Cayman.12--Miscellaneous

One day I went down to the most touristy part of the Caymans where people get off of the cruise ships, buy some Christmas ornaments with dolphins on them, drink a margarita, and get back on. Here is a picture of a fish market. The market is next door to a restaurant where you can bring the fish you buy and they'll cook them up for you.

I had just half an hour before I left for the airport, so I popped into the restaurant for some conch chowder, a local specialty, and some local beer (5 cents from each bottle goes to saving the sharks; the other local beer I had was called Caybrew--let's just say: Cayman is not known for its beer). Diana described conch as not tasting exactly like crab, but cooked like it: it's true; the pieces in the soup seemed flaky and small. It was buttery and delicious.



The last thing I want to tell you about is the stingrays. The picture below is not me. Sadly, buying the pictures of yourself holding the stingray cost as much as the trip itself.

We took a boat ride a half an hour out into the ocean, through waters of blues and turquoises that I've never seen in nature, to the spot where fishermen, first, and tourists, later, have been feeding the stingrays for decades. (I've decided that these stingrays must, as a result, be fat, lazy stingrays.) When we got out of the boats, the stingrays immediately swarmed around us, rubbing up against us like cats in a good mood. The guides gave us squid to hold in our hands "like ice cream cones." The stingrays would swim over our hands and suck the squid out of our hands like big, fat vacuum cleaners.

I loved this. I loved how friendly and affectionate they are (perhaps I'm anthropomorphizing and they were just hungry and know how to get food out of people). Either way, I found them to be delightful creatures and wish them luck as they hide from the sharks every night.

Before heading off to shore, we stopped and snorkeled at the reef. It was beautiful to see all of the life at the reef, but there was also a strong current there, pushing us away from the reef, so it wasn't too relaxing. Our final stop was around some corral to watch the fish--the guides through bits of conch to attract large schools of fish. And the guides swam through the water with us, blowing rings of air up to the surface.