Honestly, one of our favorite places in Grand Cayman is the Cayman Turtle Farm. This can not be called museum or a zoo or an aquarium. It is more than that. Sure, they do have turtles. Lots and lots of turtles (mainly Green Sea Turtles, but a few Ridley turtles as well). It is home to 11,000 Green Sea Turtles, ranging in size from six ounces to six hundred pounds each. Plus there is an aviary, a butterfly garden (and in November to visit when all the flowers and butterflies were gone in Virginia, I was loving walking through the garden and being surrounded by flowers and fluttering butterflies), a native garden walk (not much in the way of interpretive signs, but no one else was there and there was a really cool cave we could see). There were lots of iguanas and we witnessed a feral cat grabbing a big iguana for a nice snack. If you have the time, talk to some of the people working there. We did and it was an incredible experience. Our "private guide", who was just one of the men who worked at the farm but started talking to us because we were spending time watching the turtles, knew the names and characteristics of many of the 300+ breeding turtles. At first, to us, they all looked the same. As he showed us the differences in facial markings, shell colorings, and personalities, they became individuals. He even let us help him feed the turtles (okay, it was probably a Tom Sawyer thing and he was thinking "Suckers! Doing my job for me!"). The most amazing part of the Turtle Farm...
You have the opportunity to swim and snorkel with turtles, fish and other marine life in its 1.3 million gallon salt-water lagoon. Plus there are touch tanks where you can get a hand's on experience getting up close to these amazing creatures.
My sister, Liz, who joined us on our trip to Cayman is planning to help out with monitoring turtle nesting sites in Gulf Shores, AL. For her, this was such an great experience since she could talk to the guides, learn from exhibits, and bond with some turtles. As she learns more about what is involved with monitoring the nesting sites, I hope to post information on this blog. We all need to do our part to help protect there incredible, gentle beings.
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| A Green Turtle swims over to greet Dean |
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| Turtles respond well to kissy faces. No, really. |
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Learning hands-on. How can you not want to help turtles after this?
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| Yes, I was in a dress. And yes. Of course I tied up my skirts and waded in. How could I resist? |
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| I finally figured out that if you stroke under their chin, they relax. |
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| See? Flippers back. Relaxed turtle. |
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| And you have to croon to them. |
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| Diving down to see one of the turtles |
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| Gabs does not realize that there is a turtle right behind her. |
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| So incredible |
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| An unexpected artistic photo. Yes, try taking photos underwater as you are swimming after a moving creature and trying to stay steady. It is seriously harder than it looks. But this was a pretty awesome photo. |
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| Even though it is a man-made lagoon, they have done a great job adding natural looking spots. |
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| Liz is trying to catch up to the turtle. |
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| Florence. One of the oldest turtles in the breeding ponds. |
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Posing on the porch of a traditional Cayman house.
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| Comparisons of the different turtles in Cayman. Yes, we were the only people in the Education Center. So sad. |
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| Dinner time for a bunch of turtles, and we were able to help give them food. |
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| Bubbles! |
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| Love when they surface! We sat, watched, and listened to them for a long time. It was quite remarkable. |
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| Happy turtle! |
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