March 31- Georgetown Grand Cayman

This morning we docked in the port of Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island which is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean.  It is located about 150 kilometers south of Cuba.  Grand Cayman is the largest of the Cayman Islands with a size of just over two hundred square kilometers and Georgetown is the island’s capital with a population of about twenty thousand people.  During the peak tourist season the population doubles with a number of cruise ships docking in the port.

We are in port with two other ships, the Zaandam which has been following us since the Panama Canal and a Germany cruise liner called Adia.  So as could be expected the terminal is very busy.

We started the day by visiting the Dolphin Experience.  Here we got to swim with the bottlenose dolphins in a large enclosed pen.  First we were shown how to use hand signals to make “Darwin” perform some close up tricks, such as kissing our cheeks or dancing on its tail.  Next we swam across the pen on a boogie board, where the dolphin then pushed us back to the platform at a very high rate of speed.  After this we again swam across the pen, where the dolphin circled us, turned on its belly where we grabbed its fins so it could pull us back to the platform.

This was lots of fun and will stay in our memory for a long time.  Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photographs and we will have to rely on the pictures of our swim that we bought from the Dolphin Experience store.

Next we went to Seven Mile Beach. This long stretch of white sand is a very popular beach that has many beach bars and restaurants.  This was a nice place to cool off because the temperature is in the high 20s today with a searing sun.

Georgetown has a very low skyline.  There are no large condominium towers along the shore to distract from the natural beauty of the island.  Georgetown reminds me of Myrtle Beach South Carolina in a lot of ways.  Many of the building have coral coloured stucco walls and there are many small strip malls that sell beach side apparel.

Tonight the onboard entertainment was a British singer and comedian named Jayne Curry.  This was easily the best show of the cruise. She has a wonderful voice but more importantly she is hilarious with that dry sense of humour that is found in British comedy.  It was such a popular show that she will be doing a second show tomorrow.

After diner we had an informative conversation with our head waiter, Vasyl, who is from the Ukraine.  He explained the current political situation over there and how he converts his pay in American dollars into Ukrainian hryvnia.