Grand Cayman Day 1 and 2

Saturday, May 1, 2010

We got up about 3:45 a.m. To get ready to head to the airport for our 7:10 flight. My dad was nice enough to get up at 4:30 in the morning to take us to the airport. After we checked in for our flight, we managed to make it through security without much trouble. However, they did pull Eric and his bag to the side and open it up and swab it for explosives. After we made it through security, we grabbed some breakfast and waited for our flight to leave Phoenix for Dallas Fort Worth. When we got to Dallas we had to get off the plane and take the train all the way around the airport to get to a different terminal to make our connecting flight. As soon as we got to the gate, we got right on as they were already boarding.

We made it to Miami without incident and had about a two hour layover there before our flight to Grand Cayman. We walked around the terminal to see what there was to eat, as the Miami Airport has a very limited choice of places to eat. We finally settled on a slice of pizza and pasta. It definitely was not gourmet by any means, but you will eat just about anything when you are hungry.

We made it onto our flight from Miami to Grand Cayman, which is only a little over an hour long. I ended up sleeping most of the flight. I think Eric managed to catch some Zzzz's also. We landed in Grand Cayman and zipped through Customs and Immigration and luckily both of our bags made it safely too. They seem to be much quicker at getting people through Immigration in Grand Cayman than in Bonaire that is for sure.

We then headed out the front of the airport with all of our bags and proceeded across the street to pick up our rental car. They are also much quicker about getting you in your car and on your way in Grand Cayman. We loaded all our bags into our Dihatsu “microcar” and headed for Turtle Nest Inn in Bodden Town. Once we made it to the Inn, we unloaded all of our luggage and headed to the grocery store to get some bottled water and breakfast foods as the grocery stores are all closed here on Sundays. We got our groceries and head back to the Inn and crashed for the night. What a long day!!!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Needless to say, we slept in. We eventually crawled out of bed and Eric started getting our stuff ready for the first dive of the day while I fixed us an omelet for breakfast. We have a very nice apartment here at the Inn. We have a full kitchen with stove/oven and a full size refrigerator. The room is actually very spacious and has one bedroom and a bath. We actually have an excellent ocean view also.

After getting everything rounded up and loaded into the car we headed down the road and stopped first at Sunset House. We checked out the entry and decided to go on down the road to some place we had already dove before. So we drove on down the road to Eden Rock. We rented our tanks and jumped in with all our camera equipment and headed out. Eric had a new fish-eye lens that he was trying on his camera and I had an entirely new setup with an HD video camera. This was kind of a test run for both of us getting used to our new equipment.

We finished our dive there and headed over to Paradise Restaurant for lunch. Eric had a huge chicken sandwich and I had a chicken quesadilla. We actually managed to keep the bill to around $30 (which is surprising because the last time we ate there our bill was usually around $50 each time). Eating in Cayman is not cheap!!!

After we finished lunch we headed down the road to Turtle Reef, which is another place we had dove before. We rented our tanks there and jumped in. The water was a bit choppy today as it was very windy, but we really did not have any issues. I managed to get some really good video of a stingray and Eric got a few good pictures of some stuff also. We did not really see anything amazing or out of the ordinary, but got some good practice working with our new equipment.

Tomorrow we are heading out on a two-tank morning boat dive with Ocean Frontiers to an area we have never dove before, so it should be interesting.