October 7, 2013 - Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park and Rum Point

Day3: We started off with a visit to the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park, and a tour of the blue iguana habitat with Warden Alberto Estevanovich of the Blue Iguana Recovery Program.

Without venturing too far into the park we spotted our first free-roaming blue iguana (later we learned his name is "Kinky" for the shape of his tail). Kinky was the largest of all the iguana we saw the whole week. He was very unimpressed with our presence and hardly moved except to keep an eye on us. The funny thing is that I walked right past him without even noticing and Esther thought he was a statue. It wasn't until Jacki and Phil pointed him out that we realized he was there. 

There were several types of plants at the park, very few of which I recognized (hello, bird of paradise) and hardly any that I remembered the names of... with a couple of exceptions, below:

Walking through the park was nice (and Alabama in August hot and humid) but it would be hard to beat the blue iguanas. Alberto was entertaining and informative during the tour, but he really won me over with the way he interacted with the animals. 

It's hard to tell from the picture, but this blue is leaning into Alberto's hand as he pats on it

Here's the cool thing about iguanas and why they are important to the ecology of Cayman: iguanas eat fruits such as mango, guava and papaya mostly whole. In tests performed by the project mango seeds that passed through the digestive tract of the iguanas and germinated produced fruit in three years- half the time of any mango seeds planted by man. 

Guava vs iguana

Iguana poop!

Ah, the manchineel. One of the most poisonous trees in the world. Contact with any part of the tree can result in painful blisters. Rain water that runs off the leaves and lands on you will have the same effect. It's like all the poison oak and ivy in the state of Alabama rolled into one tree. It's Spanish name is "little apple of death". So naturally...

...Esther attempts to reconcile the gap between the man-apes and the manchineel.

I suggested that Esther should stand under a safer tree...

I saw only two snakes the whole trip and both were on the same day. One was zipping past an iguana and this one was in the sun soaking up some rays. Both were terrified of us.

Continuing east then following the edge of the island north and back west, we grabbed lunch at Rum Point. 

Jacki and Phil were nice enough to hang out while Esther and I swam around the point.

Spiny lobster

Barracuda

Recently a rogue dolphin has been sighted in the area. He was kicked out of his pod and has been known to bite and, ahem, act aggressively romantic towards divers and swimmers. This is one of the signs we saw warning people to avoid the dolphin that locals have named "Stinky".

This is the Cayman Shoe Tree. It has it's own Facebook page. Along South Church Street near South Sound, the tree was started by a couple from British Columbia in the wake of Hurricane Ivan and has kind of grown into a monument of sorts to efforts to keep Cayman's beaches clean of liter.

We took one more swim in the waters of Smith Cove before calling it a day.

What flippers?

All the pictures from this fine day are right here.

October 6, 2013 - Wreck of the Gamma (Insert Finding Nemo Reference Here)

So... Where are we again? George Town, Grand Cayman. How did we get here? Well, technically via airplane, but that would not have been at all possible without our two very good friends Jacki and Phil. Our friends were nice enough to fly us to the island and provide us with a condo to live in for the week that was right on the beach and provided hours of snorkeling and picture taking under the water. They were awesome hosts and took everywhere we wanted to see and fed us well on local food and drink. I cannot thank them enough and words simply don't express my gratitude. I love you guys.

I'd also like to thank our network of fellow homeschoolers and relatives that let our kids stay the night or just got them out of the house and fed them while we were gone. Thanks, in no particular order, to the Amos, Lackey, Boggan, Bothwell, Woods families and Granddad. Special thanks to KT for the underwater camera loan that allowed us to take so very many awesome pics of the sea life. Gold star for the MONTH.

And on with DAY TWO:

UP TO MY ELBOWS IN ANOLES! HA!

Back to the beach. The beach next to the condo is of two types: the sandy and full of crunchy pieces of coral type and the iron shore that is like walking on a floor covered in titanium Lego bricks. Also it's covered in snails so the whole time you're trying to walk on it you're killing little creatures. SO DON'T WALK ON IT, TOURISTS. It does make for a nice contrast of texture from the sand to the water.

Snails, huddled  in fear of your tourist feet

Could be snail, could be hermit crab- NO WAY TO KNOW

Snails I've seen, crabs I've seen... This thing, not so much. This is a chiton. It looks like a pillbug and a slug where trapped over a long winter in a cabin in the woods and in Spring- this thing was being carried out by momma pillbug. It's practically a slug in plate mail.

It has a hard shell and what looks like a soft flappity edge around and below that. If ever there was an alien species hiding on our planet waiting for the time to jump into our brains and take over our bodies, it's the chiton. They've been around for about 400 million freaking years. If a chiton could look at you (it doesn't have any eyes to speak of) it would flip you the bird (no fingers either, it's a metaphor) and tell you to GET OFF MAH LAWN YOU CRAZY KID. 

Also, if you detach one from it surface that it's currently suckerfied to it can curl up into a little ball of hate and loathing. I could not remove one from the rock after about 5 seconds of trying moderately before I gave up and also secretly feared that it might have some sort of mouth with which to bite my fingers off, as so many of the sea creatures do.

Chiton, not to be confused with chitin or even the other chiton

Hermit crab moments before pincering off my finger

Esther slowly began to develop her hard chitinous shell over the next few days...

Esther and I had a second go at the whole swimming while wearing a tube in your face thing. This was more enjoyable for me because Esther released the secret method of defogging your mask while in the water. You let a little water in intentionally then turn your head to let the water clean off the fog. I tried it and HOLY COW THERE ARE FISH ALL IN THIS WATER.

Just hundred yards or so south of our condo right off the shore is the wreck of the Gamma a ship that ran ashore years ago. Hundreds of fish, schools and individuals, surround the rusted hull.

There is a pipefish just left of center in this picture- the long skinny one

This is a somewhat successful stitched panoramic of the shoreline.

Most of the rest of the day was spent, of all things, bowling. Jacki and Phil had agreed to go bowling with several of their friends and their kids so we tagged along as well. Surprisingly, considering my complete lack of athletic prowess, I won the first game. I have no photographic proof of this because it was dark, but Esther will back me up.

All the pictures of the day are right here.

October 5, 2013 - Insert Name of Song About Air Travel Here

Today was about the travel. First leg: from Huntsville to Charlotte, NC. Second leg: Charlotte to George Town, Grand Cayman. My first time leaving our good 'ol US of A to land on foreign soil. Passports in hand, we departed.

Behind us in the queue line at CLT

Our flight path took us along the Atlantic coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. I correctly identified the location below while in the air as Melbourne.

Melbourne, Florida

Esther wearing her ill-fated sunglasses

To get to Grand Cayman you have to fly over Cuba, which is pretty darn breathtaking from the air. (Fun Fact: At 600 MPH it takes only 12 minutes to pass the entire island of Cuba.)

North coast of Cuba

Waters below the southern edge of Cuba

Finally, my first glimpse of the island of Grand Cayman.

Roughly 100 yards from our condo, this view was waiting for us:

Seven Mile Beach, looking north

All manor of sea life was waiting in the tidal pools of the iron shore and the shallows beyond.

Filter feeder in the tidal pool

With the light fading, we took a quick swim to see what we could find.

Urchins. Why did it have to be urchins.

Hairy man-ape in water

I'll be honest, I'm not the most experienced snorkeler (snorkel-person?) and I've never swam in salt water with any significant amount of swimmy things in it. Urchins were totally new. I struggled with the mask that I couldn't see out of and the snorkel that I couldn't breathe through. Flippers? How do they work? Esther told me to just "kick" so I was swishing my feet up and down like I imagined I had seen divers do but she was speeding past me fast enough to pull skiers and I was just flopping around in fear of urchins and not really getting anywhere. The first time in the water was not super amazing for me. I would get better.

When the light was too dim to see underwater we retired to the pool.

All pictures from the first day are here.