Grand Cayman After The Hurricane Season
by: Clint Leung
One of the ports visited on our recent Royal Caribbean cruise was Grand
Cayman. This was an eagerly awaited port since I've been there before
but wanted to take my girlfriend scuba diving there. We were worried
that we might miss this port since the Caymans were hit pretty hard
by the hurricanes and indeed, they had closed the islands off to tourist
travel for part of the summer/fall. Fortunately for us, Grand Cayman
had reopened just about two weeks prior to our cruise at the end of
November.
Getting to Grand Cayman is by tender since it had a shallow harbour.
This can be a potential problem in itself because we were told that
if the wind and waves are too rough, the captain would cancel the port
and spend the rest of the day at sea. Apparently in the past, one of
the tender boat workers had fallen and got crushed to death between
the boat and the dock during one of the rougher wave days. This resulted
in the cruiseships being much more careful in deciding whether to allow
tendering or not given the conditions. Again, fortunately for us, the
weather was picture perfect during the day we were in Grand Cayman last
week.
The downtown area pretty well recovered from the effects of the hurricanes
and the shopping was business as usual. There were four ships at port
during the day we were at port. Grand Cayman is above average in terms
of cleaniness and the attitude of the locals for a Caribbean island.
It is also one of the pricier island though. Bargains can still be found
though, especially in the liquor where there are examples of certain
liquors being even less expensive in Grand Cayman than even Cozumel.
For example, Malibu rum was $10 US in Grand Cayman, $13 in Cozumel and
about $19 back in the Miami home port. Everything else like restaurants
and activities were generally more expensive than other islands.
According to other passengers who ventured to other parts of the island,
the damage from the hurricanes was more visible with fallen trees and
some buildings still not repaired yet. A few of the organized tours
by the cruiseship were also not available. We decided in advance to
do some scuba diving off the shore and Eden Rocks Scuba Center was a
5 minute walk from the port. There are two decent shore dives right
in front of their dive shop and we spend the morning diving the site
called Devil's Grotto. Instead of paying $85 US for a typical Cayman
boat dive trip, I ended up paying just $8 US for a rental for a tank.
I didn't go to other parts of the island during this trip but have
been to the turtle farm, Hell village and Stingray City before. They
are all worthwhile sites to visit. I wanted to take my girlfriend scuba
diving at Stingray City in the afternoon but for some reason, only the
snorkelling sections of Stingray City were available that day. So after
returning to the cruiseship for lunch, we went back ashore to do some
shopping. We would like to come back to Grand Cayman again for a longer
stay in the future.
In summary, most of Grand Cayman appears to be back in business again
after the hurricanes. It is one of the nicer but pricier ports to visit
in the Caribbean.
About The Author - Clint Leung is owner of Free Spirit
Gallery (http://www.FreeSpiritGallery.ca),
an online gallery specializing in Inuit and Northwest Native art including
carvings, sculpture and prints. Free Spirit Gallery has numerous information
resource articles with photos of authentic Inuit and Native art as well
as free eCards.
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