Our Cruise, July, 2009

For our 25th wedding anniversary, we went on a Royal Carribean Cruise, on the Enchantment of the Sea. We left Fort Lauderdale on July 11, 2009 at 5:00 p.m. and cruised all night. We rounded the west end of Cuba in the evening and during the night. We arrived at Grand Cayman Island off the south coast of Cuba at 7:30 am and were off on an 8:30 am to SCUBA dive a wall and reef. We finally were bused to the dive boat at 9:30 and were off toward the 1st dive at 10:00 am. It was at the west end of the island at the west wall. It was a mild wall dive, more like a ravine, but you could look over the "edge" toward the 30,000 ft. bottom. It was nice. The second dive was on a reef called, "Paradise reef", due to the large number of baby fish on the reef. The divemaster caught a lionfish on the reef that had been seen on the last dive there. The boat is licensed to catch lionfish and take them to a lab for study, as they ruin reefs by eating large numbers of baby fish; about 50,000 in a lifetime! So that was really unique! Then back on board for the formal dinner. It was very nice and the food was delicious. The next port of call was Cozumel, by 10 am the next morning. We waited for a pick-up at 12:15 to go to a local dive boat operation. It was at the Wynham resort, by Sand Dollar dive operations. It was a nice site and competent, professional people. We had an 80ft. dive and a 40 ft. dive. Both were nice, the first was more like a wall than the previous day. We saw quite a bit of life on the reef, lobsters, rays, lots of fish, 2 nurse sharks, and others. It was very nice.
Back on board, we had another good dinner and walks around the decks and sleep. The final day I sat in the sun and got some color to me and read a book, Jeff stayed in the shade! We had lobster for dinner and a fun evening at the final show and festivities. It was a great time and the kids and Sue put money on our account, that bought our dive on Cozumel, so we really felt blessed! Great memories for our silver anniversary!