Cruise to Panama Canal-Part Two
We sailed overnight to Limon in Costa Rica. As we didn’t have any excursions booked we stayed on the ship and relaxed. The view from our balcony showed an eerie scene of constant falling rain on the Rain Forest with the low clouds hanging amongst the trees.
Next day was a sea day as we headed back across the Caribbean. We arrived in the Grand Cayman in the early morning. This was another stop which involved a tender transfer. We were given a ticket with number and assembled in the dining room, waiting for our number to be called. In fact we sat at our evening table whilst we waited!
It was a short journey ashore. We went on a local mini bus tour. My husband teased the US citizens on this tour about the driving side of road, as the Cayman Islands are a British territory and they drive on our side of the road and have roundabouts. The most famous beach is called Seven Mile Beach. We were taken to Hell, which is a rock feature raising out of the ground. There is a post office there, were people can have postcards franked with from “Hell, Grand Cayman”
The following day was another sea day which eventually took us to Fort Lauderdale at the end of the cruise.
After disembarking we collected another hire car and drove to Key Largo, where we stayed for 3 nights. Like a lot of places in the USA there doesn’t appear to be a real centre here, unlike Key West which is much more compact. We drove down on the US1, the Overseas Highway, to Key West the next day. Key West was very busy, especially Hemingway’s house. After we found somewhere to park we visited the harbour and generally wandered around, after having stopped for lunch.
The US1, the Overseas Highway, is built over many islands and does feel like travelling over the sea. The road is quite a large engineering feat.
After three very rainy days we then went to Naples and stayed on the main street, Fifth Avenue. We have been to Naples before and like it there. We went to the Everglades where we visited a museum run by the Park Rangers in Everglades City. We decided against going for boat ride as we would have had to wait for a couple of hours and the weather didn’t look very promising. We had been out in an ordinary boat, not an airboat on our previous visit to the area and saw manatees and dolphins.
The next day we went to the Naples Municipal Pier and walked to the end. Many people we fishing from various vantage points. There were some artists and plenty of people taking photographs. It was very hot and there were loads of people taking advantage on both the wooden Pier and on the beach which stretches for miles. There was a dolphin swimming in the bay. I’m not sure if it ‘playing’ but it appeared in different places all the time. I did try to photograph it several times, but only managed a distant view with just the fin in the photo.
The rest of our stay we relaxed, as our hotel had a swimming pool on the roof which was lovely.
We then headed for Orlando for 4 nights. We were surprised to find the area suffering from a drought, after all tropical downpours we had experienced further south, and they were praying for rain.
On our full first day we visited SeaWorld. The parks all have horrendous rides (my opinion) but I would never venture on any of the ones that turn you upside down. As you enter SeaWorld you become aware of screaming and hope this is a sign of enjoyment! We watched the manatees and the turtles swimming in one of the pools and then went down under the dolphin pool and watched them. SeaWorld look after animals and do try where possible to return them to the wild. If this is not possible then they will look after them for the remainder of their days. For instance there were some damaged pelicans that would be there until the end of their lives.
The next day we drove to Tampa and went to Busch Gardens, Continued