Cruise 2025 - The Rock and Roll Cruise - Part 6 - Grand Cayman

 

Another day at sea as we head from Puerto Limón, Costa Rica, toward Georgetown in Grand Cayman. Late in the day, we finally break out of the depressing, four-day overcast and back into sunshine. It’s another day of rest for us, though. Ilse has a headache bug of some kind but we don’t know if it’s the Norovirus, the flu, or just a head cold. We will head into Georgetown the first thing after we dock tomorrow morning and find a pharmacy.

It was thirty-two years ago when we first sailed into the Cayman Islands on the Norwegian Cruise Line’s MS Seaward. We were here, way back in the last century, with our friends Bill and Ingrid, on our third cruise. That was a seven-day cruise where we took advantage of as many local excursions as possible, and as a result, we spent the entire day ashore in Grand Cayman. We looked forward to visiting once again to relive some fond memories.

The facilities at Georgetown do not allow the huge cruise ships to dock, there simply aren’t any docks that large. Instead, the ships anchor just offshore and a flotilla of tenders chug back and forth all day long hauling passengers from the ships to a small landing on shore. We had to laugh when we stepped off the tender onto the concrete gateway, it looked exactly as it did thirty-two years ago. I don’t think it has even been painted. The only difference was the addition of a rope to separate those returning to their ships from the seaside entrance. The crowds were different back then because our little ship of fifteen hundred or so was by itself. We were the only ship there all day. 

Today we shared the anchorage with two other huge, top-heavy – yes, look it up – cruise ships, the Carnival Horizon, and the other ship with us at Cartagena, The Virgin Cruise’s Brilliant Lady. That’s a lot of people to funnel through the reception area about the size and charm of a round, Interstate rest stop.

Somehow, the exotic TV ads for cruising just do not conjure up this image...

Ilse and I crossed the first street amid the throng, and then separated from them and looked for a police officer. We approached a trim, and prim, officer, standing on a corner, his hands behind his back, watching the tourists pour ashore. He didn’t have a clue where the closest pharmacy was, in fact, if we had followed his advice, we still might be walking. So we headed toward the post office. Yessiree, you young whipper-snappers, back when the only way to find out what was happening back home was a telephone. No, not the Internet. Land lines and undersea cables. Everything connected by, ugh, cables. Can’t even walk around and talk at the same time, bummer! 

We used the Post Office pay phones to call home back then, an International call meant having access to both telephones and money. The Post Office is also where you find the experts who know where everything is, like phamarcies.

We waited in line behind the only customer, and when the young man behind the counter finally asked if he could help us, he broke out in a broad smile when he heard our accent. We asked him where the closest pharmacy was, and he graciously gave us detailed instruction how to traverse the block and a half without any possibility of getting lost. I bought a Christmas card to send to an elementary school class in Greensboro, Georgia, that was collecting cards from around the US and the world, and we headed toward the pharmacy. It turned out to be in a small mall just around the corner from where we had chatted with the police officer. One reason we may have missed it was because we would never assume a rooster would be pecking on the glass door.

We shooed the rooster from in front of the door and entered the small drugstore. The older woman behind the counter asked us not to let him in, she said he was just being impatient. He kept pecking on the glass door while she rang up the Coricidin cold medicine. He would peck, then pause, cock his head to one side and watch to see if she had heard him.

The pleasant, very quiet woman behind the counter handed me the wrapped package of cold medicine and quoted the price, It was less than twenty dollars, so rather than charge it, I asked if she accepted American dollars. She looked in her cash drawer and said, “I only have Cayman Dollars, is that all right for change?” “That’s fine,” I answered, and took the three paper dollars and several coins in change, thinking the US dollar was worth more so I probably overpaid. “I hope you will feel better” she said as we said goodbye.  She reached under the counter and pulled out a bag of crackers and crumbs. She went to the door and tossed several crackers on the sidewalk. The rooster was immediately joined by several hens and within a few seconds, the sidewalk was again clean. 

They watched us as we walked away, but we had nothing to offer.

We walked around Georgetown, amazed at both the changes, and the similarities, to our first visit many years ago. New, tall bank buildings have sprouted up, but many of the old businesses are still just as they were. The difference was the crowd. The impact of three huge cruise ships here at once is stifling.

The new, above...  and the old below.

We stopped in one of our old nooks and sat down under a huge portrait Sir Henry Morgan and contemplated what to do. Ilse was worn out and tired, so we headed back to the ship. 

We laughed and joked about sitting on the same concrete benches at the dock as before, then stood and joined the line behind the thin rope that acted as crowd control. The line was very slow - the first time on this cruise - and when we finally reached the ramp, we found a single officer meticulously checking passports. He read mine, glanced up at me, then reread it again. He finally smiled and said, “OK!” The only passport control we’ve had on the entire cruise.

Headed back to the MS Rotterdam, December, 2025

The boat ride back to the ship was a nostalgic event as it reenacted the first time almost perfectly. The bow of the ship dominating the horizon brought back memories, even if there were two ships in the distance this time.

In one last gasp of Internet, while on the tender waiting to leave for the ship, I looked up the exchange rate which I stupidly failed to do after we first landed, and found the Cayman Dollar is quite stronger than the US Dollar, worth about $1.20. So, not only did the sweet, smiling woman at City Pharm overpay me in change, I underpaid for the medicine as well! We’ll just have to come back and correct the error. 

Besides, I’d get a kick out of feeding the rooster.

Georgetown, Grand Cayman - 1993 aboard the MS Seaward

Next: Coming soon - Home Again

Previous:  Chapter 5 - Puerto Limon

Cruise 2025 - The Rock and Roll Cruise - Part 5 - Headed North

It is rainy and overcast, a dismal morning as we slide silently out of the fog. The mountains in the distance are pretty, with clouds hanging around the foothills and valleys, much like the Great Smoky Mountains of the eastern US. The floor mat in the elevator says “Monday,” so we must be in Limón, Costa Rica. 

The port town of Limón is just the opposite of Cartagena. From a bustling, urban center to a rural, coastal town that would normally intrigue us, they are two different worlds. Puntarenas, Costa Rica, on the Pacific side was a great place to visit, and we spent the day walking the whole area when we were there just the year before. Even though Puntarenas suffered from a loss of tourism since COVID, it was still fun to see and meet the people. 

We unfortunately watched the on-board video about what to do in Limón. We probably would have disembarked if we had not seen the video. The rain certainly did not make it any more attractive, so we went to the dining room for a leisurely breakfast. Besides, Ilse is a little under the weather so we decide to rest and take it easy. We spent the day reading and touring the ship, checking the nooks and crannies, and even the decks we hadn’t seen yet. 

We find the MS Vasco Da Gama - she was docked in Cartagena with us - already moored on the other side of the pier. The Vasco da Gama is on a world tour, but being an older ship, she does not have a water distillation system and must take on drinking water in port. Several of the water tankers back cautiously through the departing passengers to meet the boat. On the adjacent pier is another cruise ship, with gaudy German advertising slogans oddly emblazoned on the hull, the TUI Cruise's MS Mein Schiff.   

We watch people scurrying down the pier to board their respective buses, umbrellas and rain gear everywhere. 

Reading on the balcony was an odd pleasure because the port has a small, square tent right at the edge of the dock where a gentleman plays a guitar through a very, very loud amplifier. His music carries all the way to the ship’s stern. He is a very good singer, and his repertoire included the old Caribbean cruise-ship standards like Yellow Bird and Red, Red Wine, and we actually enjoyed the music. He even played my personal Caribbean favorite, One Ton Tomato, but when he finally repeated Yellow Bird, that was that.  

There are hundreds of new cars and trucks in several lots scattered around the dock area that belie the poverty stricken image of the area, but we still aren’t enticed to step off the boat.

The Vasco da Gama slips quietly away, resuming her 118 day world cruise

Passengers returned to the ship during the late afternoon and early evening hours, but darkness gently overwhelmed the oddly colored daylight, and soon we had an empty, quiet dock. Even the musician finally closed his tent flaps and walked out carrying his guitar, but we remained moored securely to the pier.

Our scheduled departure time came and went while we remained docked.  An eerie quiet fell over us as several ship’s officers walked around the dock area, seemingly powerless, one of them looking at his watch occasionally. Twenty minutes turned into forty minutes and the Captain finally announced we were waiting for a tour to return from the mountains that had been delayed.  The longer we waited, the quieter it got.

The mist-shrouded hills showed some auto traffic, but too far from us to be recognized. Sirens could faintly be heard up in the hills, obviously getting louder as they came closer, and soon red and blue flashing police lights could be seen coming down toward the ship. Not a few lights, but many lights, and with many sirens. By the time they came into view, half of the ship was on their balconies. 

The tour bus sped onto the parking lot at the foot of the pier led by an entourage of five, highly visible police motorcycles. It was followed by a police pickup truck, its lights also flashing. 

The passengers all seemed quite amused by the spectacle as they stepped off the bus and headed for the gangway. I’m sure they appreciated the police escort through traffic and whatever else that caused their delay and were happy to get back to the ship safely. 

Even though we have another sea-day tomorrow, I’m sure the captain was happy as well, time to leave for Grand Cayman, our last stop of the cruise.

Next: - Grand Cayman

Previous:  - Colon, Panama

Cruise 2025 - The Rock and Roll Cruise - Part 4 - The Other Panama Canal

 

The iconic Atlantic Bridge
The new Agua Clara locks to the left and the traditional Gatun locks to the right
Which way is your cruise going?

Sunday morning breaks with overcast skies as we approach Colón, Panama, the Caribbean entrance to the world-famous Panama Canal. We feel like old hands at this even though this time we are only going through the new locks at Aqua Clara, not traveling the entire fifty mile canal. The MS Rotterdam is too wide for the old, famous, iconic locks at Gatun that we traversed last year, so we will see the new, wider lock system that went into operation in 2016. The tingling of excitement we felt the first time is replaced with an old peaceful, easy feeling.

A smaller freighter heads toward the Gatun Locks

We are currently farther west than where the other end of the world-famous waterway meets the Pacific Ocean. The canal runs southeast from here, not west. We haven’t changed our clocks and watches back so we are still on Eastern Standard Time, the same as New York or Ft. Lauderdale. My hometown of Miami is further west than we are here. Not by much, I admit, but enough to win bets.

We traversed the entire Panama Canal last year as we sailed from Ft. Lauderdale to Los Angeles, a memorable fifteen-day cruise. This is not a traditional canal in the sense of the canals of Europe or even the Suez Canal, which some of my former neighbors think Carter gave away. It is really a fresh-water lake, formed by damming the Chagres River. The canal is mainly red channel markers across the navigable section of the lake. 

The original locks were the three-tiered Gatun locks on the Caribbean side and the Pedro Miguel and Miralores locks on the Pacific side. New, wider locks at Aqua Clara on the Caribbean entrance and Cocoli on the Pacific side have increased the size of ships that the canal can handle. The newer, bigger cruise ships are simply too big to use the old traditional locks. The iconic Culebra cut, the eight-mile, man-made valley through the Sierra de Veraguas mountains, is on the Pacific side along with the Centennial bridge and the original Bridge of the Americas.

Passengers may disembark while we are anchored on Lake Gatun, taken ashore by a continuous flotilla of tenders to visit the local attractions of the area. The tours are all sponsored by Holland America, so the ship won’t leave Colón without them. No one disembarked on the full transit from Gatun to Panama City, so no one on that cruise had the opportunity to visit the area. 

Several of the passengers we’ve chatted with were unaware we would not see the famous terraced locks at Gatun, with the mechanical mules alongside to keep the boats from scraping the sides of the lock. The new facility at Aqua Clara doesn’t use the lock-side tracks and mechanical, train-like tugs to control the boats, so I am curious to see what else one hundred years of engineering advancement has done to the process. I make sure my camera battery is fully charged, and I have my cellphone on a lanyard to prevent the accidental jostling and joggling from knocking it out of my hand as I head topside in the breaking daylight.

The Atlantic Bridge

The crowd on the top deck is not as large as I expected, and very well behaved. I moved around to see the locks from different angles and realized this passage through the new locks is considerably different from the old locks at Gatun. The massive gates on the new lock do not split open, rather they disappear into the side walls of the lock rather undramatically. They simply slide open. We know they’re massive because a bus drove across the gate in front of us while we waited for the lock to fill with water.

Entering Aqua Clara locks. There is a huge container ship in front of us

Agua Clara only has a single row of locks, dictating one way traffic. The old locks all have
 two side-by-side chambers at each lock

There is no drama with the mules cabled to the boat, climbing alongside the ship, as they simply aren’t used here. Massive skid plates completely line both sides of the lock. The other big difference between the two lock systems is there is only a single row of locks on the new facility, not the side-by-side locks of Gatun. The facility and the grounds are spotlessly clean but the facility seems to be oddly devoid of activity. The only people we see are several photographers and one security guard. 

The boats and gates both move so slowly as to be sleep inducing if it weren’t for the warning bells that could wake the dead, used to signal a gate is about to open. Oddly, the place still seems to be on autopilot. There is a huge control center, much like an airport control tower, on the north side that ominously dominates the area. I’m sure they don’t miss much. Off behind the lock area itself, perched on the hill that overlooks the entire operation, is the visitor center. I’m sure, as impressive as this voyage is, many cruisers are surprised by what they see. Or in this case, what they don’t see.

The amount of cargo on the container ship is astounding.

The guide "mules" have been replaced by massive fenders and bumpers

The lock operation center looks like the control tower of an airport.

 By 10 O’clock, we are anchored just several hundred yards into Lake Gatun, and the tenders are shuttling passengers to the many different tours. One of the tours includes visiting Panama City on the Pacific coast by bus. By the way. Panama City, Panama, is almost eighty miles EAST of Panama City, Florida. I wanted to put a smiley face right here, but moving on…

Anchored in Lake Gatun. The old Gatun locks are to the left, the newer Aqua Clara to the right

Heading back to Colón. Entering the Agua Clara locks from Lake Gatun.

As we glide out the last lock before entering the Caribbean sea, the remaining five of us on the top deck chat and talk a little about what we’ve seen. We slowly cruise past groups of lights, mounted on huge, tall light poles, when I realize the last group of lights, covered in metal, bee-hive style shields, has two, huge seabirds sitting it, one on either side, and watching the waterway. It is the first time I have seen adult Frigates, sometimes called Man-of-War, roosting.

Frigate over Mexico

I found a young, gray Frigate sitting on the edge of an artificial grass terrace on the top deck of the Island Princess last year as we entered Huatulco, Mexico. A ship’s officer told me it isn’t uncommon for the juveniles to tire on long flights and take the first available rest stop they see. What’s better than a patch of green in the middle of an ocean? The adults watching the traffic certainly were not bothered by the massive cruise ship in their neighborhood.

The lock visitor center overlook

Colón, Panama

Docked at Colón, Panama

We dock at the new Cruise port terminal adjacent to the huge, modern, two-story, Colón 2000 Duty Free Mall just at 5:00pm. All of the passengers who took excursions will meet the ship here, apparently while the rest of us shop wildly in an uncontrollable spending frenzy. Or maybe we’ll stroll through the maze of familiar stores and marquees and gawk at the prices. 

Colón, Panama

The huge, modern, two-story, Colón 2000 Duty Free Mall appears to me to be a shrewdly designed, state-of-the-art money separation system. The visually stunning mall was about the only place in Colón those of us who stayed on board really got to visit as we were only moored for several hours. The MS Rotterdam docked to pick up the passengers who had disembarked in Lake Gatun. They were being delivered back to the boat by bus after a day of sightseeing. 

There were several displays in the walkway leading to an interconnected building with tables and stalls overflowing with locally produced art and souvenirs. The vendors stood outside in native dress and costumes, competing with the glitz and glamour of the mall for the attention of the cell-phone addicted tourists. But, the mall did have free Internet, where it took us less than three minutes to catch up with E-mails. Time for dinner and another trip to the Rolling Stones lounge, fast becoming our go-to entertainment of the cruise.

We are delayed in departing as the tour bus from Panama City was overdue. We chatted with a couple only moments after they re-boarded the boat. Tired, hungry, looking quite bedraggled, they vociferously expressed their opinion of not eating or going to the restroom for hours. Other than that, he said, it was a good trip.

Time for the Rolling Stones Lounge.

My blog about our trip through the old locks of the Panama Canal is at: https://piddlepaddler.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-panama-canal-cruise-part-3-transit.html

A 27 minute video of the original Gatun Lock trip is at: https://youtu.be/-ouMXldv7zY the video

Listen Here! 

Next: Puerto Limón 

Previous:  Cartagena