Jillapalooza

IM IN UR OCEAN. EATIN UR CARDZ.

Grand Cayman – Sat 12/6 – Mon 12/8

On Saturday I dove with Nick and Curtis and headed straight to the beach afterward. After laying out a bit I listened to either New Moon or Eclipse on audiobook and took a long walk down the beach. A very long walk. We went to dinner at Lone Star. Kristen and I started toward Antica Gelateria for dessert, but the boys went back because they didn’t want to walk all the way there. We started our journey but decided our time would be better spent watching Twilight at the Marquee Cinema. Big mistake. Here’s an excerpt from my future Journey into Twilight post: (only on jillapalooza do you get to read posts from the future)

Kristen and I headed to the one cinema on Grand Cayman. It was Saturday night, and apparently the only thing for underage kids to do on the island is see a movie. The theater was about a quarter full when the movie started and then the people started pouring in. Talking loud and being otherwise obnoxious. There was literally a constant murmur throughout the movie, it was the most irritatingly horrible movie experience I’ve ever had. I would rather have people who talk at the screen because at least they would be paying attention. There were also a ton of videos before the movie, circa 1982, about being quiet, throwing away garbage, etc. I kid not, we probably saw at least six and they were so loud it was painful. But apparently none of the kids got the memo because they were all ten minutes late anyway. If I hadn’t already seen it three times I would have been even more irritated at the parts I missed. And if Robert Pattinson didn’t make such a dreamy Edward, I don’t think Kristen and I could have sat through the entire thing. Worst. Movie. Experience. Ever.

After the movie we took a long walk home, in awe of what we had just experienced. To add to the surreal experience, there were cop cars everywhere. It looked as though they were busting some bar as people were flowing out disappointed that the party was over.

On Sunday I slept in until 10. There would be no diving what with the flight home right around the corner. I lubed up for the last day on the beach. Nick decided to go to Eats for lunch but was denied. He ended up going somewhere else and bringing food back for us all. Ahh, lunch on the beach. After I felt thoroughly toasted by sun I went for my final long beach walk. I’m pretty sure by this time I was listening to Eclipse. The history of Jasper chapter to be precise.

For dinner we ate at Calypso Grill. It was delicious. No gelato afterward. :(

And on Monday we went home. :(

Grand Cayman – Fri 12/5

I woke up in the morning and didn’t feel like diving. Besides, Kristen and Cindy were going to head to Georgetown for some shopping and I didn’t want to miss out on the festivities.

We decided to take the bus. Sounds fancy, and you’re probably picturing a bus, but it was more like a minivan that operated taxi style, cramming as many people in as possible. Very interesting. Cheap though, only C/$2.

Fortunately there were no cruise ships scheduled to come in, so we didn’t have to deal with any unnecessary crowds. The shopping was lackluster. The only places to shop at were crappy souvenir shops and high end jewelry stores (which apparently are filled to the brim on busy ship days). There was only one store that I really found tolerable. They had many girly type GC shirts (I was tiring of the abundance of cheap manly tees everywhere) and even some italian charms. I picked one with their flag to keep with my current bracelet theme and got a cute shirt as well. I have to say I was really surprised at the lack of interesting souvenirs on the island. Not only that, but there were never any little handmade jewelry stores or street vendors anywhere. Only prepackaged stuff that was probably made in China.

We exhausted our shopping efforts and were back at the condo by 11:30. The boys were already home from diving. To my disappointment, I found out they did a wreck dive. Damn it. I wanted to do a wreck dive. Not only that, but they were the only ones on the boat (aka no dumbheads) and it dropped them off at the beach in front of the condo after the dive. No fair.

We hung out at the beach for the rest of the day. I decided to take a long beach walk since it had been a week and I hadn’t done that yet. I brought my iPod along for company to read a book, either New Moon or Eclipse at the time.

For dinner we decided to eat at Edoardo’s. It is spelled funny, but there was no messing around with the tasty Italian food there. Or the wine rack that we sat in front of. I don’t remember if we ate dessert there or at Antica Gelateria, but wherever we went I’m sure it was delicious.

Grand Cayman – Thurs 12/4

Today I got up at 6:30 and was not the first one up. Unfortunately since I wasn’t the first one up, I wasn’t the one who made coffee, so I forgot to drink some.

Curtis, Kristen, Ted and I dove today. Nick still had a headache from yesterday, so he decided to stay back.

~~~

After diving we decided to go to Eat’s Cafe for lunch again. They were pretty busy so we sat in the bar area for the first time. It was a nice change, made me feel like we were somewhere new.

When our bellies were full from lunch, Kristen took a walk, Nick played WOW and Ted, Cindy and Curtis went to the beach while I took a much needed nap. I was out cold, in both senses of the word. I recall waking briefly to Kristen coming in and I asked her to toss a beach towel at me so I could cover up. That was all I remember until 5:30, when everyone was congregated in the living room chatting. I even slept through the housekeeping lady (Susie?).

~~~

Curtis, Kristen, Nick and I went to dinner. On the way we stopped at a diving shop so Curtis could buy a new mask. We ate dinner at the Triple Crown Irish Pub and had dessert at Antica Gelateria again. My flavors of choice this time were banana and dark chocolate. Mmmm.

Spanish Anchor, dive 30

Dive: 30
Cayman Dive: 6
Date: 12/4/08
Site: Spanish Anchor, Grand Cayman
Avg/Max Depth: 36/52
Temp: 79
TBT/CBT: 0:47/23:20
Buddies: Kristen, Curtis, Ted

After a surface interval filled with Matty’s jokes, we quickly geared up for our second dive. The site was aptly named because of an Spanish anchor almost completely overgrown with coral (I missed it, apparently Curtis got a photo). Matty said it carbon dated back to the 1500s. Kristen and I were the first ones in today and we immediately descended. None of this bobbing on the surface nonsense.

The fish were plentiful on the coral fingers. The stoplight parrotfish are my favorites here and there were lots of them. I also got what I think will be a quite stunning picture of a French Angelfish.

Curtis and Kristen headed back to the boat a littler early. Ted and I continued exploring. After about 10 minutes we decided to head back to the boat. We spotted the boat almost effortlessly and did our safety stop. Right about the time my stop was complete, I looked at Ted. He was shaking his head and pointing at the boat. I turned to look and saw the boat was now surrounded by divers. What was wrong? Why were all these strange divers at our boat? Oh, it wasn’t our boat. Woops. We headed in another direction. Our 40 minute time limit had passed, and I was afraid that they would think we were a couple of rogue divers like the one from Tuesday. Since I was only at 13 feet I decided to surface and have a look around to make sure we were going in the right direction. I spotted the boat up top and descended again, pointing the direction to Ted. That was the first time I longed for a compass. At least we were close, a couple hundred feet away at the most. It was then my ear started acting up again, so I hovered at about 8 feet, shallow enough not to hurt, but deep enough to not struggle against the current. We saw a barracuda, and as much as I wanted to swim closer for a picture, my ears weren’t having it. Probably a good thing anyhow.

We got to the boat quickly and we weren’t even the last ones on. On the drive back Matty came on the CB and asked if Frank was donating his camera to him. Crap, I realized it was my camera. I left it in the freshwater bucket. I tried telling the driver, Nicole, that it was my camera and I was with the Lahr party. Somehow she misinterpreted it to be “the misses of Frank”‘s camera. Matty came back on and said, “that’s not Frank’s misses, but I know who you mean.” He said he’d leave it at the dive shop for me to pick up tomorrow. I was only disappointed because I’m quite positive I had some rockin’ pictures on there and now I have to wait a day. Pooey.

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