Grand Cayman, Day 4

December 25th, 2013

We thought this would probably be a pretty low key day because everything would be closed. Miles and I got up early, like I'm sure many excited, eager young people did on December 25th. We were looking for a good sunrise. We found one. I call this triptych sun, sea, and Miles in between.
There were chickens, sea gulls, and some prevaiing winds, do you think?


Anyway, 2-4 hours later, the kids woke up. We decide to hit the Blow Holes on the south side of the island.

Here, the limestone forms a very rocky shore, and the waves come in sometimes and get trapped and must release pressure by spouting, sometimes as much as 20 feet in the air. Here's what I mean (thanks Miles for the time lapse photos):
All of us had fun, and some of us got quite wet. Here they all are, being brave, waiting for it to blow.
 But then as the wave gets closer, some move forward, and some back off.
 And some get wetter than others.

It was very relaxing to watch the waves come in and go out. The Caribbean doesn't have big waves like the Atlantic, but here they break on hard limestone, and it looked and felt like they were crashing down. I took a 3 minute video of the waves just coming in and going out, covering a pair of rocks and uncovering them. Not going to bore you with it, but I have watched it a number of times since then.  We also saw a neat animal outline in the rock. It looks like a beetle or a snake skin? but it's rock, and I think about 3 inches long.




Well, it was a lovely day. There were people hanging out by the pool at the condo. They were there because they wanted to be with people on December 25th, they were there because they wanted to be away from toxic relatives, whatever. They were nice people! Not giving out names or pictures, but one was a 17 year old boy, and he really enjoyed hanging out with my sons (and my daughter, but was a bit tonguetied around her at first). My kids of course facebook friended him and I think they are still playing some online game together weeks later. There was also this great dog named Marley (after Bob, not the movie).

Later that afternoon, we inquired about a bioluminsecnet kayaking tour leaving from Kaibo Bay (yes, a 30 s walk from our condo they rented kayaks and other water stuff and had organized tours). Tomorrow is sold out, but there is room in the tour tonight . . .  - so we went. Didn't take cameras, didn't have ones appropriate for night time pictures, but here are a few off the internet. You dip your paddle in, disturb the plankton, and they bioluminesce (like fireflies, sort of).(Pictures from touristy website wanting you to go to Grand Cayman).


This required lots of hard paddling to get to the bay. If you are lazy, it would be easier to catch a tour from Rum Point (bt less fulfilling, I'm sure).

On the way back, we stopped at Starfish Point. The starfish congregate there in part because they like eating tiny shrimp that live there. The shrimp are called disco shrimp, because if you pound the sand with your paddle (the water's only 3 feet deep), they set off an explosion of short lived lights.

See the red jellyfish in the picture? Ignore that, that's not what we saw. We saw something like the white flashes behind the jellyfish (picture from NOAA). Having a great vacation.

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