Grand Cayman

I was SO bummed this morning when we woke up to pouring rain. As we got up and got ready so early and then travelled by tender to land, I wondered why the heck we even bothered getting out of bed.

We had originally booked a snorkel and sting ray tour, but upon getting to land decided to take a bus tour so we could try and stay a little bit dry. The bus tour was actually pretty cool. Best part was turtle island. Hundreds and hundreds of sea turtles. It was amazing. And we got to pick 'em up and play with them, big ones and baby ones!

By the time our bus tour ended....hallelujah, the sun was blazing! We made our way back to the ship and saw that our snorkel/stingray tour was still available. We hopped on a bus, which took us to a boat which took us out to the middle of the ocean (sandbars). We were then able to hop off the boat into crytal clear warm water to do a stingray encounter. I would highly recommend this to anyone who comes to the area. Touching and holding the stingrays was incredible! Unfortunately, Emma was completely terrified and ended up back on the boat to observe.

Next it was off to a reef for snorkelling. The water was 10-12 feet deep, so being the non-swimmer that I am I decided to stay on the boat with Emma. After Terry had been out for a few minutes, he insisted that I put on some snorkel gear and come have a look. I very hesitantly did so (ok, he had to beg me, I was terrified). I got in the water and put on the gear and took a quick look under the water. Again, very cool. But when I looked up, the current had already pulled us about 50 ft from the boat. I started to panic and Terry had to help me back to the boat. Thank goodness we made it, it was very scary for me!

We just got back on the ship and cleaned ourselves up and are heading off for another awesome meal.

Such a great day today! My first time swimming in the ocean! :)