Cruise Day 3

Day 3 was our first stop! Grand Cayman. Grand Cayman was beautiful. They have really strict laws about littering and so their island was gorgeous. We docked at Grand Cayman at 8am so we had to be in the lounge ready to disembark at 7:45am. Early, but worth it. We decided to do the stingray city and turtle farm excursion this day. I think we are all happy we did. It was perfect. Our first stop was Stingray city. We got on a shuttle that took us to the other side of the island and dropped us off at a boat dock to get on a boat. On the drive we saw probably a dozen of these guys...

We drove out about 20 minutes into the middle of the ocean to a sandbar. As soon as we pulled up the stingray started swarming. They knew we had food. They were so big! 


Our tour guide/boat driver told us that the big ones are the girls and the little ones are the boys. He also demonstrated how to tell the sex of the ray...haha.

[it's a boy]

[poor burned joshie and val kisses a ray]

[i'm kissing a sting-ray]

[so cute]

[kisses]

[eye]

[whoa that's a big one]

[can you tell i'm having fun?]

[josh getting a back massage and the ray squirting water at us]

It really was an amazing experience. It was like nothing I'd ever done before! 

After our 2 hours with the rays we headed back to land to the turtle farm. 

The turtle farm was amazing. They took us on a tour all around the place and we saw tons of different size and kinds of turtles. They were all so cool. 

The tour guide pulled a bunch of turtles out and just started handing them out. They were so cute!!

[the breeding pool]

[their fins hurt when they slapped]

After our little tour around the turtle pools they set us free to do our own thing. Jacob and Valerie decided to head back to the pools and hold all the different turtles. Josh and I hit the water and swam with the fish and turtles. The water was a big circle that you could swim around with islands and a bridge. When you got close to the bridge there was a big glass wall underneath that looked into the predator tank. By the bridge there were hundreds of fish and they were not afraid of us. They swam all around us. There were also turtles! It was so incredible. Unfortunately, I forgot to take videos of the coolest part! Ugh! But, the pictures are pretty incredible. 

 Now, it was a turtle farm. So after seeing, holding and swimming with these amazing creatures they have a restaurant where...yep, you guessed it, you can order turtle. Jacob ordered a turtle sandwich and Josh got turtle soup. So sad. And not that good. I did try the soup. It was like really tough beef. 

After the turtle farm we got back on the shuttle and were on a ferry back to the ship. Grand Cayman was amazing! We had such a fun time there. 

That night we were all pretty wiped. We went back to our rooms, showered, cleaned up and headed to dinner. At dinner Valerie told Jacob his hair looked like a porcupine. He was only slightly offended. Haha

After dinner we headed up to the top of the ship to see the beautiful sunset. 

After seeing the gorgeous sunset we headed to our favorite spot, the serenity lounge. 

We all got some ice cream on the way (of course). We just sat on the lounge chairs and talked. We also played a game. 

Towel animal of the day:

[a hare]