Cruise, Day 5: A day on the farm

Day 5 of the cruise found us docked in Grand Cayman. Back in 2004, Hurricane Ivan devastated the island, leveling large portions of the structures and leaving most of the island under water for quite some time. Our tour guide pointed out all of the new buildings as we drove along, noting that just about everything is new construction. Part of the problem is that the highest point on the island is 60 feet above sea level, which meant that the island was a blank slate before and after the winds. I was impressed with the rebuilding efforts, and can only imagine that most residents are wondering when the next big one is coming. Once again, we were one of many ships in the harbor, and we were told that this is the slow time of the year. Normally, there are apparently up to nine of these monstrosities in the harbor on any given day, flooding this tiny island with thousands and thousands of tourists, the main source of income for the island. I was glad to be there on a slow day, even if the locals would have preferred more of us.

We visited Boatswain's Beach, which is billed as an "adventure park" but is basically a ranch where the main livestock is green sea turtles. Our tourguide explained that 70% of the turtles are bred for tourism and breeding stock, 20% are released into the wild to help replenish the dwindling numbers...and 10% are for food. We were reminded that the Cayman Islands have no natural resources, and overfishing has resulted in diminishing returns for other seafood, so turtles are a part of the diet in the area. I have no idea why this bothered me, as any other form of ranching would involve numbers of an inverse proportion, but it did. I think serving turtle soup in the gift shop is a bit much, but again, I am admittedly anthropomorphizing here.

Here are a couple videos I made of the turtles...some are cuter than others...





We also stopped by Hell, which is a tiny town/post office in Grand Cayman, so you can...you guessed it, send postcards from Hell! Ha-HA! We realized too late that we didn't have any addresses with us, and we've become so reliant on having that information written down somewhere that I could barely remember our own zip code, let alone anybody else's. Opportunity...missed.

Back aboard. we went and watched the Mariner Masters Poker Tournament final table, and had a nice time. We even met Captain Johnny, who was kind enough to pose with us for a photo. Nice day, but by this time, we were really starting to wear down. Lots of fun things, but not a lot of relaxing fun things. Tomorrow would need to be different.