Woke up early, which isn’t too hard to do here. By the end
of a day, we are all pretty zapped. It doesn’t help that the sunset is around
7pm either, so by about 9pm its sleepy time. Needless to say, since we are all
getting really good sleep we are also getting up a between 5:30am and 7am
(depending on the person).
LT and I decided to head to the north part of the island to
Rum Point for a little fishing. He noticed several vacant properties the other
day with docks that were located on an inland channel – always a good spot for
feeder fish. It only took us a little over 20 minutes to get there and we were
casting away. We hoped from dock to dock for a bit catching primarily grunts.
We then went on the beach by Rum Point and literally walked to the point. This
is the place on Grand Cayman to go for bone fish. It is a very shallow grassy
area about a quarter mile long and extends out quite a bit from the beach. We
saw everything from barracudas, mullets, several bonefish and countless others.
None, however, liked what we were offering them.
Back to the house around 10am to pick up the girls and we
drove to Eagle Rays for some lunch. LT stayed back at the house and fished.
Eagle Rays is the place we ate at several days ago and is located on a dive
resort. I booked Olivia and I a dive for 1pm. All of us were famished and what
better way to power up than some local cuisine before the dive.
The dive was called – Coral Nursery Dive. Not sure what I
was expecting when I signed up for the dive, but both of us are glad we did. The
dive came with a one hour instruction class prior to diving. It was a
conservation dive. The coral reefs around the world are dying by various
factors, mainly impacted by humans. This place was trying to reverse some of
the damages by creating a type of farm out near the reef to grow new coral and
then plant or introduce them back in the reef. The two main types of coral they
were growing at this farm was the Elkhorn and Staghorn coral.
The coral was grown on trees made of PVC. They were attached
to the bottom of the seabed and were topped with floating balloons. The trees
were about 10 feet tall and were situated in 25 feet of water. The trees were
able to spin so that surge or strong currents wouldn’t affect them. Each tree
had 6 rows or 4 arms, which each arm having 6 corals.
Today’s job for Olivia and I was to clean one tree and the
coral of its algae. Algae is one of the main killers of coral here in the
Caymans. Lois, our instructor, explained that in the Caymans the ecosystem has
been badly impacted. The Nassau Grouper had been hunted and fishing to near extinction,
here in the Caymans. The Nassau Grouper helped keep the Damsel fish population
in check. With the damsel fish now in record population, they propagate the
algae by allowing it to flourish and by protecting it from other predators.
Olivia and I worked diligently on our tree for at least
30-40 minutes. We were also allowed to hang two corals on a different tree. I
made us feel like we were giving back and put at least one point on the board
for the numerous amount of polluting we had done in the past. The dive was even
nicer due to the fact it was just seven of us doing the dive. Over the last
several days, I have seen dive boats just littered with people 20+.
We were back on the dock a little after 3:45pm and went up
to Eagle Rays bar and had a drink while we waited for mom. She popped her head
around the corner not but five minutes later. All of us hung at the bar for a
drink and then headed back to the house to relax a bit before around dinner
reservations at Taco Cantina at 6:30pm. When we arrived at the house, LT was
apparently had an awesome afternoon. LT fished out back of our place by the
broken down dock. Not five minutes after we three left earlier to go dive, LT
saw a nurse shark circling his back. He started reeling it in quickly and
moments later the reel was screaming. He pulled in a nice 20lb+ nurse, followed
by multiple grunts and then a massive Mutton Snapper. He was SO happy about
bringing in the Snapper. I believe we will be eating it very soon.
I tried my hand at some fishing and was able to reel in a
Cubera Snapper. LT was kind enough to filet it for me and added it our eat
pile! We met the neighbors and spoke with them a bit before heading to our
dinner arrangement.
Taco Cantina had Taco Tuesdays and offered a two for one
special on food and drinks. Being the carnivores we are, we could miss this.
They offered all the regular fish types, but also had turtle and lobster. The
kinds had the Gringo tacos, which were a ground beef taco and said they were
really good. I had the tuna sashimi taco which was amazing. We all tried the
turtle, which was okay but tasted more like burnt ground beef. The lobster
tacos were yummy as well.
We were back at the house a little after 8pm and all of us
crashed out before 9:30pm.
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