My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
Most of my time on the Caribbean Princess, we visited the same islands over and over. As the end of my contract drew near, I took the time to savor my last time at a couple of Islands.
We had a late sail away in St. Thomas, though I usually had to get back on the ship to go to work before it got dark. As I’ve mentioned before, it has become rare to find myself on land at night. This evening, I didn’t have to work until 9:30. There is a gondola that goes up to the top of the mountain, which I’ve gone up a few times, but I’d never gone at night.
Grand Cayman is a tender port, so by the time most of the passengers are off the ship and they’ve allowed crew to leave, there’s not a lot of time to get off before it’s time to go back. Andi and I thought of getting off a few cruises before, but when we saw a big dark cloud, we decided to nap instead. This was our last Grand Cayman, and Andi had never gotten off the ship, so we had to go.
We hailed a local bus (which was a van that looked just like a taxi but cost half as much) and went to Coconut Joes.
We ordered some exotic cocktails
And ate food that tasted so much better than ship food. I was getting so tired of the food on the ship that I savored those flavorful eggs as the chickens walked around by our feet.
I stuck my feet in the ocean really quickly and we went back to the road to hail a bus back to town. On the ride back, I saw a sign for a wig place. Andi had been looking for wig glue for weeks for his drag show and I had been offering him Elmer’s Glue. We hopped off the bus, found what he was looking for and then tried to find our way back. We were definitely out of the tourist area. I was having a blast not being entirely sure where we were and if we were heading in the right direction and noticing that we were the only white people in site. Andi protectively walked in the street, as there were no side walks in places, and eventually and uneventfully we found our way back into town. Sometimes it seems like a couple of hours are hardly worth a tender ride, but I found it worth every minute.