Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Day 4 - Grand Cayman

We spent today on Grand Cayman. Shortly after arriving we heard the bad news..the government closed trips to Stingray City because the seas were too rough. Bummer. We really wanted to swim with the stingrays. Well, we had fun anyway. We went to Hell, visited a sea turtle farm and sampled an excellent Cayman-style lunch.

Grand Cayman is a haven for banks (and foreign money) since King George declared it to forever be a tax-free province after the locals rescued the survivors of 10 British ships that crashed on the reef as they arrived back in the 1700's. Consequently, between the banks and tourism (the primary income for the island) they had sufficient resources to completely rebuild within 6 months after Hurricane Ivan nearly wiped the island clean! By comparison, parts of Cozumel, Mexico and some areas of New Orleans are still struggling to recover! They haven't even repaired the docks in Cozumel yet and we'll have to tender in from the bay.



~

3 comments:

The Tiffany's said...

Hell looks rather pleasant!

Tricky Trix said...

What rotten luck with the weather/rough seas! So sorry.

Melly said...

Yea, I'd go to Hell anyday! Sad about the stingrays. That was our favorite part fo the whole cruise.