Showing Teeth

For months, Rachel, my college bestie and I were planning to visit Mikey in Grand Cayman, but unfortunately our schedules just didn’t align. Mikey, the most hospitable host, insisted I come down and visit on my own and therefore I woke up at 4 am today to fly to the Cayman Islands!

After transferring in Miami, I had a warm welcome not only from Mikey, but my immigration officer, Christopher who realized I worked in insurance. He insisted I consider starting my captive company here so I have to come down for regular board meetings. I was impressed with Christopher’s knowledge of insurance. He also confessed that he thought I was in college, but apparently once I started talking, he realized I was “mature”.

Mikey met met at the airport in Georgetown - so funny considering that’s where we met in college in DC. Mikey lives in Crescent Point in a wonderfully bright condo where we drank frosé and got ready for our sunset cruise! We have a boat!

Cayman is famous for stingray city and Mikey booked a boat ride out there with Red Sail for my first day in Grand Cayman. Here’s a selfie of us on the boat:



The stingrays congregate as boats and tourists offer up chum - you can see them below coming up to the boat:

We waded in the warm crystal clear water as we tried to catch the stingrays who were very accustomed to being around humans. They felt like wet mushrooms and were very slippery. Finally, we got a photo opportunity and you just kind of hold them in the water, and carefully keep them submerged. Although I’m known for not showing teeth in photos, all the photos taken by the guides have me grinning!

Mikey has visited stingray city at least 30 times, having vacationed here during his childhood and living here since Spring of this year. We were told you get 7 years of good luck if you kiss a stingray and the boat guides encouraged us to do it:



We then all climbed back on to the boat and we sailed to the island and watched the sunset. It was highly enjoyable with fried fritter snacks and rum punches while listening to the Rolling Stones.  

Back on land, we returned to the condo to shower and then headed out to a delicious Indian dinner at Pani in Camana Bay. We had to walk off our hearty dinner where we enjoyed oversized Christmas decorations and a view of the dark sound. 

We then returned to the condo to check in on election results (don’t worry, I sent in my absentee ballot) and went to sleep early, as I have an early scuba pick up tomorrow!