Cruisin' Day 4 Cont... Butterfly Farm Pic. Heavy

While we were driving around, our tour guide pointed out a lot of things... this is a very ritzy, golf course owned by Donald Trump.

Updated: I've been working on this all day again. I almost had all the pic's moved (a very slow inch by inch process...), and I lost the internet connection and it hadn't saved the changes, and it went back to how it had been at some point when it had saved part way in the middle of all the moves I had made with pictures halfway in the middle of other parts of the blog information...

SO... Here we go again! I have ONE more change to make then I'll try to post it.

We went to some other places but ended our morning tour at the butterfly house... (because of all the posting problems I'm having... I am just going to post this now, even though a lot of the pic's are still out of order... though better than yesterday!)

We had been told to be back at the bus by a certain time. A couple of us had bought yummy COLD ice cream cones. Two of the people on our bus were talking to someone from the other bus with our group across the parking lot, looking out at the Caribbean. It seemed like it was a big deal to get moving on time, so we encouraged the other couple to come on...
We literally went out of the parking lot, around one (1) building, and into the next parking lot to a rum shop! Every tour group on the island must have shown up at about the same time! There was no room in the parking lot, once we did get out of the bus, we couldn’t even fit inside the one little shop, and since we personally don’t drink, once we saw what the shop was, we didn’t need to spend time inside, so we actually got out of the crowded shop and sat inside the air conditioned bus.
We were looking around and the parking lot was full of jeeps. Earlier, our Tour Guide Marlon had told us earlier that there are three different colors of license plates on Grand Cayman. Blue was for buses and trucks, yellow for average regular people, and white plates for all tourist rental vehicles. (Marlon said it was so that locals could see them coming and get out of the way!) It almost seemed like the parking lot full of obviously rental jeeps might have been a rental office, but no... all of the sudden a whole group of people came out and loaded up in the jeeps and then drove off together.

Apparently there are Jeep Tours.
Now, one of the other things that Marlon had told us, was that there is no crime on Grand Cayman (I can’t imagine that... , but,) he said the biggest problem they have there is accidents. Grand Cayman, is part of the British West Indies; Brits drive on the left side of the road, and so that is not the ‘norm’ for most u.s. citizens. Then, as if that isn’t bad enough... the rental vehicles (the one’s that we saw anyway), were left side drive vehicles, like we have here at home! So you put tourists in cars they would drive at home on the right side of the road, and expect them to remember to drive on the left side of the road... and oh, if someone thinks they might want to pass another vehicle??? Usually, you would look to your left around the other car in front of you, but no!!! You can’t even begin to see AROUND the vehicle in front of you, as you are driving on the left hand side of the vehicle, in the left lane and to pass, you have to zip out into the oncoming traffic lane on your right!!!
Hmmmmm..... any wonder that one of the biggest problems on the island are accidents on the roadways????

So, after the Rum shop, we got back in the bus and they took us to a lovely place... This sign is very old and faded but in the middle of it it says, " Located in this area is the Largest and most visable portion of "Hell" Which is ironically owned by a family named "McDoom".
I had to take a picture of the post office (oh, and we mailed a post card to Bill’s dad and mom and one to us back home... it’s already been two weeks, I wonder how long it will take to get to us.) Anyway, this area of the island, is jagged lava rock. When some famous person visited/discovered the island, way back when... they saw this area, and supposedly said, “Oh, H-e-_ _”double hockey sticks... and the ‘name’ stuck. I just had to take a picture of the post office. I thought about trying to do a scrap book page or something to send to Bill’s dad who is an assistant post master. I wanted the page to say, something like; 'If you think your job is H-e-_ _... Try working here’!
There was a couple on our tour from Canada. They have a dear friend who's boyfriend gave her this hat for her Christmas present. (She was expecting something quite a bit more personal...). So the couple took the hat with them on the Cruise and were taking pic's of the hat at all the places they went, then were going to put the pictures on a monthly calendar and the 'girlfriend' will give her boyfriend a Calendar with the hat pictures on it...

If you look carefully in the center of this picture, you can see a Lizard. It has a green belly. Marlon Also told us that the green lizzards (or was it the blue) are endangered, and if you kill one, even on accident, like it runs onto the road while you are driving, it can cost you $6,000. Yikes!Roosters just run around wild all over the Island.

After we went to Hell, the next stop on the tour was the Butterfly Farm. I had been to some butterfly houses before (We went to one on Singapore once)... but I learned some interesting things at this one. Appearantly, when a caterpillar goes into his cacoon or Crysalis, it completely dissolves into goo (they’ve now done x-rays and sonograms). Instead of a caterpillar growing wings and becoming a butterfly that way; it actually completely dissolves and then grows into a completely new and different thing.

A Beautiful Butterfly!!!
The guide there said that perhaps it is where the theory of evolution came from... Then he went on to say that the body dry’s up and dissolves, but the wings stay, and there are Fossilized evidence of Butterfly wings as old as the dinosaurs... some are of the exact kinds of butterfly’s still around that we see today.

Well, this to me kind of contradicts the ‘theory of evolution’ whole thing! If we have Butterfly’s that are the exact same kind as there were thousands of years ago in ancient times... then things haven’t really evolved or changed that much! This Butterfly was just fresh from it's Crysalis... It's wings were still wet, and somewhat curled up.

The guide told us that the butterfly... as it gets ready to burst forth from it's cacoon, it's body is filled with liquid, and it is head down, all the fluid goes to the head, and it pushes open the crysallis, along these two seams on each side. After it gets free from the cacoon, it then pushes all that extra liquid into the veins (or whatever they are called in butterfly's), to help unfurl the wings... after that whole process is through it will actually excrete the rest of the liquid that is no longer needed, so it isn't weighed down and it flies away...

We were watching him with this new butterfly, when it released the extra fluid and then, off it went!

This green one was cool. The butterfly insdide was about to come out.... it was moving and twitching, and shaking... pretty cool This butterfly had gorgeous blue wings when they were open... However, when it lands on something and sits, the wings close up. We were watching it an it landed on this bowl of fruit. I was trying to be prepared to shoot the picture if and when it decided to fly away, when bill said, get ready... He reached out his hand and ever so slightly touched the edge of the wings... well that did the trick! It opened it's wings and flew away!! I somehow managed to snap the picture at just the right moment... and we got this amazing butterfly. The guide commented that he has professional photographers sit for hours and not be able to get a picture of the butterfly with it's wings open, and still enough to be able to get a picture. He was impressed! I just felt lucky!!!
Another thing Marlon told us was about the number of Banks on the Island (you know, those of shore, tax free, bank accounts you hear about??? I wanted to take a picture of some of the many Banks we saw while driving, but we were always driving by too fast to focus on them...

This blog post should have just been labeled Butterflys... I still have more of this day to blog about. This just finished up the tour we took in the morning!

Cruisin'... Day 4

We woke up in the morning as we got close to Grand Cayman. However, you can't pull right up, as the water is very shallow and the all the coral would get destroyed if the large ships got too close; so the ships anchor off shore, and we were 'tendered' to shore by small boats. (a boat transporting people back and forth between the ship and the shore).

After we ate breakfast, we went to our assigned Tour group meet up spot. The guy getting us organized checked us in, made sure that everyone had their Disney Magic Card, and a sticker to identify us as a group. Then we were instructd to follow the person with 'The Paddle of Power'! We happened to be on the Green Aladdin group. Bill thought it was the Sea Sick Aladdin tour!group. ;-)

We all went down to the area where you Get off the ship and onto the tender boat, and off we went to the shore. The first stop on our tour for the day was to go see a Turtle farm. On our way we passed by the Governors House. Then we drove past the Oldest House on Grand Cayman Island... it has even survived the many hurricanes that have hit the island.
Beautiful views of the Carribean Sea.
Our tour guide... he told us to remember our Bus number, and perhaps the License Plate number... so that we got back on the right bus afterward. He wanted us to also remember him, his nam was Marlon. -- Marlon Brando he laughingly told us... ;-)

This is the Breeding Pond. Sea Turtles have to be 13 years old before they are old enough to breed and be put into this pond. Once they are ready to lay their eggs, they crawl up the 'beach' leaving tracks, and they dig their holes - Nests - and afterward they crawl back down to the water.
The first pond where we were able to pick up and hold the turtles, they were about 5 months old. I was sort of surprised how big they were (albeit small compared to how big they will eventually grow up to be). Then we moved on to other tanks. There was this one that was almost white, instead of having a brown shell. Bill really wanted to be able to pick that one up! he tried and tried to reach for it, but it really stayed at the bottom of the tank, and did not come up to the top like the other turtles. He reach way down one time and actually got hold of it. He was grabbing both sides of the shell, and trying to pull it up and out of the water... It paddled and paddled and managed to pull away from him. The edge of the shell actually sliced his finger a little bit... Bill was somewhat surprised how VERY STRONG it was! Something else about the Turtles, was that when you held them, if you faced them toward the water, they would see it and want to get back into it! They would freak out and start flapping their flippers!!! We were told that if you stroked under it's neck, it would help them calm down... Well, what do you know?!? it worked! Bill was really good at it.
As we came around the back side of the breeding pond/sand pit area, we saw some lizzards. One was climbing down into the hole/empty nest of a turtle (after the staff had cleared teh eggs out to take tehm to incubators). Then after holding some more Turtles, I tuned around and saw a big long lizzard on the wall. It was cool looking, so I moved in as close as I could manage to get without scaring it away... to take some pictures. Inside the museum they had some incubator's o display to show you how they put the eggs to mature and eventually hatch. I thought the emptly shells were pretty amazing as well.

We had the fullest day on Day 4, I took around 20 pic's on day 3, and over 100 on day 4, so... I think I may just have to split this post in two anyway...

Cruisin'... Day 3

Day three was a day spent at sea, as we cruised from Key West, FL to Grand Cayman Island.

Bill woke up early, and went out and took some pictures as he walked around the ship. He got some great pic's of the sunrise. From the top deck you can see the Crew pool/deck at the front of the ship.

After I got up, we had breakfast, and then we had a spa time scheduled for an 'Exotic Razul'. We have no idea what it actually translates to, or stands for, but it was a private spa area/room. You go in and they have all the bottles of lotions and potions, and bowls of body scrub, and mask stuff. You give yourself facials, and then you give each other spa treatments. they had a big bowl of sea salt scrub. After you shower off in the shower in the all time room, you use this fabulous body oil for massages, then use the big bowl of clay mask stuff. Then there is an adjoining private steam room. You have an hour total for your exotic Razul. By the time you do all the lotions and potions, facials and body scrubs and masks and sit in the steam room, you barley have time for a relaxing lotion massage at the end of it all. We did enjoy it, and for the record, it is way less than the actual massages you can book at the spa.

We were assigned to table 28. In Parrot Cay, this is the window our table looked out. We were a bit late to dinner on one night, and were told that just 5 or 10 minutes before, you could see dolphins swimming and jumping right outside of that window! We just missed it.

Then we went to the Character lunch, at Parrot Cay Restaurant. All the Characters come out and walk around the restaurant and stop to take pictures with people at each and every table. It was lots of fun. The table next to us had a little girl about two yrs old. She was so absolutely adorable! She LOVED the Characters! It was cute, she would squeal with delight for each Character, and would just hug on them... Often a lot of small children are afraid of Characters, and will cry and shrink away from them. (you know like when your little one's cry on Santa's Lap at Christmas time... etc.)
Bill liked the picture with Goofy, since he could actually stand up straight, all the way! That night was Formal night. Everyone was dressed up in nice formal clothes. The show that night was "The Golden Mickey's" one of the crew members helping with photo's commented that I had dressed for the Golden Mickey's, since my dress was sort of Golden.

This is us with Captain Tom - He is from Norway. He was a great Captain, but he doesn't usually talk much or smile for that matter (according to our friends J and N who have taken so many cruises with them). Bill thought this picture was funny because I'm in the middle of a half smile... and he said, "you have a Capt'n Tom smile! Man I wish I'd thought of doing that too! It would have been Classic!"

Bill wore his Dress Blue's (possibly for the last time ever). It was pretty neat, people congratulated him, saluted him, and showed that they really appreciated his service, and or were just impressed by how nice he looked in his Dress Blues. I have to say, I was quite proud to be walking along on his arm. It was a very nice night. Everyone looked so nice and fancy. It was fun to have the chance to dress up! Many of the little girls on board were dressed in the Disney princess dresses. They looked cute.

Our main table server that went with us each day for dinner was Grace. She was from Jamaica. We loved Grace! She was so cute on Formal night. She was absolutely adorable with Bill wearing his uniform. She asked about all his medals, and wanted to hear all about each one and how he got them. He explained them, and Grace was so cute, she asked if she could 'touch' them - the medals. Our friends J and N brought their camera to dinner, and they got lots of nice pictures. I wanted to include some they sent to us, here... but that will have to wait until I can figure out how to download individual images...

Another thing by the door is this Fish. People make/bring what is called a Fish Extender to Hang from the Fish by their door. Then they get involved on line with other Cruisers, and they do sort of like a Secret Sister thing that our young women do at girls camp. You apparently leave little gifts, and notes, etc. for the person you are assigned to on your Cruise. (we will definitely have to get involved with this when we go on our next cruise -one day).

The other thing about the fish, is people can leave notes tucked up behind the fish. Sometimes a notice from the crew will be left behind the fish.

Another thing they do on board is give out little Certificates for things. When they hand out these certificates for 'Magical Moments' people have on board, they stick them up on your Fish for you to get when you arrive back at your room.

Wouldn't you know, when we arrived back at our room after dinner, and the club, was a 'Magical Moments' Certificate by our door on our Fish... for our 'first Exotic Razul'.

Part of our Romance package, included a Romantic turn down of the bed one night. So, we arrived back at our room this night and we were greeted with rose petals trailing along from the door to the bed, and the towel origami that night were two swans with their beaks together forming a romantic heart shape. Very sweet.