Friday Flashback "Cayman Islands"

One of my friends started "Friday Flashbacks" on her blog and I loved the idea.  I thought I would try it out today since there hasn't been too much worth reporting as of late.  Busy season has begun so work schedules are insane and we haven't been able to get out as much as usual, so I figured this would be as good a time as ever to remember some fun adventures we've had.  (I've also been missing my girl, Maren, a lot lately.  We were planning on spending President's Day weekend together, but family stuff came up and it didn't work out, so this post is dedicated to her :)

The summer of 2007 a couple of friends, Maren and Abby, and I decided to spend a week in the Cayman Islands.  It turned out to be a jammed pack week of fun adventures and gorgeous weather.  Abby and I drove from Provo down to Vegas where we met up with Maren.  We flew out of Vegas on an overnight flight to Miami, had a crazy lay over sleeping on public benches, and then flew from Miami to Cayman...all on the worst airline known to man...SPIRIT AIR.  If you have a choice NEVER fly Spirit air, it was the worst experience ever, but I'm sure Abby and Maren could tell you more about that!

When we got to the airport our first item of business was renting a car.  We lucked out with a bright yellow "fisher price" car, just barely fitting the three of us and our luggage.  It was pretty priceless driving around in that thing, but at least we had a CD player where we could blast Kelly Clarkson!

(Make sure to click on the picture to enlarge the image!  They're GREAT)

We stayed at the Morritt's Tortuga Resort.  It was on the south east side of the island, right on the beach and it literally felt like we had stepped into a scene from a dirty dancing movie where the resort is full of activities and family adventures!  We were assigned our own entertainment coordinator named Jim who turned out to be one of the most fun people we ever met!!  He quickly scheduled daily activities for us that would help us see the island and have the most jammed pack itinerary of fun.  He pretty much rocked our world!

On our first night, the resort threw a "Welcome Home" party with a live band, dancing, lizards, and an audience participation fire dancing...yes I was pulled from the audience to help.  After dancing the night away in hot humidity while watching a gorgeous sunset on the beach, we were considered the crazy Mormon girls who don't drink alcohol, but act like they're drunk.

Our second day was probably my favorite.  A local fisherman took a group of us from the hotel out to Sting Ray pass to go snorkeling and swim with the rays.  It was such an incredible experience to see literally hundreds of manta rays swarming around you while you fed them squid out of the palm of your hand.  We had to shuffle our feet on the sand bar to make sure we never stepped on any of them.  They have been docile for decades now, since it is such a hot spot for tourists.  The rays know they are going to be fed very well, so they hang out on the sand bar waiting for crazy tourists to hop in the water.  After swimming with the rays, our captain took us to the Cayman reef for snorkeling.  It was there that I freaked everyone out by screaming shark at the top of my lungs!  But to my credit a shark was circling me, so I was only reacting to my environment, right!?  The captain wouldn't let me back in the boat until I had fed the nurse shark squid.  The captain then took me on my own private snorkeling tour (since I was a little freaked out) where he showed me sea turtles, morray eals, and loads of colorful fish.  It was a pretty amazing day to say the least!

The next day we drove into the main city/town for shopping and an underwater submarine ride along the Cayman reef.  Georgetown had some incredible shops where I spent a little too much on cute sundresses and shoes.  The weather was funny since it went from super sunny to massive pouring rain and then back to super sunny.  The submarine ride was ok, nothing too exciting and Maren got pretty sea sick.  It was pretty funny to watch her slowly knock out due to dramamine, though.  After our fun day we ended up finding the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and then drove back to our hotel and crashed.

The next day was filled with a morning kayak trip through the mangroves, which was pretty amazing, although you would think I would have learned to put sunscreen on by the fourth day of our trip...not so much!  Maren and I had a blast paddling and getting into all sorts of trouble with our tour guide.  We then drove back to our hotel to get freshened up for our evening dinner sunset cruise.  Jim set us up with a fun cruise across the bay and then a "romantic" dinner on the water.  He was hilarious and was a perfect date for all of us.  On the cruise back to the hotel, we ended up having a dance competition on the boat, you can guess that Abby and I had a little too much fun crushing the competition!

Our last couple days were filled with lots of laying out, sunbathing, swimming, and driving around the island.  We spent some time at the turtle farm, running around on the 7 mile beach (where I'm sure Maren and I looked like a total lesbian couple), checking out "Hell" a strange geological island finding, and spending a day at Rum Point drinking out of coconuts.  

Not too bad for a week in the Caymans!  I sure did love it there and loved it even more with my girls Maren and Abby!  Great first flashback :)