Cayman Islands

This is the final cruise post! I know, the time has finally arrived.

Going back to day 3 of the cruise...we spent our first port day in the Cayman Islands. Like all of the ports, it was beautiful and the weather was excellent. This was also the only day that we splurged on an excursion through the cruise ship. We thought it would be a good idea because we were able to do 3 different activities.

Our first activity was a visit to the turtle farm. If you know Eric, you know he is obsessed with the color green. Consequently, he automatically loves turtle because they are green.

We saw some big turtles that we couldn't touch because they would bite us. Then we saw these medium sized turtles that we got to hold. It was my first time ever touching a turtle. Not as scary as I thought it would be :)

They were actually really funny. When you held them, the turtles would flap their little hands like crazy and smack us. Luckily it didn't hurt. And if you stroked the bottom of the turtle's neck it would calm down.

We got to feel and lift an actual turtle shell. You could see the vertebrae on the inside of the shell--which Eric liked. He's such a nerd like that! But I love it because I know that he'll enjoy his career as a chiropractor!

We even got to hold little tiny turtles. How cute is that!?

Our next stop was Hell. Really. There is an actual town on the Cayman Islands called Hell because of this dead coral in the background. It's just a tiny town.

Tourists like us get suckered into these places. But we enjoyed it! We even sent our moms post cards from Hell for Mother's Day.

I don't think this picture was technically taken this day, but look how cool my husband is! Hehe.

The last stop on our island tour was swimming with the stingrays. We hopped on a boat and rode into the ocean about 20-30 minutes until we came across a sandbar that is home to a TON of stingray. Eric and I think the stingray stay put because they know they will get fed by tourists.

Eric jumped at the opportunity to feed the stingray some squid. He was also the first in the group to hold the stingray. Unfortunately, I have been too lazy to scan all the pics from our water camera. I keep telling myself I will, but it hasn't happened yet!

I was next up to hold the stingray. I was definitely scared to hold it at first because they have a stinger on the end of their tale. Our guides kept saying that we have to hold our arms firm but not lift the stingray up too high or else they might sting us. This made me scared to lift at all, so the first couple times the stingray just slid right through my arms! Eric was a natural, of course.

I was still a little scared of them, but I sucked it up and kissed the stingray. It was a once in a lifetime experience and I am so glad we did it.

The creepiest part of the day was walking around or just standing in the ocean and feeling something against your leg. You'd look down and there would be stingrays swimming all around your feet. A stingray scared me that way one time, so I started panicking and stepping in place and I almost stepped right on one! I was so scared I'd make a stingray mad and they would sting me. I'm such a baby! :)

Before we boarded the ship there was a water station on the dock. Look at these cool paper cups...they have handles!!

And this sums up many of our evenings on the cruise as well as some of our days at sea:

SCRABBLE!! Oh how I love this game!

Eric and I had a good cruise. As you can see, the Cayman Islands was my favorite day and Mexico was Eric's favorite day. We will probably end up going on another cruise one day...but next time we will be sure to bring friends and family along! I think it's one of those things where the more people there are, the better it is.