Matt graciously hosted us for 2 weeks as we didn’t bother pre-booking flights. Being peak period they were all full for another week. There are definitely worse places to be stuck! Matt had a busy week at work and we spent our time around the pool and at the beach. Cayman is not as pretty as some of her Caribbean sisters but it has the infrastructure and jobs to make it a great place to live and work for awhile. Tax free helps! as does weekends filled with surfing, diving and boating. Photos are here.

]]> http://chambills.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/cayman-islands-in-the-rearview/feed/ 0 adammills Cuba 002 Cayman Islands 235 http://chambills.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/attack-of-the-stingrays/ http://chambills.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/attack-of-the-stingrays/#comments Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:34:44 +0000 adammills http://chambills.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/attack-of-the-stingrays/ ]]>

After our first failed attempt to reach Stingray Sandbar the week before, we were glad to see sunny skies and pleasant weather. We headed out on a trimaran with our local guide, Captain Dexter Ebanks. The sandbar was a mix of charters and party goers hanging out in the beautiful surroundings, mingling with a couple dozen 3-foot wide stingrays. Once in the water our guide caught a ray and showed us it’s mouth and how to catch them. They weren’t very interested in us so we had a hard time catching any of them, until… the squid. Our captain brought in two bags of chopped squid and suddenly we were surrounded in stingrays vying for our attention (really our squid). They feed with both serrated teeth and an immense amount of suction to pull in their prey. One guy had squid bits still on his hand when he left the pack. A ray unexpectedly latched onto his finger and drew blood (very minor, but scared him senseless).  It one of the coolest animal encounters we have had. The rays are so friendly you can cradle them in your arms!

We abandoned diving on Little Cayman as it was too expensive. So we treated ourselves to a set of interestingly sounding shore dives across the road from Matt’s office. The dive sites, Eden Rock & Devil’s Grotto, are a maze of tunnels and caves. The marine life is average for tropical diving but the fun of swimming through the grottos and schools of silver bait is amazing. My favourite adventure dive by far! The deepness of the blues as you come out of the tunnels into the open water has to be seen to be believed.

The photos above are not ours (we don’t have a scuba camera) but illustrate exactly what we saw. There were times when Kahlia and I couldn’t see each other because the silver bait were so thick in between.

The gear from Eden Rock Dive Centre was good and the prices the best we have seen on the island so far. We only got 3 dives in, which is more than enough to see the site as each dive lasts around 1 hour and 20 minutes in the shallow water.