Travel Blog

Rum Point & Last Night in Grand Cayman

Feb 6th

Posted by Matt Levorson in Travel Blog

Today we went to Rum Point. It has become our tradition that we go there at least once on our trips. Rum Point is basically a spot with a few little restaurants, a gift shop and a big dock that goes out into the Caribbean. The sand there is really soft and the water is very shallow. You can almost walk all the way out to the end of the dock and the water will be only waist deep. It was sunny and warm, with a few clouds now and then.

After we left Rum Point, we headed back to our resort. We all went in the hot tub for a while before dinner. We have some leftover food, so we are trying to eat as much of it as we can. We made a frozen pizza and Bob and I both had some Ramen noodles. We then watched a movie and are now starting to pack for our departure tomorrow afternoon. We have to be checked out of our room by 11, but we are going to sit by the pool until we need to leave for the airport.

One thing I haven’t talked about is the driving. Down here they drive on the left side of the street. That takes some getting used to. You have to look the opposite direction for traffic, and always turn into the left lane. We also had a car that had the steering wheel on the left side. So, that was weird. The turn signals are also on the opposite side. In the United States they are on the left side, but in our car they were on the right and the windshield wipers were on the left. So, for the first couple days, when we were turning the windshield wipers came on instead of the blinker.

Looking back, it has been a great trip and a great time diving. The weather has been nice and warm. It is always hard to leave a place that you have so much fun at, but I guess its back to reality. Our flight leaves tomorrow afternoon and we will be back in the USA. Until then, we will be enjoying every last minute. See you all when we get back.

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Grand Cayman Diving – Day 4

Feb 5th

Posted by Matt Levorson in Travel Blog

Today I dove alone without Bob and Krista. They decided not to dive today. I headed out about noon and we were diving south again. We picked up Ken and Mary at the Marriott. They have been diving with us all week. Once we got to the dive boat and got geared up, we were on our way to the first dive site. The first site was Phantom Caves. This site had a lot of swim throughs and plenty of sea life. It also had a lot of “canyons” formed by the coral. Our first dive was guided and it wasn’t a deep dive. Both dives today were shallow dives. That way we didn’t need to spend so much time on the surface before our 2nd dive. So, after the first dive we headed over to our next site. I cant remember the exact name of it, but by looking at a dive map, it looks like it was Red Bay Caves. Again it was a shallow dive. Only to about 55 feet. This dive was unguided and I had a dive buddy that was just recently certified. His name was Bob. He was on dive number 8. So, we took our time and looked around and saw some neat stuff. After the dive we headed back in. I got to the resort and after I got my gear rinsed off, I hit the hot tub with Bob.

After the hot tub, we got ready for dinner with Eckstroms again. We picket them up at their resort, Cobalt Coast. We then headed to Fishermans Reef, which was right next to the place that we met at earlier in the week. The food was really good. After dinner, we headed back to Cobalt Coast for a drink. After some good conversation, we headed back to our resort for some much needed sleep.

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Grand Cayman Diving – Day 3

Feb 4th

Posted by Matt Levorson in Travel Blog

Today we went south. We got up this morning and sat by the pool for a while and relaxed. Then it was our time to dive. We got picked up and we rode the van all the way down to the south side of Georgetown. We boarded the boat and headed out to our first dive site. Our first site was Bullwinkle East. We saw some interesting life there. The highlights were a small school of tarpon, a couple lobsters, and a big puffer fish. Our second dive site was Laura’s Reef. this site had some good swim throughs and some good underwater life. We saw a large school of squid at the end of our dive. We are not sure if we are going to dive tomorrow, it depends on the conditions.

Dolphin Discovery & Turtle Farm – Grand Cayman

Feb 4th

Posted by Matt Levorson in Travel Blog

Today I had the experience of a lifetime, again.  We went swimming with the dolphins at Dolphin Discovery. The morning wasn’t too exciting. We all woke up and got ready, then we went over to 7 mile beach and took some pictures and video of the beach. It was sunny and very few clouds. It was a beautiful day at the beach. We then went to breakfast at Eats Café. After breakfast we headed up north to Hell. Hell is a place on Grand Cayman where limestone formations are coming out of the ground. It is the only place in the world that I know of that has a post office that you can send a postcard from Hell. After we were done in Hell, we headed over to the Dolphin Discovery. We were a little early so we looked around the gift shop and watched the dolphins swim. When it was finally our turn, we went to a room and watched the introductory video. This video explained the different behaviors we would be working with. After the video we went down and got fitted for lifejackets and we were off to play. We were the only 3 that were doing the “royal swim” so we had a lot of personal attention and one on one time with the dolphins. The first 2 we were with were 2 male dolphins. We did the kissing pose and we did another behavior where we grabbed the pectoral fins. We also got a lot of time holding and petting the dolphins. After we did this, we moved to the big tank and we did the dorsal fin pull with 2 dolphins and the foot push. After we finished this we were done and headed off to change. We then looked at our photos and the DVD and decided to get them.

After the Dolphin adventure we went across the street to the turtle farm. Our bracelets from Dolphin Discovery got us into the turtle farm for free. The first tank we looked in had the big turtles in it. They were huge! The biggest one was around 600lbs! The oldest one they have was around 55 years old. We moved on next to the small turtles. These were ones that you could actually pick up and hold. While I was doing this, I got bit by a turtle. It broke the skin a little and will leave a mark for a while. It hurt pretty bad at the time, but I survived. After the turtle farm, we headed back to the resort and relaxed a little. We then got ready for dinner.

We went to the Calypso Grill and met Michael & Nicole Eckstrom for dinner. We had pre-arranged this before we left the US. It was fun to get together with them and chat. It was a great meal and dessert. After dinner, we gave them a ride back to their resort, Cobalt Coast. We spent a while talking with them at their place. It was fun to share dive stories and just spend time talking to familiar faces in such a far away place. We said good night to them and headed back to our place. Now it’s off to bed to get ready for a new adventure tomorrow.

 

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Grand Cayman – Diving day 2

Feb 2nd

Posted by Matt Levorson in Travel Blog

Today was an early morning. We had to be down in the lobby for our dive check in at 7:30 am. It was a little overcast when we left the resort, but by the time we got out to the dive site it had cleared. Our first dive site was Dragons Hole. First dive is always the deep dive. Our limit is 100 feet down. It was a good dive and we saw 3 turtles. They are all on the video below. Other than that, it was an average dive. Our next dive site was Peters Reef. It was the shallow dive, only about 50 feet. Bob and I did some switching of the cameras so I could get some pictures of myself. Usually I am the one behind the camera getting everyone else, so it is nice to get some pictures and video of myself diving.

Tonight they had the usually Monday night get together. They have appetizers and drinks for everyone. Its an opportunity to meet different people that are staying here. We met a nice couple from Maryland. Then after that was done, we went to the Lobster Pot for dinner. I had the Mahi Mahi for dinner.

Tomorrow we are swimming with the dolphins and taking the day off from diving. So, there will be some exciting things to share then I’m sure.

Grand Cayman, Day 1 of diving

Feb 1st

Posted by Matt Levorson in Travel Blog

Today we got up and had some breakfast in our room then we went out and sat by the pool before we went diving. It was a little overcast, but warm and sunny most of the time. We sat by the pool until we had to get ready to go diving. We left for diving around noon.

Once we got to the boat we got our gear all ready and headed to our first site. Our first dive site was “big tunnel”. We had dove there before, but it was a really good dive. Below is video of this dive. I got a new housing for my still camera and I had to bring it on a dive empty to see if it would leak or not. It didn’t, so that was good. Anyway, the first dive of the day is a deep dive. There are many “swim throughs”, which are basically tunnels under the water formed by coral. They start at about 60 feet andgo down to around 100 feet.  We saw a rare fish called a scorpion fish. It looks a lot like a stone fish. Basically it blends in with the coral and it is almost impossible to see if it isn’t moving. I have video of it, but no still pictures. Once we got done with our first dive, we got back on the boat and headed to our 2nd dive site. The 2nd site was Governors Reef. It is called that because it is straight west from the governors mansion here in Grand Cayman. I had my still camera with on my 2nd dive. On the boat our dive guide, Shaggy, told us they haven’t seen many turtles around lately. Well, we saw 2 right away. This was a great photo opportunity. We also saw some garden eel, a lobster, and other fish that we usually see.

After our dive was over, we came back to the resort and sat in the hot tub to warm up some. Then it was time for dinner and the super bowl. Its half time now and its time to get back to the game. We dive tomorrow morning at 8am, so it wont be a late night for us.

Here are some pictures from the 2nd dive:

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We made it!

Jan 31st

Posted by Matt Levorson in Travel Blog

We made it to Grand Cayman! It was an uneventful flight and landing. The baggage claim, immigration, and car rental went smoothly. After we got all that taken care of, we headed to the Grand Caymanian. We got checked in there, and headed out to get something to eat. We ate at the Lonestar Grill tonight. It was really good and we were all starving. Now we are just hanging out here in the room and Bob and I are going to finish a movie we started on the plane. It feels good to be wearing shorts and sandals again. We haven’t had much time to walk around and explore the changes here at the resort, but we will tomorrow. We have the same rooms that we had the last time we were here.

Here are some pictures from the day:

 

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They thought I had a gun…

Jan 31st

Posted by Matt Levorson in Travel Blog

The security guards all crowded around the monitor wondering what was in my 1st bag. It only took 15 minutes for them to decide that they should open it and look. Then they looked at the 2nd bag under the x-ray machine. They decided to open that one right away. They told me that they thought I had a gun in the first bag. Of course I didn’t, but the way things were laying in there made them think I did. So, after all the bags were searched and I met all the TSA staff at security station 3 at the airport, we are finally on our way. They just announced we are going to be boarding 15 minutes late due to other people not landing to catch this connecting flight.

Bob bought a crossword book to do on the plane. The only problem was that it was an easy crossword book. He exchanged it for a variety of levels.

I am posting this entry from my Blackberry in the airport so I am hoping it works.

Bob and Krista want to say we love you to Jenna and Kyle. Have fun and be good this week. -Love mom and dad.

Our next post will be from Grand Cayman, BWI

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Packing for the Caymans

Jan 29th

Posted by Matt Levorson in Travel Blog

We are heading to the Cayman Islands! Well, not exactly quite yet. Tomorrow we are leaving for the twin cities where we will spend the night. We actually fly out Saturday morning around 10am. Right now we are all packing and taking care of our last minute things before tomorrow.
This morning was an interesting experience though. I was at Red Carpet car wash sitting in my truck talking to the attendant when all of the sudden my brake pedal went all the way to the floor! I thought to myself “oh great what now”. After I made it through the wash, I headed over to Ultimate Automotive and they took a look at it. Turns out it was the master cylinder that went out. So, they replaced it and when they were filling it up with brake fluid, one of the front tire break lines sprung a leak. So, they needed to order a front brake hose as well. I am lucky that it happened how it did and where I was. If I was in traffic or driving at all, I wouldn’t have been able to stop. I guess someone was watching out for me. I am supposed to drive to the cities tomorrow with Bob and Krista and all our luggage. I am so glad that it didn’t happen somewhere up there. We all might not have made it on our vacation. But, all in all, the truck should be ready tomorrow and we will head out to paradise.
I’m not sure if I will be able to write again before we take off or not. So, the next post may be from the Caymans.

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Getting ready for Cayman!

Jan 25th

Posted by Matt Levorson in Travel Blog

In 1 week from today we leave for the island of Grand Cayman. We are going there to do some scuba diving and to take underwater pictures and video. Stay tuned to this blog to see some pictures and follow our adventures as we travel to this amazing island. Some of our adventures will include scuba diving, swimming with dolphins, and soaking up the sun.

Visit our resort here.