DAY 3

First stop, Grand Caymen . Out of all 4 stops, this was the only country that wasn't third world. Come to find out they have 600 banks (ever heard of off shore banking? this is one of the hot spots) and they are part of the commonwealth.
We got off the ship early enough to buy sunglasses because 3 out of 4 of us, came on a cruise without sunglasses, and walk around and check out Grand Caymen. We met up with our tour group and took a boat out to sting ray city. It's amazing that these rays are so docile and they will eat out of your hand and let you hold them. It was also amazing that we were standing on a sandbar in the middle of the ocean. Doesn't the water look like a swimming pool!




I thought it was interesting that everywhere we stopped, we saw stray chickens.











Then we stopped at two more reefs and snorkeled. We spotted some sand dollars and dove down for 3 of them but they were so fragile and broke on the boat. But Ryan did find a sea shell that was pretty cool, free souvenir for the kids!



Back to the ship where we got some ice cream and sat in the back of the ship and watched Caymen disappear.

It is so peaceful to be out in the middle of the big blue ocean and also can make you feel so small. Have you ever stared down at the water from a ship? Doesn't it make you want to jump in? It just pulls you in. We talked about overboard scenarios at night while hanging out on deck.
To give you an idea of how much we ate, for dinner we always ordered at least 3 appetizer's, 2 entree's and 2 desserts. But it wasn't until the third night that we realized we could order so much. And it was also this evening that we asked our waiter what they did with all the wasted food. He said at 3 am, they dump it into the ocean for the fish. I felt far less guilty about not finishing a plate after I heard that, it's just a big circle of life :) Ryan ordered 3 entree's this night of lobster tail, mmmmmmmm.