Georgetown,Grand Cayman

Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island. We had a great visit to the Cayman turtle center & dolphin discovery. Leonard & I first visited the turtle center some 15 years ago when we came here with our oldest two children, Nicholas & Ashley while we were on board the Disney Cruise for the Make a Wish Foundation. Our oldest son Nicholas (now 28) is a childhood cancer survivor and his wish was to go on a Disney Cruise to the Caribbean and this was one of the places he really wanted to see along with swimming with the stingrays. This time, our two youngest children, Sebastian & Lexi get to enjoy seeing and learning about the turtles at this island. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the turtle center hasn’t changed much, except the turtle ponds used to be much closer to the ocean and they used to allow the children to pick up the baby turtles and handle them….now you may only touch the turtles in the special touch tanks and you may not pick them up. We saw the green sea turtles & the endangered Kemp Ridley sea turtles. They have successfully released 31,000 green sea turtles back into the wild. The center however is not without controversy and since we are a traveling family we don’t shy away from learning about the different customs, traditions & cultures of the areas we are traveling to. Grand Cayman is the only Caribbean island that farms turtles for meat production. The national dish in Cayman is turtle stew & the center is sanctioned & monitored by the Caymanian government on the production & sale of turtle meat to local restaurants & Cayman citizens. The government & the center work together to monitor the amount of turtle meat that is sold for consumption here for the national delicacy. Since this is a part of the islands traditions & culture, the center’s farmed meat serves a purpose in that it helps stop the illegal poaching of wild green sea turtles that live in the waters near the island here. We also stopped into the dolphin discovery center that was nearby & we got to observe the dolphins & their handlers in a training & feeding session. We even saw a dolphin named Tesla.