Dan and I recently played in a Gaelic football tournament in Cayman.  Dan had been practicing with his company team for a while but I hadn’t played before at all and didn’t know the game, but was drafted to play in the Cayman vs. Cayman ladies match as there weren’t enough girls and I happened to own a pair of cleats.  Gaelic football is kind of a mix between rugby and soccer, so it wasn’t too hard to get a handle on the rules… being coordinated enough to put those rules into play was another story!  I truthfully wasn’t too keen on the idea of playing but I ended up having a pretty good time at the games; I can’t say I was a very effective team member but I didn’t embarrass myself either.

I wasn’t completely impressed by Grand Cayman over the first couple of days; it was beautiful, tropical and fun and the beach was stunning but I felt like I was in Florida or some other southern type place in the US.  Though the hotel, restaurants and pubs I went to were nice, they all just felt a bit too familiar.  Plus, it was extremely expensive, with the US dollar being equivalent to about 0.75 of the Caymanian dollar.  I didn’t even bother calculating the exchange on the loonie…

Then came the last day of our trip.  Dan, myself and three of his coworkers went on a boat tour for about 3-4 hours, which took us to three different locations: Stingray City, the barrier reef around Grand Cayman and a coral garden. 

Stingray City is a sandbar about 30 minutes out from the island.  When we arrived, we followed the tour leader - a Jamaican guy named Vernon - off the boat and into the shallow water.  We didn’t see anything at first but as soon as Vernon brought out the food for the stingrays, a large number of huge, black blobs started to approach with what seemed like increasing speed.  Now, just for the record, stingrays will not sting you on purpose if you aren’t threatening them.  They are actually quite friendly and Vernon explained that it’s fairly difficult to get stung if you keep calm and watch your footing.  At first when all the stingrays are swimming around freely, it was quite frightening. They just come up to you and brush against you, several at once sometimes, which is terrifying until you start to trust that they’re not going to hurt you.  Vernon took each of us, one at a time, and helped us hold the stingrays and feed them.  It was an incredible experience.  I can’t say they’re the best looking animals I’ve ever spent time with (although, their skin is very soft!) but it really amazing to be in such close contact with an animal so different from anything I’d ever seen before and not feel in the slightest way threatened.

We snorkeled for about 30 minutes in each of our next two stops, which was also an incredible experience.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, as neither Dan nor I had ever been snorkeling before.  It was pretty much exactly as I pictured it, which made the experience all the more surreal.  Along with many, many assorted tropical fish, Vernon took us to see a couple of eels, both of which ate food right from his hand.  I thought I’d be a bit squeamish around all those big fish but I was quite comfortable. 

To top off the experience, on the boat ride home, Vernon (who had been fishing for his dinner throughout the tour – sans fishing rod, with just a line and some bait) caught a large barracuda and reeled it in with his bare hands!

I’ve posted a couple of pictures from Cayman already but we’re waiting for the shots from our underwater camera to be developed, so I will update again when we get those back.