Dolphin Discovery

-DAY 4, George Town, Grand Cayman-

Tuesday
8 Nov 2016
Georgetown, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

EEEEeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!! I SWAM WITH A DOLPHIN TODAAAAAAAY!!!

My sister recommended the dolphin swim, push, and pull experience in Grand Cayman because she did it and it was awesome so I have been pumped for this day!!!

This morning I slept in just a smidge but made it to breakfast in time. Got a coffee and then dad & MBA went to the theatre to meet up for our dolphin excursion!

It felt pretty unorganized (the shore excursion part) but we made it off the boat onto the tender to get to the island. There were quite a few tenders running back and forth, it was maybe six minutes to get to land and between 200 and 250 people could fit on each boat. They have the tender when the ship is too large to come into port.

It was a complicated process involving a super sketch bus ride (at speeds well over the 30kmph (kmh?) limit). The Cayman Islands are under British rule and while they have their own currency they do drive on the left and spell color with a u.

Dolphin Discovery is where we got to swim, it was quite crowded and a lot of people were confused and/or blatantly disobeyed the rules by wearing jewelery, among other things; the jewelery can hurt the dolphins. ANYWAY, we were hearded onto benches in groups of 8ish and they explained what we were going to do. Next we got to move into the water and meer our dolphin Luna, "Lulu," and her trainer, Veronica.

There were ten in our group and she eventually remembered all of our names, which was impressive. We took turns in pairs, first we swam out and lulu came around us belly up and we got to ride in on her fins. Next, we got to individually give her a kiss, she gave us a kiss on the cheek, we high fived, and cheesed big time. We swam out again, this time with boogie boards, and Luna pushed us in by our feet! It was incredible. Dolphins can swim at speeds of 25mph.

Finally we swam in a straight line and lu swam by us a couple of times, we got to splash together and she talked a little bit. She's 36 and dolphins live to be about 60 in captivity. They also have between 74 and 104 teeth! I wanted to just squeeze her and give her a big hug. They are amazing creatures, we got to stay for a bit after and watch them swim.

We bought the photos even though they were insanely priced, I went in with that mindset so i didnt really care how expensive they were because I was getting them. 😂🐬

When we got back to the port we shopped around but everything was quite expensive, much more than Mexico, so we retreated back to the ship to shower and eat. I got a second coffee with Bailey's and tried to organize my suitcase- it didn't work.

The only dinner reservation they had available was 545p so I got ready in a flash and we all met for dinner. Decent options today including a caprese salad, which is one of my faves, and a delectable tiramisu. Also drank prosecco with dinner, as I have been doing every night because it is so dang delicious. 🍾

Not much to do after dinner, we weren't interested in the show and "pub quiz" want until 10, karaoke at 11. We got drinks and headed to the balcony to play heads up. We turned the news on and played, then lost track of time and missed trivia.

Chilled & chatted, got a midnight snack, and now Brian is suffering from multipersonality disorder because he can't decide which shit show he'd rather have run the country.

I'm going to leave this blog before the election is over but I'm going to end with two positive notes:

1. I was telling Brian how amazing it is in Europe and how I'm going to learn to play the fiddle and move to Ireland and his response was that while it's easy to just leave, if all of the good people do that we'll really have some even worse problems and he's a humanitarian above anything else. I think that's a fair and honest argument.

2. My lil' bro is ENGAGED!!! This is the news I omitted from the blog on Sunday but since it's now family & facebook official I can blog it here to all of you. There will be quite a few photos for this entry since I will add some from the special night...

He did it just before dinner while we were in our fancy clothes from formal night. Ashley had wanted a photo on these big wooden chairs the day before so they got up there and then he couldn't get the ring out of his pocket and she was worried and in a rush because she thought we were late for dinner. Finally he got down on one knee and was the quietest he's ever been in his life when he asked her to marry him!

Dad got a great video and I had a shitty vantage point but did my best.

GOODNIGHT PEOPLE! Thanks for reading and congratulations to Brian & Ashley!!! ♡♡♡🍾🎉💍