Sea Day

Here we are onboard the Tahitian Princess. The ship is lovely, smaller than we are used to and quite different inside from most cruise ships we have sailed on. The interior décor is very traditional with dark wood, draperies, paintings, and artifacts that are reminiscent of an era long past. Our cabin is a nice size with space for all of the stuff that we brought with us. That is after the cabin steward lifted the bed legs onto towels to make it possible to store the suitcases under the beds and use them as drawers. All of the built in storage units are dark wood and the floor to ceiling mirror is framed in the same dark wood. There is a recessed picture window with both sheers and heavy drapes. I had been concerned that I would lose the dark cave effect of the inside cabin, but the draperies block out nearly all of the light making it barely possible to tell when the sun has risen.

The beds are very comfortable with the perfect weight comforter in a duvet and feather pillows for sleeping and a heavy bedspread for daytime. Right now I am sitting on the love seat in the cabin using the laptop on my lap. Jerry is lying on the bed and watching CNN on the television. There have been some small problems that the crew has remedied for us.

The skies have been overcast and the seas a little rocky right from the beginning. Because of the winds, the Captain made the decision about tendering in to Georgetown, Grand Cayman at the very last minute after the ship was at anchor. It turned out to be the perfect decision. We have been on tenders when we were tossed around a lot, but not this time.

We were on the first tender going ashore after the passengers on the ship’s tours were delivered to shore, so we had a nice long day in the port. We wore bathing suits under our clothes and headed to the beach. My guidebook gave instructions for getting to the public bus near the public library and we had no trouble walking directly to it. The bus was actually a 9 passenger van which dropped us off at the Public Beach on Seven Mile Beach for US $2.50 each.

Since it was early, the beach was nearly empty when we arrived. White sandbox sand slopes down to a cordoned off swimming area in the Caribbean blue water. We spread out our ship’s towels and soaked up the warmth of the sun. (Between the a/c and the overcast skies, we had been cold on the ship.) After a while we went down to the water, ouched our way across a little coral patch and dove into the water as soon as it was deep enough. At first, the water felt cold, but as soon as we were all wet, it was perfect. So we had a little swim and float and returned to the towels to dry off.

Because, of course, I had to eat lunch. We packed up our things and walked along the beach headed toward Gateway of India, a restaurant on the road back to the cruise ship terminals. We walked along the beach for about 45 minutes and arrived at a path to walk from the beach back to the road. While the beaches in the Cayman Islands are all the public, the access routes are not. Fortunately, there are many places between properties that are labeled for public access. We sat on a stone wall beside a lizard who seemed to be saying that the wall was his territory and he was not about to give it up just because we wanted to use it to put our shoes on. In a parking lot we saw an iguana/lizard at least two feet long, so I guess the critters are well fed and secure.

We easily found the restaurant, asked the cost of the buffet lunch and had a great meal. When we told the owner we were vegans, he made a dish of channa dal for us because there were only two vegetarian dishes on the buffet. It was so good! Then the server brought the check. Stupid us! We had not engaged our travel brains as yet. The price quoted was Cayman Island dollars, of course, since we were in the Cayman Islands, but we thought they were US dollars. We had no idea what the exchange rate was, but it turns out that a CI dollar is US$1.25. We never take much money ashore, especially to a beach, so when our $12 each lunch quickly turned into $36 with dessert, currency exchange and whatever, and we were left with very little cash. The change was CI $2.50 which at that point was useless to us. Lacking the money to pay for another bus ride, we had to walk all the way back to the ship. I had a nervous eye on my watch, giving us until 4 pm before I would begin to look for a way to get to the docks without enough money to pay for a ride. But by 4 pm we were at the terminal where the tenders were operating. We stepped into the nearest tourist trap and spent CI$2.24 on postcards, boarded the tender and returned to the ship.

Today I have bandaids on my toes that rubbed together and blistered on our long walk. Now hopefully our travel brains are fully engaged and we will be smarter about currencies and exchange rates.