The Continuing Adventures of Dr Dzoe

I’m now sitting in Miami, enjoying net connectivity over the cell network.  We’ve made it through customs (always a challenge in Miami), everyone who wants food has had it, and all we have to do now is get home.  This trip is just about over, and now I have to look forward to too few degrees on the thermometer.

It was a good trip.  We did lots of fun stuff.  I didn’t enjoy myself quite as much as on previous tropic trips, but then, I wasn’t really in a state to enjoy myself quite as much.  Still, all was good.

But I don’t think I’ll be visiting a non-US dollar vacation destination until the dollar recovers a bit.  Things were expensive on the islands, and the exchange rate did not help.

High points:

– Kate and Diana vote for Stingray City.

– Andy votes for the beach – both walking it and just sitting on it.

– Julie liked the horseback riding.

– For me, it’s always about being wet.  Either scuba or snorkel – I just want to be moist.

There were a few firsts this time around: this was our first non-inclusive tropics vacation, and the first time we rented a car for the whole week.  I rather liked that, though it did add to the expense.  It let us do a lot greater variety of stuff, and allowed the occasional random jaunt that was fun.  (Inclusive resorts worked out really well when the kids were young.  They’re not as young now, so it wasn’t as necessary.)

On the water front: I liked the diving at Cozumel last year more than at Caymans.  The coral and wildlife here wasn’t notably better, and the drift diving at Cozumel was a lot more fun.  (The current is strong enough at Cozumel that you hardly have to swim – just drift along by the corals.)

And oh – today was the first rainy/ugly day that I’ve ever had in the Caribbean, after six trips down there.  So I did not get a chance to swim this morning, before the plane.  But there’s something kind of nice about bad weather on the day that you leave – makes it easier to go.

So farewell to another trip.  I do hope to keep up the blog – not as many posts as this week.  But do keep an eye on this space and see if I can keep up the resolve over the new year.

Our last full day turned out to be a windy one.

High winds, rough seas – there’s a nor’easter coming this way, and the state of the island shows it.

First activity of the day: I finally got Julie out snorkeling. Alas, because of the roughness, visibility was limited, and so she did not have a lovely time. Julie is a bit nervous in the water at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. Still, I saw a nice ray, though no pictures.

Then, Julie, Kate, Diana, and I all went horseback riding on the beach. That was special – and the winds helped keep things comfortable and cool. A nice healthy bunch of horses as well.

Then off shopping in George Town. It was fun to watch the cruise-ship tenders maneuvering through the rough seas to bring hearty cruise-ship passengers to visit the town. That must have been a rough ride!

Back to the hotel, and I went for a short swim. My intention was to do a little body surfing, but a rocky bottom combined with poor visibility and memory of all those spiny sea urchins now hidden beneath the opaque waves quickly convinced me that the most comfortable dip would be in the hot tub.

Then one last dinner, this time at Decker’s. Nice, but not as nice as last night’s meal.

Note the pina colada in the picture above. Between this and some rum punch on the pirate ship, Kate is developing a taste for demon rum.

And so goes my last post from Grand Cayman. I’ll do a trip wrap-up somewhere in transit tomorrow. Now, to try to steel myself for a place where a cold day means something more than 70 degrees and high winds…

The last few of times I went to the Caribbean, I made a point of going out one night with my trusty underwater flashlight and a snorkel.

The first time I did this, at the Turks and Caicos, there was a party going on at one of the resorts not far from the reef where I snorkeled.  As I swam along through the dark waters, the visible sea consisting only of what was illuminated by the shaft of light from my flashlight, my underwater ears could only hear the bass tones from the music playing at the party. Those base tones sounded something like this: “Da dum. Da dum. Da dum da dum da dum da dum…” Yes, I was all alone in the water at night with the theme from Jaws playing for me. It was terrifying and exhillerating, and I’ve made a point of repeating the experience at all possible opportunities.

On this trip, tonight was the night.

The down side: the visibility was terrible. (Yes, Bill – I know it was night. I mean visibility with my flashlight.) There was so much debris in the water that in places I could barely see three feet. This produced even more anxiety than you would expect, as the most prevalent life form off the resort’s beach appears to be spiny sea urchins. And I did not want to stumble into one of these ugly little bombs, so feeling my way through the murk was right out.

But there is a big upside to diving at night, other than the adrenaline rush. That’s the creatures that only come out after dark. Of these, my favorite is the octopus. One accommodated me tonight.

Thank you, Mister Octopus. (Or maybe Mrs Octopus, though I suppose that would only really matter to another octopus. It certainly did not matter to me!)

The thing about Marriott resorts is that they have a never-ending stream of lavish events for large prices. Case in point:

Today, while Julie and I drove around the island, the kids lounged on the beach. At some point, as often happens with kids, the girls got hungry. So they went to the hotel restaurant where they found a nice brunch buffet set up. Yum, they said. The food was quite good, the service excellent, what’s not to love?

Then came the bill, and they found out what’s not to love. This was a Marriott special New Years brunch. $65 per person. Yikes!

So what’s a girl to do when faced with a bill like that? Or, more to the point, what’s two girls to do?

Charge it to the room, of course.

Before setting out this morning, I noticed a sign announcing the absurdly expensive New Years Brunch Buffet being held at the resort. And I wondered what kind of fool would pay that kind of money for brunch.

Now I know.

(And a postscript: if you know the Dzikiewicz family dynamics, you know who is going to be paying that particular bill.  In other words, I am not, in the above paragraph, accusing my daughters of being fools.)

No diving today. Instead, Julie and I hopped in the car and drove around the island. The sites we saw:

– Rum Point. A crowded public beach with a dock at one end and food stands at the other. No big deal.

– Snorkeling at some random beach that we stumbled across. Lots of fan corals, bunches of undistinguished fish.

– A visit to the Grand Cayman Botanical Gardens. The place includes an English-style carefully cultivated country garden, only with tropical plants and iguanas. I discovered a few years back in England that I like carefully cultured English-style country gardens, the kind of places where even the butterflies seem planned, and they are even nicer with tropical plants.

– A visit to what the map said was the St James Pedro Castle. It wasn’t a castle, but there were cold drinks and a nice view.

– Snorkeling off another random beach. Some really good coral formations here.

– The best meal we’ve had on the island so far, at Casanova’s. I ate way too much.

– A special adventure that merits its own post.

I made it until midnight after all.  After sitting around the room until 11:45 or so, we all went down to the beach to see rumored fireworks.  Our hotel did not have any, but there were fireworks shot off at other resorts and condos up and down the beach.  All of which was visible from where we stood, as the beach curves around.  And did I mention that this stretch is called “Seven Mile Beach?”  From that, you can guess that there were plenty of fireworks to be seen.  Pretty neat!