Week 12: Getting Conched Out At The Cayman Islands

My briefly writing about mudslides from Florida last week reminded me of the mudslides and all sorts of Carribean food we had on the Cayman Islands. So this week’s shirt comes from the Caymans.

I probably had a mudslide a day during our stay. It was a yummy frozen concoction, similar to a milkshake, but with alcohol in it. Best part, you could not even taste the alcohol: just the chocolaty creamy goodness.

In addition to mudslides, we also had conch. For those unfamiliar with conch, it’s like a huge escargot and one of the staple of the Cayman Islands. We enjoyed different versions of conch: conch stew, conch chowder, conch ceviche, and conch fritters. Indeed, one can really get conched out. We even had “fresh-from-the-ocean” conch and lobster ceviche in one of our snorkeling trips. Our guide just collected and prepared while we were snorkeling. That was really yummy!

One of the places that we visited was the Cracked Conch – where I bought this T-shirt. With a name like that, you got to try the conch. We even had Thanksgiving Dinner there where we enjoyed the usual turkey, conch of course, and even turtle (as a stew). I tried the stew, and it was delicious. No worries, the stewed turtles were farmed, not fished from the sea. I only had one bite though -- I kept thinking of the cute turtles.

The Cracked Conch also had access to diving. The restaurant sits on the rocky shores of Turtle Reef, which is one of the few shore diving sites on the Grand Cayman. We had our first trial dive here. The entry at that time was pretty rough – must be the ocean conditions, and the visibility was not ideal. We still had a great time and got our bearings for the next dive (More on diving the Caymans on my next post).

My Sweetie really wants to go back to the Caymans: the food is great, diving excellent, and the people are very friendly. You just have to get used to driving on the wrong (left) side of the road or get used to their public transportation system which is a series of vans that beep to greet each other, not because they are angry at the other drivers; It’s like saying “Hi”.

Gives me a chance to look forward to more conch and mudslides.