Day 5

Day 5: Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Jess woke up quite a bit earlier than planned, and even Jer awoke before the alarm. Jer made us a luxurious breakfast (eggs, English bacon, tea and the rest of our cakes from Captain's Bakery and Grill, which we discovered to be a Jamaican chain), which we ate on the deck, watching the four cruise ships tender in passengers. Eventually, we got ready and headed outside to wait for our Cayman Safari pickup.

Our driver, Mike Powell (a/k/a Big Kahuna), was a former standup comedian and naturalized Caymanian with a distinct dislike of pirates and an obvious love of the environment. He told us a lot about the country and its history, in and around cracking jokes. The Cayman Safari covered a fair bit of ground on the southern and eastern sides of the island, which we couldn't have conveniently visited by bus, including:

• Pedro St. James, a massive stone and wooden house built around 1780, it was the first big residence in the Caymans. Originally it was run as a small plantation worked by slaves, but after abolition it was a private home that fell into disrepair, before eventually being restored as a national heritage site. While there, we learned about Caymanian building materials (like wattle and daub made using seagrape vines and crushed coral limestone; silver thatch palm rope, which is amazingly strong; and ironwood, which is hard to work but almost as heavy and durable as its namesake metal).
• Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park, an oasis for flora and fauna carved out of the native Caymanian scrub. While there, we saw many varieties of flowering ginger, banana orchids and slipper orchids, allspice plants, jasmine, ylang-ylang and lots of other pretty-looking and/or -smelling flowers. In terms of fauna, we spotted a couple of white egrets, a few herons and, the clear highlight, a female and a male blue iguana. They're docile and fairly unafraid of humans, so we were able to get quite close (indeed, the female iguana really liked one of our fellow tour passenger's orange toenails and sparkly sandals, so she got more of a close-up than she really wanted).
• For lunch, we stopped at a local restaurant, Vivine's Kitchen, on the East End. We had the Cayman style fried grouper, which was topped with a flavorful sauce and served with fried plantains, boiled breadfruit, rice and beans, homemade punch (Jer had carrot/ginger and Jess had mango) and delicious, well-spiced heavy cake. Everything was really good, and we were able to verify our guide's claim that cooked breadfruit looks like a chunk of pineapple but tastes like a potato.
• On our way back toward town, we passed by the blowholes and saw water shoot up into the air. They weren't nearly as impressive as the ones in Aruba, but — as some tourists taking photos close to them learned — they were still big enough to soak nearby bystanders.
• At the edge of town, we stopped for a free beer at the Caybrew brewery. (Jess had the Caylight, which was citrusy and not too hoppy; Jer had the White Tip Lager, which was a little darker and hoppier). We're not big beer drinkers, but this wasn't bad.
• Our last stop was the Tortuga factory, where we tasted rum cakes (original, cinnamon-raisin and key lime) and rum-based spirits (mango rum, which was really sweet but, in Jess's view, kinda tasty; rum cream liqueur, which was extremely thick and not that good. We skipped the banana rum and coffee rum.

After the tour dropped us off back at Harbour View Apartments, we freshened up quickly then headed into town to see about diving at Eden Rock dive center. On our way, we stopped at the Seven Fathoms rum distillery. The tour guide had gone home, but one of the staff (possibly the manager or master distiller) showed us around and let us sample some of the products. Their "regular" rum is Governor's Reserve, which comes in white, gold, spiced, banana and coconut; we tried the gold, which was flavorful but a bit rough, and the spiced, which was a much sweeter than most we've had. The Seven Fathoms rum is matured in underwater casks 42 feet underwater (hence the name) and is dark and caramelly. Jess liked it, but Jer found it to be too smooth.

We also stopped at the 18th century Step Well, the oldest man-made structure on Grand Cayman. It was once an important fresh water source on an island with no rivers or lakes. It was a flight of stairs cut into the ground, down to a small hole where fresh water seeped through the limestone and pooled in a natural basin. Now it's covered in glass and viewed through the floor of an apparel embroidery shop in the Bayshore Mall, which is slightly odd (but ensures that it remains well-preserved).

We finally made it to Eden Rock dive center, where we learned that there was still staff available for a 2pm guided dive the next day. We were unsure whether we'd be back from the next morning's activities in time, so we decided to wait and see. We headed back to our studio to relax for a bit, stopping at Kirk Market for milk and sugar on our way. Back at the apartment, we drank a ginger beer on the deck. Jess updated this journal and Jer read for a bit, then it was time to head to dinner.

We caught a bus straight up to Agua, arriving a bit early. We were seated promptly at 7pm and shared the pulpo al olivo tiradito appetizer (octopus in lime and black olive emulsion with an arugula and tomato salad), then Jer had a sampler of three ceviches and Jess had a crabmeat-stuffed portabella cap with mushroom sauce and more arugula. We split the mango mousse with berries. Everything was excellent; this was quite possibly our best dinner thus far on Grand Cayman. Partway through dinner our dive instructor, Scott from Happy Fish Divers, arrived to give us our SCUBA c-cards and explain our logbooks. He ended up joining us for dinner, which was fun. He told us about some of his favorite dives (like the end of the wall at Macabuca, past where most divers go) and gave us some diving helpful suggestions, then gave us a ride back to Harbour View Apartments.

Back in our studio, we reviewed our dive options for the next day. Unfortunately, Happy Fish Divers didn't have an instructor free, so we decided we'd see how things went the next day. If diving didn't work out, there were plenty of snorkel spots to try too. We needed to catch an early bus to Bodden Town, so pretty soon it was time for bed.