Cruise Day 3: Grand Cayman

George Town, our second port-of-call, is the capital of the Cayman Islands which are directly south of Cuba and 180 miles northwest of Jamaica. It occupies 76 square miles and is 22 miles long and 8 miles wide. Its population of about 40,000 includes 20,000 indigenous people. Christopher Columbus, on his final voyage to the Americas, was blown by freak winds to these shores, on which he discovered multitudes of turtles causing him to name the islands “Las Tortugas.” However, later maps called them “Caimanau” meaning “crocodile” after the misidentified iguanas native to the islands. The island boasts no taxes of any sort and is ruled by a governor (not from the islands and hence neutral) appointed by the Queen since it remains a British territory.


No piers can accommodate tour ships, so all ships must use tenders, smaller boats, to transfer visitors to shore and back. Note the size differential between the Voyager and the shuttle tenders in the photo below…



Strong winds and large waves as seen below prevented all ships from anchoring by the unprotected downtown area, so all had to proceed 5 miles south to a protected bay called “The Spot,” thus requiring not only tender trips but also a bus ride to town.





The shore excursion we had signed up for (sea kayaking and power snorkeling) was canceled due to the waves, so we substituted horseback riding on Honey Suckle Beach.





The beach was scenic and the riding was fun, although most of the horses shied away from running in the water, and though it had been advertised as a 3 hour trip, it was only 2 hours, with only 1 hour of actual riding and an hour of driving/getting on horses, and unfortunately the value of the trip came nowhere close to equaling the cost of the excursion.





We were dropped off in downtown George Town where we got a bite to eat at a Paradise Restaurant by the Sea, complete with huge waves crashing over one section of the restaurant’s deck, and then walked through several stores and made a few purchases before catching a bus back to the dock and a tender back to the ship.