Grand Cayman Island

Grand Cayman Island
There are two things on Grand Cayman that I could do everyday if given a chance, swimming with the sting rays and visiting the Turtle Farm. Since Megan was with us, we knew that swimming with the sting rays was not an option this year. So a group of us went to play with the sea turtles at the Turtle Farm. The picture above is from the first "pool" you see when you walk in. This is where the "breeders" live. They are all 45 years old to 75 years old in this pool. As they swim they come up to breathe and make a very weird snorting noise so it was fun just watching them move around.

Just watching some turtles and feeding them too!
The BEST part of the Turtle Farm is that you get to hold a baby sea turtle!!! How cool is that!?! Tiffany and Rosemary held the turtle first. When Tiffany first picked this little guy up he was flapping his arms around like crazy. The staff member told her to rub under his neck to calm him down. Almost instantaneously, he calmed down and fell into a trance. If all babies could calm down by just rubbing their neck!

Rosemary wasn't so sure about touching him, but Megan was ALL about it! The turtles that we were able to hold, were all about a year old, just an FYI.

She's still petting the turtle!
"Ok, now that I have him, can I take him home with me???"

I could have held him all day! I think there is a similar picture of me posing like this from about 10 years ago, the first time I came to the Turtle Farm. I still can't believe how cool it was that we could hold a baby sea turtle!

Megan really loved feeding the turtles. Not sure if it was because the turtles were fun to watch or if it was because the food looked like dog food and she was able to throw it in the water (something she can't do at home!)

"Thanks for the snack, Megan"

The turtle were separated by ages into different "pools" But each pool was divided up, not sure why, but the turtles could move from mini-pool to mini-pool within the big pool. The big "pools" kind of liked like honey combs, filled with turtles :)

Here is a picture of the wall the turtles could climb over to move around from pool to pool. These turtles were resting on the wall but others had to struggle with all of their might to get of the wall. Also, fun to watch.

Looking at more turtles and trying to use up the rest of the turtle food. Between our group we had 3 bags of food and it took awhile to get rid of it.

Megan feeding the turtle and getting really excited about it!

Needless to say everyone had fun at the Turtle Farm. Of course we had to visit the gift shop! Grandma Berthold bought Megan this stuffed turtle and as you can see she loves it. She sat like this for about 5 minutes while everyone finished looking around the gift shop. Now that we are home, Megan takes her turtle everywhere and gets very excited when she sees a turtle on tv, in books, on clothes, you name it, she is all about turtles now (she takes after me) We have our home movie saved on our TIVO, and she flips out when she sees her and Rosemary at the Turtle Farm, it is so cute!

Next stop Jamaica and the end of our cruise :(