Day 4 - Grand Cayman Island Excursion

It's so cool to be able to enjoy sunsets and sunrises on a cruise. I was awake early (4:30!) this morning so stirred around enough at 5:30 finally when I got up that Randy even woke up and joined me out on the deck to enjoy this gorgeous early morning bonus! The folks who stayed up for the 11:30 p.m. Mexican Buffet and party the night before missed this one.

The sun got up at 5:59. We'd passed into a different time zone so had set our watches back an hour before going to bed, so don't feel too bad for us.

The Liberty is our ship, in front of the two. This was taken from the tender we took from our ship to shore in Grand Caymans.

Taken on our ride from the tender drop off point to our Sting Ray City and Coral Reef Snorkeling Safari. It felt so wrong driving down the left side of the road, as we did in the Bahamas as well. I wonder how many accidents are caused by tourists renting vehicles.

We're still on Kelly's Water Sports' boat before jumping in to experience Sting Ray City. I felt safe here! Until I jumped in and they started rubbing up beside my legs unannounced from every direction, I didn't realize how frightened I would be.

Brave heart here - holding this big mama ray, and smiling even. . .

WAY too close for comfort - too bad this blog doesn't come with sound effects - you'd hear me screaming!

This took a LOT of nerve on my part - just touching this itty bitty one.

After getting lots of pressure from Randy, and watching many others safely hold the rays, I got up enough nerve to do the same - and here's the proof!

Snorkeling on the reef on our excursion was another highlight. We bought a DVD that a videographer from our ship made of our excursion, that shows all that we saw while snorkeling, as well as Randy holding the stingray at our first stop.

Randy took a family's picture and then they volunteered to take one of us - as happened many times this week.

MJ walking along 7 Mile Beach - you can see a cruise ship in the distance. Ours was out of view, and around the bend ahead.

Our dinner servers were from the Philippines and had never served "vegans" before. Marie Grace told us she's worked there three years, and we were her first. She was very interested and told us she was going to tell her dad (who is 54) about our diet because his doctor has told him he needs to improve his diet due to heart trouble. One night Ramil greeted us with "Tonight you're getting BREAD AND WATER." :) Marie Grace came to us several times to ask as she looked in disbelief at what we were eating (like eggplant & zucchini parmesan without cheese) "Is it good?"

We got back into our room after dinner to find another clever towel creation, this time seated on our bedside table - maybe it's the Pillsbury Dough Boy, or a dissatisfied passenger who hasn't been able to find a chair around the pool to sunbathe? That happened on our last day at sea, but alas I found one available lounge chair! Randy happily trotted off to a lounge to read the paper out of the sun.