May 7 - May 27
How long you would like to stay in paradise? Well, we stayed 21 day and liked every minute of it. We arrived in Grand Cayman from Cayo Largo, Cuba not in very calm conditions. We started sailing practically with no wind (we were making just 2.5-3 kn), then, during the night wind and waves picked up, and in the morning we got squalls all over, wind over 25 and high waves. It's a miracle how we made it through the cut into a bay, we were practically surfing in on the crashing waves. But we made it and with huge relief docked at the Barcadera Marina. At once we noticed huge contrast between Cuba and Caymans, so, we were back to civilization.
Well, of course, prices are according to the level of living. The next day for the Mother's day brunch we spent nearly $200 at the marina's restaurant where the food was absolutely outstanding! That was just a start of the cultural shock. Nevertheless, we love this beautiful, clean and vibrant place.
Since it's a UK territory, traffic is on the left side and, we appreciated the local government postings of the signs "Look right"/"Look left" when crossing the streets (in Camana Bay shopping mall). I guess, locals got fed up with tourists not paying attention on the streets.
The next couple days we moved to the anchorage in Governor's Creek Bay (locals call it The Queen's bottoms) which is surrounded by the most expensive huge houses of the island. There are palaces around here which deserve to be on the list of the attractions for tourists. We got a chance to visit one of these houses for Sunday BBQ: our friend (met in Isla Mujeres), a young German girl who is sailing single handed, docked at her acquaintances mansion for engine repair and she invited us to that house. We had a wonderful BBQ evening where we met with other locals.
The Grand Cayman is an island of the wild chicken. There are many beautiful healthy looking roosters each with couple hens around and half dozen of little chicks walking on the streets, in the shopping markets parking lots, near trash cans, crossing roads, everywhere! For some reason locals don't try to catch them for their dinners, and these chicken is considered to be an island pest. Sometimes they are slow to cross roads and then they become Cayman's "speed bump". The story we got from the locals is that the last hurricane destroyed the chicken farm, and whatever chicken survived became roaming wild chicken.
The best attraction of the island is Stingray City - it's a sandbar in the bay where near a hundred huge stingrays are swimming to feed on fishermen treats. Crowds of tourists transported here by boats every day, hanging out in the shallow water, feeding stingrays, touching them, petting them and even putting them on the top of own body. This is very unique experience! We visited this magic place twice, just to play with these magnificent creatures. They are huge! Of course, the question is why stingrays do not sting people, and locals say probably because they feed them and never harm them.
We stayed on the island enough time to visit all attractions on the island. We rented a car for two weeks for just $57 a week. This is the cheapest purchase we had on the island! Usually, afternoons, we would park our dinghy at the Yacht Club and take a ride in our rented A/C car. That definitely helped us survive the very hot afternoons! We loved to hang out in Camana Bay shopping mall (similar to our Domain in Austin), where we would catch a new movie in a very expensive movie theater ($14.50 per person), visit the Italian ice cream cafe ($7 for one cone), Jessi's Juices place for my favorite green juice ($8 per glass). The National Gallery was a very nice surprise - a lot of interesting modern style painting from the local artists (again, A/C worked great there!!!).
Another interesting experience we had at the Ice Bar, located on the waterfront in Georgetown. The entrance was $15 including a drink, and everybody gets a coat and gloves before entering the "freezer". It was so cold there that I was not able to finish a drink. One of the nights we got lucky to see "Foreigner" performance on the beach.
We ate out almost every day because the food was very delicious at every place you ate. Our favorite was an Indian restaurant "Southern Spice", with the biggest dosas ever!
The island is amazing for stuck up on provision. You can find any type of fresh fruits, salads, berries, meets, fish, cheeses (!!!), dairy products, anything you want, in just couple supermarkets. There are "Cost U less" with the best cheaper bean coffee (Rainforest San Francisco); couple Foster's food stores (a bit expensive), and, Marina's favorite, "Kirk" with organic food, delicious cafeteria, fresh crusty breads (similar to Whole Foods in US).
What else happened in this beautiful place? Marina broke a finger while shutting a window, the next day we had to visit a hospital to have x-rays. Marina had to visit an eye doctor, still trying to figure out what's wrong with her eyes. Dr.Krishna Mani, an Indian, living on the island longer than 30 years, was very helpful.
The best event on this island was a meeting with long time Russian friend Tatiana (we met in Austin), who, with her boyfriend happened to be travelling on a cruise ship and had a stop in George Town!
Cool beans!
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