April 29th in Grand Cayman

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Today was 9-12 at the Queen Elizabeth Botanical Gardens. We had great birding and “flowering”? but by 11 am it was really heating up, and by the time we left I was fried. Not much breeze.

One of the exciting points – we had paid the extra fee to visit the Blue Iguana sanctuary, but we saw THREE of them in the wild – one we video’ed, the other 2 had been in a scuffle. Evidently it is mating season and the males are very aggressive.

We also sighted THREE new birds: the Western Spindalis, the Yucatan Vireo, and the West Indian woodpecker. The flowers were magnificent – but as I don’t know the names, you just get some photos.

After the botanical gardens we drove another 15 mins or so to have lunch at Tukka – LION FISH TACOS. They were excellent, and the sweet potato fries were the best we’ve ever tried. Photos of food included for Lucy – ha ha. They had a lovely setting overlooking the ocean. We read again about the historical wreck that took place in the 1790s when 10 ships in a convoy all ran aground and the locals risked their lives to save all but 8 crewmen.

By then Jean needed a nap. After which we went snorkeling at Spotts Beach, towards town by about 10-15 mins. Usually we had had good luck spotting turtles there, but this time there were no turtles but 1 Caribbean stingray, with his wingman, a barjack, and 3 yellow stingrays – all but one also accompanied by the same type of fish. We also saw a big puffer fish and a barracuda, plus a new type of Squirrelfish. It’s really hard to get new fish in the Caribbean so that was a surprise.

Home to shower and zoom with John & Robin, who should have been on this trip with us ☹too. And then cooked the reset of the yummy grouper in the left-over curry sauce.

By the way, backing up a little – remember that we went birding at the Canaan Land Road area yesterday? We had been told that the land was now owned by a Mr. Dart. David did some google research and he turns out to be an eccentric ex-American who owns more property on Grand Cayman than anyone else. And a bit of a recluse. You can look him up too. Actually there are plenty of for sale signs around on houses of all types, but we hate to imagine how expensive they are.

Of course we are driving on the British side of the road, but there are quite a few left-steering-wheeled cars – don’t know how they manage! We’ve only ventured into George Town once, and never up to the West End. The Eastern half of the island is much more laidback and has less traffic.

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