Grand Cayman 2023
Day 9: Diving and a white dress
We were able to sleep in until 6:30am this morning but I'm sure being out and up so late the night before took its toll on us and contributed to this.
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Today we were going to have to figure out what we were doing for meals because the stores are not open in Grand Cayman on Sundays. Plus the fact that we were trying to use up all the food we had brought with us so that our luggage would be lighter on the way home and less to pack. I had brought a smaller suitcase with us this time that contained just our food and my goal was to be able to pack that small suitcase into the larger one and only have to lug around 3 suitcases in total on the way home. So....everyone eat up the rest of the food please!!
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Sakari woke up at 8am and then quickly disappeared. She didn't even stick around for breakfast even after we had waited on her to get up before we ate. I started looking for her and found her back out on the dock fishing. I guess she knew that she had to take the fishing pole back today and she wanted to get the most out of it.
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I walked down to see if she was having any luck and she had not caught one fish. They had actually wised up and was stealing her bait this time around.
We had a few visitors this morning around the pool and in the tree. The bird in the tree was a little more vocal and sang for us for awhile. It was kind of blending in with the tree and took me forever to find it but it had an American Idol voice for sure.
Sakari was on her last piece of squid and managed to catch...absolutely nothing. The water was real stirred up today as well and it started to sprinkle again. So, the fishing gig was over and it was time to take her pole back to the bait shop but she had a great experience. We will have to do this again on vacation because she enjoyed it so much.
When we returned the rod, the lady (Millie) was there promptly at 10am and said "Oh, I thought you would at least keep it a little longer". I told her she was out at the dock early this morning using up the rest of the bait and about all the fish she had caught. Millie was so nice. She told me to make sure to give her a good review online...and I still need to do that because she was awesome. So if you are staying in Grand Cayman on the North side, make sure to go to NORTH COAST BAIT & TACKLE at Old Man Bay. They also do fishing trips where they'll take you fishing and cook your catch at a private beachside setting with picnic tables and hammocks. If I would have known about that, I probably would have inquired a little more and done this fishing trip (because from the sounds of it, they can do by shore or at the reef).
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When she returned my money, I ask if I could have change in Cayman Dollars and she obliged and I was happy to have some very pretty money handed to me to add to my collection at home.
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Once back at the house, I had the hubby lug the luggage downstairs and I started to pack and get some more of our laundry done. Then came the chore of trying to put together a puzzle piece of stuffing things in the smaller luggage and then putting that luggage into the bigger one. I tried every way I could possibly think of and nothing was working. Remove luggage, insert luggage, rearrange luggage. Nope! It just wasn't fitting and wasn't going to no matter how many times I arranged it. I was defeated. I guess we were going to be carrying 4 luggage home with us after all.
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We watched a movie as I did this...waiting for our time to count down until it was time to leave for our scuba diving at Eden Rock. I knew that the water was a little churned up from the storms the previous day but was hopeful that it wouldn't affect us during the dive.
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We arrived at the dive center at 1pm and the guy I spoke to about diving was there and he was going to be the one to take us out. I was glad because I really liked him. We signed our forms and I showed him Sakari's dive book filled with all of our previous dives and the dive we just took the other day.
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He put all of our equipment together for us and I psyched myself up for the dive, hoping that I wouldn't have any bloopers this time around...because you just never know with me...and this would be the first time we would dive and NOT doing any class OR the skills prior to the dive. This was going to be as if we were actually divers...only with a guide. Get in water and GOOOOOOO.
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He gave us a key to the lockers and we shoved our belongings in it. We were armed with a crap ton of photography junk to take along with us so that I would be able to do this review and show all you fine people what you are missing out on if you have never went diving and then it was time for ME to put my equipment on. Yes, you heard that right. The other day diving gave me new hope. Hope I had never had before about trying to walk and dive with my equipment on.
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I told our instructor about my leg and showed him my battle scars and elephant foot. I told him I had not been able to carry a tank on my back since 2019 BUT I had managed to come out of the water, on a ladder, the other day by myself and was quite proud of it. This time around I wanted to try to do it all. I wanted to go down the ladder and get in the water. He told me this was ok and that there are 2 ladders to enter the water. One was straight up and down and the other had a bit of a gradual decline and we would go down that one. If for any reason I felt like I couldn't do it, he would take my equipment down for me. I WAS DOING THIS!!!
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Sakari went in first to give me courage and show me how easy it was going to be.
Then it was my turn. I slowly approached, reversed and started to climb down. The hubby looked on like it was an accident waiting to happen and held his breath all while saying "You ok? You got this baby! You can do it". To took each step one by one and eventually I MADE IT! I was so proud of myself that I almost forgot to get a picture of the hubby coming down.
Everything was good and we gave the thumbs up and I could tell the hubby was proud of me by the expression on his face behind the mask. I gave him a thumbs up and I didn't even think about my beginning dive anxiety that I sometimes get.
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This would be our dive map of where we were heading:
And out by that boat and beyond is where we will be.
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Then off we went to explore. Now the instructor did tell us that visibility wasn't the greatest and he had taken divers out all morning and it was gradually getting better so we really didn't know what to expect.