Another good thing about Carnival is their buffet breakfast. They put out about five different kinds of cereals in large bowls, and so I grazed some of this one, some of that one, some of this one, oh, and add some raisins. It was almost like home. About the only thing missing were fresh strawberries and blueberries. I guess you can't have it all, unless you're at home. You should pass on the scrambled eggs. They were very reminiscient of college scrambled eggs: runny and pretty tasteless. But they would also make a fresh omelet for you, much better than the "scrambled eggs."
We were right on time for our 7am arrival at Grand Cayman. Damn, now this is a beautiful island. There must have been 100 excursions available here, and almost half of them involved stingrays. Several excursions had an early trip and a later trip. Every later trip was booked up, leaving only early (7am, 7:30am, etc) trips available, and a 7am excursion is not our idea of a leisurely vacation. So, we decided to simply catch a "tender" ashore and wander around, do some shopping, have some lunch.
Since there is no deepwater pier at Grand Cayman, we anchored about 500 meters offshore. As we pushed away from the Conquest, we noticed that there were three other cruiseliners anchored nearby. Reminded me of mosquitoes, hovering, buzzing, waiting to strike! Tourists by the thousands, ready to come ashore and spend, spend, spend. Or bitch, bitch, bitch.It was only about a 10-minute tender trip to the dock. No chance to get seasick.
Although they told you to take your passport, no one checked it coming to or going from Grand Cayman. Nice. A big difference between the Caymans and Jamaica, there was no one at Cayman waiting to pester you, sell you something, follow you around or try to pick your pocket like many places in Jamaica. It was clear, sunny, and warm. Glorious.They drop you off at downtown Georgetown, the capital of Grand Cayman. We waded through the thick strands of tourists and visited a couple of shops but didn't buy anything yet. Back in the sun, we found a nice little library and we dropped in for awhile.
The quiet is always nice. I love to visit libraries. There were seats for maybe 20 people and it was about half full. Pretty good for a beautiful day, and most of them didn't look like tourists. The librarian directed us to a local drugstore, where we picked up more dramamine, just in case.Wandering again, we found a second-floor store that had a lot of everything at good prices. I'd been needing a new tropical shirt - bingo. Kitchen magnets! Ka-ching!
A T-shirt for the wife and some trinkets, baubles and beads. Water? Could use some. Rum cakes? Forgot them! They even had free broadband internet access for customers and a free VOIP telephone so you can call anyone anywhere in the world, for free. That's a pretty cool marketing idea. Get a VOIP phone and give it away to your customers. Customers only, please. So the wife took the opportunity to call the office (sigh) and everything was fine. No worries. I got on the net to look around.What? Molly Ivins died last night?! Oh, no!
We wondered where Cindy (not her real name) would be. Cindy was a long-time friend of Molly's, and my wife. I think the two of them had a fling back when. Cindy and Molly, that is. You knew Molly was a lesbian, right? But we couldn't reach Cindy. No answering machine either. Hmmm....They had two computers there for the internet, and they guy sitting at the one next to me couldn't help but overhear us talking about Molly. He said she was a great lady and didn't know how we were going to
replace her. There was another man waiting for his turn at the computers. He was about 45 or so and made a comment about how Molly wouldn't get to see Bush put in the stocks. Surrounded by Bush-bashers! Frankly, ever single person we spoke with about politics can't stand Bush. That was pretty awesome. It was like 20-o. This second guy tells us he got back from Iraq a few months ago, and he thought he would know some of the soldiers on that recent helicopter 
that was shot down in Baghdad. He was in charge of some chopper crews over there, and he was pretty distraught. We all stood around and cursed Bush, the stolen elections, his bankrupting the Treasury, getting all these people killed over lies, raising our voices...I felt like I was in another country. Oh, yeah, I was.
We paid for our stuff and walked out of the shop, rather stunned and depressed about Molly, but happy that we'd found people on the same wavelength. Being a little hungry, we located a Senor Frogs close by and parked it on the upstairs balcony overlooking the street. Breezy, shady, ceiling fans, cold beers, hamburgers, quesadillas ... it's vacation again. We raised our glasses to Molly. A true-blue American. Didn't end up talking any politics there.
A couple of beers at lunch will usually result in one thing: a nap. Got to get back to the boat first, though. While that patch of grass under that shade tree over there looks inviting, I'm not sure how the local police would feel about it. So we made our way back to the pier, to the boat, to our cabin, to dreamland ... ahhhhhh.
We woke in plenty of time to get cleaned up, take a stroll on the upper deck in the sun, and split a sandwich from the deli before the first concert of the evening - Eric Darius. Think of an energetic David Sanborn, without the odd honking. Eric was great. Need to get some of his music. Halfway thru Eric's set, Craig Chaquico shows up. We've loved Craig's guitar work for some time now. Didn't realize he was quite so spacy in person. He did some rather odd things with the lights as stars in the sky and, well, it reminded of my psylly-days. If you get the chance, go see him. And Eric.
We left the concert early enough to see the (one day from being full) moon looming over the eastern ocean horizon. It always gives me chills. Not that I believe in astrology, but I am indeed a Moon Child. I can just sit. And sit. And watch it.If we were going to get a seat for dinner, we'd learned we needed to be there early, so we gathered at the nightly fire trap and safety hazard just outside the Monet Dining Room. Tonight was the second of two "Formal Nights," and, against my wishes, but still willing, I wore my jacket. A tie? Uh, sorry, I have to draw the line somewhere. We were all sweaty salmon when they opened the doors at 8:30pm and we rushed in, spilling over the chairs, tables and rails, claiming our territory. It's pretty odd. By this evening, we were getting kinda tired of the menu. The same salads every evening. Most of the same entrees. No lobster again. People would tell me, "I had lobster every night on my cruise. Because I could." Well, we didn't. Because we couldn't. Tell ya what, if this chef is world-renowned, our standards are falling. Say no more.
At the next table over, the same table we sat at on Tuesday (after being shut out Monday), we noticed our next-door (stateroom) neighbors. We'd talked a few times briefly during the trip. I went over and sure enough, that was the table THEY had sat at on Monday. We took it Tuesday. They re-claimed it on Wednesday (when we got sidetracked upstairs) and Thursday. And I thought that I was a creature of habit. They'd seen us get it on Tuesday but didn't come over to say anything about it. To their credit. For such a big dining room, it was a small world.
Since we were in our Formal Wear, we decided to take advantage of the multiple photo-shoot opportunities that Carnival offered all over the boat. There must have been 20 or 30 little photo-shoot backgrounds spaced all over the boat, and you just walk up and have the photographer snap several pics. They print them all in 8x10 format and post them on Deck 4 the next day. Hundreds of pics. Thousands. We sat for several shoots. Got some pretty good shots. You know, we've been meaning to take an updated pic of us for "posterity...." The late show in the Toulouse tonight was an "Industry Panel." Whooo-pee!! Since I wasn't anywhere near breaking into the Smooth Jazz circuit, we decided to skip it and the almost-nightly Jam Session hosted by Nick Colionne. We saw the flambouyant Nick all over the boat. Sucker must have slept till noon every day to stay up every night in a jam session. Oh, yeah, they're musicians. That's what they do. I'm glad I'm not a musician, sometimes.
I guess I'm just not a "cruiser" either. I just feel rather pretentious dressed up and strolling around this behemoth of a ship. Although a jacket with no tie is not exactly all dressed up.
Modesty and a somewhat fractured sense of decorum prevents me from telling you what we did on our balcony in the moonlight...Tomorrow Cozumel and our Isla Pasion Beach Adventure V.I.P.! According to the TV in our stateroom, ours was one excursion selected to have a videographer along. Could be interesting...
No comments:
Post a Comment