La Capanna (Lucca) and the delicacies of Lucca

To Hell and Back - Grand Cayman Adventures In Hell

Tuesday brought our first port, Grand Cayman Island - a part of 3 islands known as the Caymans which are part of the British West Indies. The coral surrounding this island makes it impossible for the ships to dock at the piers (unless they built a pier that was 2 miles long - and then no one would want to walk that far anyway). Because of this, we had to board tenders (smaller boats) to get to shore. This was our first adventure - and we were asked to take the first tenders since our tour left at 8:15am and the ship arrived at 7:30am. So that meant a very early rise - breakfast delivered to our room by 6:45am so we could eat, get ready, and take care of some small business prior to catching the tender to shore.

The tender was nicer than I anticipated. I’ve seen in ports where they use the big orange life boats that you sit inside and suffocate on your way over to the port (remember the humidity here that we are dealing with). Much to our surprise, we boarded very nice, open boats with long benches, but plenty of air to blow through and keep us cool. I’m not sure of the weather facts for the day, but I would guess the temperature in G’town, Grand Cayman had to be in the upper 80s or low 90s, humidity around 80%, and a heat index somewhere around 100 degrees (that is what it felt like). The pier they dropped us at was new concrete that just reflected that solar heat and made it much worse. The minute we got away from that bright concrete pier area, the heat did not seem so bad, but it sure was humid.

See, here is my thing with you mid-West folks (Chicago, etc). If it is going to be high 80s in both temperature and humidity, you may as well live in the Caymans (where you can price a condo for about the same as one on the north side of Chicago - and the only benefit is watching Cubs’games for free - even though they never win anything). Sure, you have hurricanes here, but the chances of a direct hit are about the same as the Cubs winning the World Series - so you may as well take the Caymans, a satelite dish, and a little WGN to get you through summer.
Where was I? Oh, so today we decided to take a basic tour of the island and then a semi-submersible ride so we could enjoy the beauty of the reef and its inhabitants without knowing how to dive (or worrying about a mask and snorkel on Alyssa). The island tour had just a few stops, all of which were interesting or exciting from different vantage points.

The first stop was at a green Sea Turtle Farm. A little history here for you - Christopher Columbus discovered the Cayman Islands back in the early 1500s. There were so many turtles running wild on the islands, that he named the islands the Tortugas - or turtles. This name stuck until the 1800s when it was renamed Cayman after the Mayan crocodile god or some bozo like that. Anyhow, today there is a turtle farm on Grand Cayman to help rescue and prevent the green sea turtles from being extinct.

This was an amazing facility - large pools of different sized turtles everywhere. We never saw the largest turtles, but the ones that were apparently juveniles were HUGE! A good 3 feet wide and 5 feet long it seemed. We then moved over to the baby pools - your more garden variety sized turtles - where we all got a chance to hold one and take a picture. See….
Following the turtle farm, we all piled back into the air conditioned bus, drove about 100’ and then stopped at the Tortuga Rum Cake factory where we….errr, I got a chance to sample different flavored rum cakes and rum. They were all good. I bought some. Enough said.
So, we got to see and play with turtles, I got my rum fix, we even got to see some other interesting things and places along the way - and then suddenly the trip turned and headed straight to Hell.

Hell, Cayman Islands is located just north of Georgetown in an otherwise normal Cayman neighborhood. Hell is the name given to a rocky lava outcropping in an otherwise very vegetated area of the island. Hell was also the location of a hunting ground frequented by King George during his visits to the Caymans. As legend has it (ahem), the King was out hunting fowl when he shot and missed in this area. He then said “Oh Bloody Hell!” and the name stuck. What I think happened was that when the cruise ships started to frequent Grand Cayman Island, some clever dude said, “I own a piece of land that is about as usefull as hell. Hmmm.” So he put up a fence, a sign, and a gift shop and invited people to come visit Hell. People came. Cruise ships ate it up. Guy now also owns a gas station and got the local government to rename the road “Hell Lane”. Success story.

In all honesty, the rock formation was something else to look at, even pretty in some ways. The gift shot could use an upgrade. But the kicker of it all was that it was raining in Hell. In fact, it downright down poured in Hell. I even took a picture of the downpour because Hell is supposed to not be so wet.

Anyway, the funniest thing is that there is no smoking in Hell. No kidding. So you smokers, guess what, not only do we ask you to go stand in a pen 57489 feet from any human if you wish to smoke and then suffer through a myriad of glares that all suggest to you “Go to hell you smoker!!” - but once you do indeed get to Hell, you are asked not to smoke either. That is funny. Burn in Hell, but just don’t smoke.

Anyhow, it continued to rain in Hell the entire time we were there. Jule mailed a post card from Hell. I didn’t, you can read it here or go to Hell if you don’t like it. In fact, I suggest it. Come to Hell. Hell if I remember if we went anywhere after that - but the tour was great and the guide was good. There is NO Walmart here, so maybe Hell isn’t all that bad!

So that tour ended - and we were brought back to Georgetown where we had a few moments to mess around before our next tour started. We were going on the semi-submersibles - boats where you sit in the bottom and stare out big windows to see the ocean life without having to get wet or dive or snorkel. So we were bussed about a mile to where we caught the boat, except once we got there, they finally told us that the boat was lacking air conditioning and that we would either try to go despite the suffocating heat (remember - outside where the air moved it felt like 100 degrees and wet - imagine being cooped up in a boat with no air circulation), we could opt for a refund, or we could wait for later sailings with the hope that both the boat would miraculously be fixed and that there would be a seat available. We took the obvious choice - the refund. Unfortunately we were on our own to walk back to the cruise ship, a good mile. Jule and Alyssa headed back while I poked around at some shops.

So most of Georgetown is under construction. They say not much damage came from Hurricane Wilma a few years ago, but if this is “little” damage, I would hate to see mild to moderate. Since there is a lot of construction, there are few nice shops hit and miss. Most of them are the garden variety Hard Rock Café, Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet, Senor Frogs, Diamonds International (who make sure to occupy at least 357080345893409 shops at each and every cruise ship port in the world, except in the USA). Not finding much, I stepped on a pop top and decided to cruise on back home. Margaritaville had my name on it, and there was a lot of hooting and hollering coming from the upper levels. So up I went to find a massive crowd watching college co-eds perform in a “grind” contest. Boy were the men excited. Other than big bootys, the restaurant featured a nice sized bar, lots of flat screen TVs, a restaurant area, and a big water slide. How cool is that???

So I did NOT get wasted away in Margaritaville - but I was wasting away in the humidity and heat - so I decided to head to the ship and go swimming. Caught up to Jule and Alyssa (I was probably 20 minutes behind them) and we went swimming together.

Alyssa has turned into a pill. Terrible twos are alive and well. She’ll do good for a while, but absolutely hates the kids program and is starting to screem if we take her. In the meantime, we restructure our activities to find something she will like and she gets wild and crazy and we end up back in the room frustrated and tired. Every other word is “NO!!!!” or her new favorite “BECAUSE I NEEEEEEEED IT…. I REALLY NEEEEED IT!!” Yep, laugh it up - some of you will be in these shoes too. Those who have been in these shoes, can I get a witness?? Don’t get me wrong, we are still having fun, but the fun is a lot more curtailed and just as we seem to have hours of good Alyssa, evil mean Alyssa surfaces. After the formal dinner fiasco where we had to eat fast to get her from the Kids Camp we’ve more or less been eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the café instead of the formal dining room. Oh well. Maybe it was taking her to Hell and did it - because those devil horns have sprouted and are sticking around. Beautiful weather although it always threatens to rain. Showers seem to come each evening after we depart. So long Caymans - hola to Cozumel!!