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Everyone will be happy to know that Santa successfully found us again this year – despite our being far from home and not having checked in with the SPOT for days. We had a great holiday with the Whan Tong family who didn’t mind sharing their Christmas morning with us or having a vegetarian dinner in lieu of turkey. We spent the afternoon swimming in the ocean and Adam has mastered the art of standing up on a paddle board. It wasn’t your average Canadian Christmas but it was fun.
We’ve been spending the last couple of days making our way around the island to the main harbour and checking out the interesting dive sights along the way. We spent an afternoon in the famed stingray city which is the home of approximately 50 semi tamed stingrays. They have gotten used to the hundreds of cruise ship tourists that visit every day and eagerly nudge you for food when you jump in the water. We’ve seen a number of stingrays during our trip but usually just a glimpse as they swim away. These guys were pretty aggressive and swarmed us like bees. Adam was holding our bag of squid and had to fight one of them off as it tried to tear into the bag. They don’t really have teeth so it’s not exactly dangerous, but one of our co-snorkelers has a bruise on her arm from where one of them sucked on her too hard. The locals call this the stingray hickey.
Today is our last day on the island and we’re celebrating by utilizing the internet and the air conditioning at the beach front Burger King. Our plan is to check out first thing in the morning and head north to the south coast of Cuba. We’re excited to head back and see if there are many changes since we were there last year. Adam is also determined to see Guantanamo Bay this year - we’ve given him a haircut in anticipation of our arrival to avoid any “escaped detainee” misunderstandings.
We’ve been spending the last couple of days making our way around the island to the main harbour and checking out the interesting dive sights along the way. We spent an afternoon in the famed stingray city which is the home of approximately 50 semi tamed stingrays. They have gotten used to the hundreds of cruise ship tourists that visit every day and eagerly nudge you for food when you jump in the water. We’ve seen a number of stingrays during our trip but usually just a glimpse as they swim away. These guys were pretty aggressive and swarmed us like bees. Adam was holding our bag of squid and had to fight one of them off as it tried to tear into the bag. They don’t really have teeth so it’s not exactly dangerous, but one of our co-snorkelers has a bruise on her arm from where one of them sucked on her too hard. The locals call this the stingray hickey.
Today is our last day on the island and we’re celebrating by utilizing the internet and the air conditioning at the beach front Burger King. Our plan is to check out first thing in the morning and head north to the south coast of Cuba. We’re excited to head back and see if there are many changes since we were there last year. Adam is also determined to see Guantanamo Bay this year - we’ve given him a haircut in anticipation of our arrival to avoid any “escaped detainee” misunderstandings.