. Mini G the gnome in the Cayman Islands . . August 21st and 22nd, 2003: Took the red eye from San Francisco to Miami, and before I knew it, we were on Grand Cayman! Louis picked us up at the airport, and took us back to his place for lunch. We took a little nap to catch up on our sleep, and when Louis and Kristen got home from work, we headed down to Rackham's to watch the feeding of the tarpon. That was pretty cool...there were so many of 'em! (comments) . August 23rd, 2003: Slept in late and tooled around the house until lunch, when Louis came home and took us downtown. We walked around for a little while, then decided to do a little snorkeling at Devil's Grotto. (John didn't bring the underwater case for the camera, so no underwater pics yet.) After that we found a tourist shop w/ cheap tshirts to get presents for the folks back home. That's where I ran into this cheesy pirate, hawking his rum cakes. Times must be hard for the pirate ilk... (comments) . August 24th, 2003: Woke up early and headed down to 7 Mile Beach to do some boat dives! Our first stop was Trinity Caves...that was uber cool! It was a deep dive...we cruised down to the "bottom" (we could have gone even deeper, but that would have been a more extreme dive) and then followed the rock formation back to the top. I guess the dive is called caves because you go through holes in the rock at different points. Whatever...it was fun! After that we boated over to the Oro Verde wreck for a second dive. That was pretty sweet too...it was my first wreck dive, and even though it wasn't some old pirate ship w/ gold doubloons or pieces of eight for the taking, it was cool. (comments) . August 25th, 2003: HELL! We hopped on Louis and Kristen's bikes and pedaled over to the Township of Hell to play tourist and check it out. The rock formations were pretty cool, but I got bored after a little while. Rocks are only exciting for so long, you know? But at least we found The King! That's right...we found Elvis. You can stop wondering now. ;-p (comments) . August 26th, 2003: Used the bikes again this morning, and pedaled down to Cemetery Beach to do a little snorkeling. Apparently the fish here are used to people feeding them, because they were all over us! I quickly established myself as "King of the Coral", and had them groveling at my feet like good little fishies. After catching some rays on the beach, we headed into town to pick Louis up from dive instructor class. Later that night, we had to honor the Tuesday Night Tradition...yup, we went bowling! (comments) . August 27th, 2003: Best day EVER!!! This was possibly the most fun excursion of the whole trip. We woke up early and hopped on a boat out to Stingray City. We stopped two places to snorkel before actually reaching Stingray City, but it was cool because we got to see new stuff. Once we got there, I were totally blown away!!! There were stringrays all over the place, just swimming around and looking for handouts. And as long as you didn't step on them, they were cool. Our captain actually caught one and held it so people could take pictures w/ it. (Well, so his photographer could take pics and sell them for $25 a pop!) So we didn't bother with that, but we got plenty of our own awesome pics. It was amazing. We left just in time, because it started pouring as we were heading home! By the time we reached the marina, it was coming down in SHEETS!!! It was a good tropical rain though, so it was still plenty warm. Louis picked us up, and we headed over to the naked fish to celebrate his graduation from the dive instructor program. After we stopped in to say hi, we decided to head over to Stingray brewery to check it out. It was a slow day for them, so when we asked about the "two drink limit" sign next to the taps, the girl working there told us to "pay that no mind." So we had some free beers, took the self guided tour, bought some souvenirs for the folks back home, and headed back to the bar. It was a fun party, but we only lasted until a little bit after sunset. Then it was time to head home and get some sleep for another fun day! (comments) . August 28th, 2003: Rain, rain, go away...it rained pretty much all day today, but that didn't stop us from going out. We had planned on going to Smith's Cove to do a little swimming and snorkeling, and a little rain wasn't going to put the kibosh on our plans! The visibility was almost zero, so we didn't bother with the snorkeling, but we still had fun swimming. After Smith's Cove we decided to head over to the Naked Fish again (it's just right down the street) for some calamari and beers. J.R. (our favorite bartender from the night before) was working again, so we grabbed a quick shot with him while his boss wasn't looking. (Apparently he's not supposed to let people behind the bar.) (comments) . August 29th, 2003: Went back to the Naked Fish this afternoon, but this time it was to use their kayaks! J.R. had mentioned that we could use them for free, so we took him up on the offer. We had fun paddling around, and we only tipped it once! After the sun went down, we headed over to Turtle Reef for a night dive. Unfortunately, John's camera battery died right after we started the dive, so I didn't get any pictures of the night dive. Oh well. (sigh) After we cleaned up, we headed down to the Aqua Bar for some all you can eat tacos. Yummy! =^) When we were sufficiently stuffed, we headed over to Rackham's for Dan's going away party. He was already blitzed by the time we got there, but he was glad we stopped by. He's heading back to England to be a dive instructor over there for a while. I won't be surprised if he gets tired of it and comes back to the warmth and visibility of the Carribbean. ;-p (comments) . August 30th, 2003: More SCUBA! Headed back over to Turtle Reef this morning to do another dive and find out what we were looking at in the dark. We were also looking for a dive light, one that John lost last night. (d'oh!) Fortunately, Louis found his light, so John didn't have to replace it. After that dive, we picked Kristen up from work (she works Sat. mornings) and headed over to Sunset Reef to do a couple more dives. For the first one, we checked out the wreck that's out there. It was cool, but nothing too spectacular. While we were waiting our our surface interval, we had some lunch at Sunset House and planned our next dive. This time we got our bearings right, and found the mermaid! That's right...MERMAID!!! She was all kinds of sweet on me, and we hit it off right away. Hopefully some day I can come back for a visit... (comments) . August 31st, 2003: It was a rather blustery day...windy and overcast and just generally poopy. We decided to pile in the car and drive around to the other side of the island to check out the blow holes and Rum Point. The blow holes were actually kinda cool, as the waves were big enough to make some nice geysers. Met some mean lookin' iguanas at Rum Point, and spent some quality time in one of their many hammocks. After relaxing for a bit, we headed down the street for some lunch. That's where I met this nasty kitty...what a jerk! All I did was ask her if she came there often...oh well. I guess I can't woo all the ladies. ;-p (comments) . September 1st, 2003: Goodbye, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu...that's right, kiddies, it's time to head home. Did a little shopping in the duty free shops in the airport, then boarded our plane out of paradise. It actually wasn't that bad to leave, because it was absolutely pouring all day. That made the medicine a little easier to swallow. ;-p After going through customs in Miami, we had an uneventful flight home. Goodbye, Cayman Islands...I hope to see you again someday. (comments) Grand Cayman, BWI - Photos by John Carleton << | < | search | random | calendar | contact | > | >> . . This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.