cayman wouldn't be complete without dinner at Hard Rock Cafe.  I mean, c'mon, where else will you see stingray shaped guitars on the wall?