The second port on our recent cruise adventure was the island of Grand Cayman. Again, Janet had been to this island twice before, but it was my first time. By this time in the cruise, we were well out of the range of bad weather, and I was happily chasing the sun at sunrise and sunset. The banner photo above was the sunrise of the day we entered port at Grand Cayman.

Our excursion that day included a visit to the historical site of Pedro St James, located at Punta Pedro on Grand Cayman. We viewed a short film describing the history of the island. I found it interesting that when British settlers first came to the island, there were no persons living on the island already. The film explained how the plantation estate at Punta Pedro (the estate was named St James) came to be. The Britishers who settled on the island were passionate about establishing a democratic government. Our current state of affairs in the US made me wonder where our passion for democracy has gone. In any case, they carried out their deliberations at Pedro St James. The plantation house has been restored to the historic site it is now.

The next stop on the excursion was the Tortuga Rum Cake shop for some shopping. You can find these rum cakes on many of the Carnival cruise ships, but you get a better price at the store. We bought a bunch of cakes for our friends and family. While there I caught this picture of this snazzy rum truck.

Next stop was a kitchy little place called Hell. There’s a gift shop there where you can buy shirts and postcards all with hell-themed slogans and catch-phrases (“Hi from Hell!” “I’ve been to Hell and back!”) For me, the best entertainment was watching the iguanas that were crawling all over the place.

Our final stop on the excursion was the famed Seven Mile Beach some sun and swimming. The water was crystal clear, and we enjoyed a relaxing swim before catching the bus back to the ship.

Other observations: We tend to pronounce the island name as kay’ muhn, but the locals seems to say it Cay Man (almost like “cave man”). Also, motor traffic drives on the left side of the road, undoubtedly a British influence. My next blog will feature our third port on this cruise: Cozumel, Mexico.