Turtles and Fish and Rum (for some)

Today we were up bright and early at 7:30 AM. We got ready as quick as we could, had some oatmeal for breakfast since we were out of milk, and piled into our 2 rental cars. We headed up the road about 20 minutes to Boatswain's Beach, which has a turtle farm among other entertainment. We all checked in and got our wristbands, then headed out to the huge park.
First we checked out the turtle breeding pond, where there are hundreds of fully grown sea turtles (the largest weighing in at over 500 lbs. and the oldest at 68 years old) swimming around. We gave them some turtle pellets to snack on and then headed over the check out the rest of the turtle tanks, which have turtles varying in size from that of a dinner plate to the fully grown half-tonners. At one tank we all got to hold a turtle and get our pictures taken with it...they were softer than we expected, with sort of malleable bodies, and their fins were extremely strong as they flapped around. We had to rub them from the tip of their chin to the base of their neck to get them to stop flapping and calm down...the keepers said it was their favorite way to be petted. That was Sarah's favorite part of the day =]
After feeding and checking out more turtles, we headed over the Breaker's Lagoon, a freshwater pool with rock waterfalls and plenty of iguanas sunning themselves on the island in the middle. We spent a little time there cooling off, then headed over to the other lagoon, which is saltwater and intended for snorkeling. They keep some variety of fish as well as 6 sea turtles in there for everyone to snorkel with, and you can also swim up to an underwater shark viewing window. We snorkeled with the kids and Del for about half an hour, enough to circle the whole lagoon once.
It looked by then that it might begin to rain soon so we headed over to the restaurant overlooking the lagoon to wait out the rain and get something to eat. Doug got another plate of fish and chips with a pina colada smoothie, and Sarah had fettuccine alfredo and bread with a root beer. The food was good once again, and Kerri got a free piece of coconut pie from the waitress since they didn't have any of the key lime pie that she had wanted. We all shared the pie and it, too, was excellent.
After we ate some of us headed over to the nature trail and walked through that for a bit, checking out the interesting plants and the "Blue Hole," a sinkhole and cave at the end of the trail. Then we went over to the bird aviary, where we got to feed some scarlet and white ibis and check out lizards outside, including the resident Caiman and Blue Iguanas, Samson and Delilah.

Cayman Islands - Day 3

Today we didn't really have any plans since we had no car and hadn't yet gotten a chance to go through all of our tourist office materials, so we decided to just spend the day relaxing on the beach. Doug wanted to go into Georgetown to a camera shop to pick up a new lens cap, so he took the bus down with Jared to run his errand. Sarah and Jamie walked over to the grocery store, Foster's Food Fair, to get some bare essentials since they couldn't carry much back without a car. On the way back we all seemed to run into each other on the West Bay Road sidewalk, also encountering Del, Linda and Andrew on their way for some homemade, fresh donuts.
Once back at the condo we unloaded our groceries and had a leisurely breakfast, then sunscreened up and headed down to our beach chairs. We pulled a few chairs and two umbrellas down to the water's edge and relaxed a few hours away...luckily the jellyfish count was slim to none today so we could swim in peace!
The boys all headed down the beach around noon to check out waverunners, with extra high hopes they'd be cheap. Disappointment abounded as they were $200/hour for a double and we'd need three of them...but once again, Del and Linda stepped up and without hesitation agreed to pay for them. We got our names on the list to take them out at 3:30 and waited eagerly for that time to roll around. In the meantime Sarah made grilled cheese sandwiches for Doug and Jared and we hung out in the condo for awhile, heading out just before it was time to go down to Red Sail Sports and have some fun.
After reapplying sunscreen we all trapsed down the beach and signed the necessary paperwork, hefting on tacky yellow lifejackets but not caring a bit. Sarah took Amanda on her waverunner and Doug took Alexander, Jared driving his own since he would've had to be 18 to drive a passenger. The boys spent most of their time racing each other, but Sarah couldn't go fast since Amanda's drive for thrill seeking isn't too keen =] They spent most of the time cruising, watching the boys, and doing donuts in the clear water. At one point Jared spotted a sea turtle or two and we crowded around to check it out, but got warned by the staff that we had to stay 100 yards apart at all times. With that we all headed in to pick up new passengers. Kerri got on to drive Alexander, Doug took Andrew, and Jared snuck off with Sarah as his passenger despite the rule against it. That worked out for awhile, but soon after Jared's driving sent them both flying off the waverunner and into the water, the staff came out and made them switch drivers. Overall the hourlong waverunner session was really fun for everybody, even for the watchers (party poopers) on the beach.
Back at our home stretch of beach, we headed inside for a little relaxation and then went back out, armed with Sarah's iPod player. It quite abruptly began to pour down rain, so all electronics were hidden in Kerri's stroller as the huge drops fell and we all took refuge in the warm water of the sea. We waited out the storm, which lasted for about 40 minutes, and then headed back inside to dry off. Soon after all of our adventures on the high seas, we were all feeling pretty hungry so we headed out to the road to pick up our new rental cars and go out to dinner.
With the rain abated, we headed a little ways down West Bay Road to an outdoor restaurant called Coconut Joe's, situated around a central 100-year-old tree. The menus were a crack-up, offering such oddities as "Monkey Bones" and "Monkey Wings" and jumping at every opportunity to make a corny joke. The food was excellent though; Doug ordered his second plate of fish and chips along with another pina colada smoothie, and Sarah had a mango smoothie with a veggie rice bowl. After some clowning around and an overindulgence on 2-4-1 mudslides by the parental/grandparental units of the group, we headed back to our condos for a relaxing and uneventful night, marred only by the lack of proper dessert (we had to settle for Coco Krispies).

Cayman Islands - Day 2

So having arrived in Miami, we happened upon an Asian restaurant called Manchu Wok, an unlikely place for breakfast but one we had tried before with relative greasy success. We all ordered something to eat, Sarah opting for an egg and cheese croissant sandwich and Doug ordering eggs with toast and orange juice.

After breakfast we all headed over to our gate to wait out of 5 hour layover and were rather disappointed to learn that it had been extended - instead of leaving at 11:25 AM, our plane was now delayed and set to leave at 1:00 PM. With nothing to do but wait, we laid out our things in an section of the waiting area and proceeded to do just that. Sarah slept a tiny bit on the ground, as did Doug, but we were always rudely awakened by Anthony's (the youngest of Sarah's cousins, he is 3 years old) screams or constant questions.
Sarah and Anthony enjoying KitKats and pretzels.

He was super excited to go on the plane so the inquiries were never ending (How do the police keep the monsters off the planes? Is the plane as tall as Sarah? etc).
Eventually, though, our wait was over and at about 1:10 PM we were allowed to board the plane. The pilot explained and apologized that the delay had been due to bad weather in Atlanta, which couldn't be made up for since the crew was required by the FAA to have at least a 10 hour crew rest in between flights. The pilot was pretty cheerful and humorous, so we all forgave him. This flight was much less full than our previous one had been, yet the flight attendant still failed to deliver peanuts or pretzels or whatever snack it is they served to the both of us, so we were stuck with just our ginger ales. The flight was only an hour and a half long, so we got into Georgetown at about 2:15 PM Cayman time, which is only two hours later than California versus the three in Miami because they do not observe Daylight Savings Time here. The 70% humidity was immediately noticeable once we stepped onto the runway, which was bordered on both sides by ocean; also noticeable was the pair of Cayman men playing Caribbean music live outside the terminal. We stepped into the air-conditioned terminal and waited for some time in line to go through customs, which was fairly simple and unintimidating. We had only a few bags to pick up since neither of us had checked anything, and we quickly headed out of the airport, eager to catch our shuttle and head to the condos. Del checked in with the tour company who was running our shuttle and we got aboard along with a most-likely-intimidated quiet couple and completed the short drive to West Bay Road where Villas of the Galleon was located. We also got the treat of seeing an iguana on the side of the road, kindly pointed out by our driver as American music filled the van. We finally arrived at the condos and checked in, then scoped out all three to decide who would go where.
We settled into condo #1, which has a small ocean view and two rooms, one with two twins and one with a California King.
We headed down to the beach, which is practically our front yard. The white sand was dotted with pine and palm trees as well as umbrellas and chairs, with the light blue, very clear water rolling calmly up the shore. We all swam for awhile in the water, keenly noticing the jellyfish that seemed to be omnipresent. Doug ran to ask the office if they were stinging jellyfish, and the woman told him that yes, we should stay away from them, but they should be on their way out after being whisked in after a recent tropical storm. With that promise, we carefully swam awhile longer, Sarah opting to lay out rather than get stung again (she was stung in Mexico a few years ago) until we were too hungry to swim anymore.
We discussed where to go and opted just to walk down the beach and find someplace since we didn't have a car to use. We walked a half mile or so down the beach, sweating under the blazing sun, until we reached a beachfront restaurant laid out in the sand. We sat down to eat at Calico Jack's, ordering smoothies and ice water from the British Columbian waitress. The extended menu offered vegetarian quesadillas, which Sarah ordered along with a mango smoothie, and Doug went with some fresh fish and chips and a pina colada smoothie. The food was excellent, and both of us were brave enough to try Linda's conch fritters, a specialty here; they were not bad! The adults hung out at the tables enjoying their CayBrews, the local beer, as the kids headed a few feet down to the beach. Doug wrestled with the boys in the water while Sarah and Amanda swam a bit and watched the craziness in the water.
We soon noticed that we were being bit by little black flies, supposedly No-See-Ems that we could see, so we decided to head back as darkness began to fall. As we were walking slowly down the beach we noticed ripples in the water and saw that there was a huge adult sea turtle swimmng up near the shore. We guessed that it was probably looking for a place to lay its eggs, so we tried our best to leave it alone after a few photos. Doug noticed that his lens cap was missing, so we searched for it on the sand in the dark. When we couldn't find it, he ran back to the restaurant beachfront to look for it but it was nowhere to be found. Sarah waited for him on the beach and when he returned we gave up and headed back to the condo, dodging crabs and possible washed-up jellyfish in the dark. Once we got back Sarah hopped in the shower as Doug headed out once again with his headlamp to look for his cap again. He returned about half an hour later empty-handed. Jamie, Jared, and the two of us headed to bed early as we hadn't had proper sleep the previous night and all drifted off quickly in the cool rooms.

Cayman Islands - Day 1

Today was exactly what it should have been - a packing and preparing day. Our flight was due to leave LAX at 10:45 PM, a red eye to Georgetown, Grand Cayman, British West Indies with a layover in Miami. Both of us spent the day finishing up our DVD of our Sierra backpacking trip so we could show it to Sarah's grandparents once we got to the Caymans. Once Jared was done with FilmED at 4 PM, we got the last of our things together and headed out for Sarah's aunt Kerri's house, which is just 5 minutes from the airport in El Segundo. Surprisingly the traffic wasn't too terrible, and we got there in about an hour. We picked up Sarah's cousins Alexander and Andrew and their luggage and went to wait inside the airport while Sarah's mom and Kerri went back for the two other kids and Jesus, Kerri's husband.

About 20 minutes later they showed up along with Del and Linda, Sarah's grandparents, and we proceeded to the self check-in kiosks. The check-in process took awhile given that we had 12 people , but eventually we got it done and went through security as well, where all that was confiscated was Alexander's toothpaste. We made the trek to our gate, 48A, as Linda stopped along the way to buy a KitKat bar for everybody (it's sort of a travel tradition that she does for the grandkids whenever they travel together). Once we found a big enough circle of vacant chairs, we all unloaded our carry-ons. Kerri's clan (as they definitely are with 6 people) headed to Burger King, while the rest of us opted for Chili's. The waitress put together enough tables and chairs for six of us and we slowly but surely got our order through and processed. Sarah had a bowl of potato soup and a side Caesar salad, which Doug shared with her along with his own cup of soup. When boarding time finally rolled around, we clambered onto the plane in a semi-orderly fashion and took our seats, the two of us next to Jamie and Jared somewhere up front by himself, having taken Doug's assigned seat.
The five hour flight went by fairly quickly, possibly because our last flight was 11 hours! We both slept off and on until we arrived at Miami International at 7-something AM Miami time (4-something AM to our weary bodies). Sounds like time to switch over to Day 2! .....