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Grand Cayman After The Hurricane Season
By Clint Leung, Thu Dec 8th
One of the ports visited on our recent Royal Caribbean cruisewas Grand Cayman. This was an eagerly awaited port since I'vebeen there before but wanted to take my girlfriend scuba divingthere. We were worried that we might miss this port since theCaymans were hit pretty hard by the hurricanes and indeed, theyhad closed the islands off to tourist travel for part of thesummer/fall. Fortunately for us, Grand Cayman had reopened justabout two weeks prior to our cruise at the end of November. Getting to Grand Cayman is by tender since it had a shallowharbour. This can be a potential problem in itself because wewere told that if the wind and waves are too rough, the captainwould cancel the port and spend the rest of the day at sea.Apparently in the past, one of the tender boat workers hadfallen and got crushed to death between the boat and the dockduring one of the rougher wave days. This resulted in thecruiseships being much more careful in deciding whether to allowtendering or not given the conditions. Again, fortunately forus, the weather was picture perfect during the day we were inGrand Cayman last week. The downtown area pretty well recovered from the effects of thehurricanes and the shopping was business as usual. There werefour ships at port during the day we were at port. Grand Caymanis above average in terms of cleaniness and the attitude of thelocals for a Caribbean island. It is also one of the pricierisland though. Bargains can still be found though, especially inthe liquor where there are examples of certain liquors beingeven less expensive in Grand Cayman than even Cozumel. Forexample, Malibu rum was $10 US in Grand Cayman, $13 in Cozumeland about $19 back in the Miami home port. Everything else likerestaurants and activities were generally more expensive thanother islands.
According to other passengers who ventured to other parts of theisland, the damage from the hurricanes was more visible withfallen trees and some buildings still not repaired yet. A few ofthe organized tours by the cruiseship were also not available.We decided in advance to do some off the shore andEden Rocks Scuba Center was a 5 minute walk from the port. Thereare two decent shore dives right in front of their dive shop andwe spend the morning diving the site called Devil's Grotto.Instead of paying $85 US for a typical Cayman boat dive trip, Iended up paying just $8 US for a rental for a tank. I didn't go to other parts of the island during this trip buthave been to the turtle farm, Hell village and Stingray Citybefore. They are all worthwhile sites to visit. I wanted to takemy girlfriend at Stingray City in the afternoon butfor some reason, only the snorkelling sections of Stingray Citywere available that day. So after returning to the cruiseshipfor lunch, we went back ashore to do some shopping. We wouldlike to come back to Grand Cayman again for a longer stay in thefuture. In summary, most of Grand Cayman appears to be back in businessagain after the hurricanes. It is one of the nicer but pricierports to visit in the Caribbean. About the author:Clint Leung is owner of Free Spirit Gallery (http://www.FreeSpiritGallery.ca), an online galleryspecializing in Inuit and Northwest Native art includingcarvings, sculpture and prints. Free Spirit Gallery has numerousinformation resource articles with photos of authentic Inuit andNative art as well as free eCards.
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