Mandi and I took a quick trip down to Grand Cayman last weekend. It was a pretty short trip but we still managed to do a little of everything: hiking, diving, snorkeling, and the usual lounging around.

The Caymans are just south of Cuba, a couple of hours from Miami. It took us a total of about 8 hours to get to the hotel on Grand Cayman from our door here in DC. We’d gone there about ten years ago with Mandi’s parents, so we mostly knew what we were getting into.

The hiking trip was especially intersting because we had a local guide who told us a bit about the island. Apparently after Sept. 11 they lost a lot of tourists so the government rolled back a lot of regulations to try to get them back. The trail we hiked runs through land owned by a private trust, odd compared to here in the US where trails are mostly government owned and maintained. On the way to the trail we stopped at a saltwater pond, where we watched birds and a tarpon feeding on tiny fish. On the trail we saw all sorts of wildlife, including parrots and snakes (yikes!). Lucky for us, it was the dry season there, so there wasn’t a mosquito to be seen. The trail leads to the highest point on the island, like 60 feet high.

It was pretty windy the whole time we were there so Mandi didn’t get to go diving as much as she wanted. We only went snorkeling the last day, when the waves calmed down a little. The water was pretty cloudy but there were still plenty of fish around.

We enjoyed some great meals; the best was probably at The Wharf, where they feed fish scraps to a school of milling tarpon every night. Sounds silly as I type it, but it was pretty exciting to see such big fish splashing around.

Pretty fun trip, but I’m wondering if we can find the same sort of stuff in Florida, saving a few hours of travel time.

Isaac

This entry was posted by isaac on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2004 at 4:30 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.