To Hell and Back

Continuing with the Charlie Brown on a Cruise series, both of the cruises we've taken with Dale and Carol have stopped in Grand Cayman. Grand Cayman doesn't have a pier big enough for a cruise ship so you are "tendered" to the island on boats. On our first cruise, we arrived in Grand Cayman under leaden, gray skies. The captain warned us that there would likely be rain and that some of the excursions had been canceled but we got on a tender and went to the island anyway. We had planned to do a little shopping and then find a beach for the afternoon. Unfortunately, the rain had other ideas for us. As we tried to think of an activity where we wouldn't get soaked, Dale mentioned that his aunt and uncle had really enjoyed the turtle farm the last time they were there. Since we couldn't go to the beach in the rain, we decided to give it a try. 

We caught a bus that took us directly to the turtle farm. It turned out that the turtle farm was a bunch of tanks, out in the rain, containing hundreds and hundreds of sea turtles. Grand Cayman is doing a wonderful thing by breeding and releasing these endangered turtles, but as a tourist attraction the turtle farm leaves a little to be desired. Imagine walking along, in the rain, and looking at tank after tank of various sizes of sea turtles swimming around on top of each other. It was just that exciting.

After all the thrills of the turtle farm, we were ready to go back to the ship. We got on a bus that we assumed would take us back to the pier. We did eventually get there but we went through Hell and back on the way. The first thing we noticed when we sat down was that we were the only touristy looking people on the bus and the second thing we noticed was the monitor showing a hip-hop video. The bus was actually a mass transit bus so it made stops all over the island for the locals. We were on the bus for almost two hours, watching hip-hop videos and stopping at random businesses, houses, and spots on the road as people got on and off. We rode through a small town on Grand Cayman named Hell. Obviously, this is a tourist destination because you can send postcards saying "I've been to Hell" and have them postmarked at the Hell post office. We also saw many other parts of Grand Cayman on the bus tour that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. We also got a glimpse of the lives of the locals but I could have done without the hip-hop videos. As you can imagine, Dale is still getting a hard time about the turtle farm and the trip to Hell and back. On the bright side, however, Dale is no longer responsible for our travel itinerary and I know that makes him happy.

Once we got back to the pier, it had really started raining hard. We got on a tender and started back to the ship. The tender was going directly into the wind, rain and waves. Poor Carol was sitting on the outside of the bench seat we were on and, although the boat had an awning, it was not stopping a single drop of the rain or sea spray from hitting her. The temperature had also dropped so not only was Carol getting wet, she was freezing as well. By the time we got back to the ship, Carol couldn't possibly have been any wetter even if she had jumped over the side and directly in the ocean. I would like to apologize publicly to Carol for bringing this tropical depression down on her with my Charlie Brown curse. I think we are now even for the antique champagne incident.