Cruise Day 6: Curacao

In the 6^th day of our cruise, we arrived at Curacao, which is about 50 miles from Aruba and was also a Dutch island.  This is a view of Curacao before getting off the ship.  

 This is us getting off the ship in the morning. 

 Mom and I went scuba diving at this island.  On our ride to the scuba location, we had a good view of the ship from the highway on the bridge. 

 We also got a view of the harbor entrance.  In this view, the floating bridge was pulled to shore for boats to enter.  There will be more about that later from our afternoon visit to the bridge.

 We also passed a house with cacti growing out of the roof.

 When we arrived at the scuba location we got our gear.  This is before I got my scuba equipment.

The coral and fish were beautiful in Curacao, but the part of the dive that almost killed Mom was before the dive.  It was a beach dive, which means we had to carry all of our gear over 200 feet to the beach.  Since the gear weighed more than Mom, it seemed like 200 miles.  Once we caught our breath and were in the water, it was beautiful.  We saw a lot of different kinds of fish and coral.  We saw a big lionfish and a spotted moray eel.

John and Becky went on a boat that they got to drive and then went snorkeling.

We all had a great time.

After lunch (can’t miss lunch), we left the ship again to go into town.  We were also greeted by lots of trumpet fish right next to the pier.  They are almost a foot long but less than an inch in diameter.  If I was the one that got to name the fish, I would have called them needle fish.  I think their noses were al little trumpet shaped.

 We walked into town and down to the harbor so we could across the harbor on the floating bridge.  The floating bridge is quite famous in Curacao, so we wanted to see it and walk on it.  We got there just as the bridge was rotating back to shore to let boats through.

 This is the view of the other side after the bridge was out of the way.

 We waited a while and decided it was going to be a while before the bridge was open again, so we took the free ferry across the harbor.  While on the other side, Mom posed in front of a cute church.

 Eventually, we took the ferry back as it was getting to be time to return to the ship.  Just as we were headed back, the floating bridge once again spanned the harbor.  After waiting so long, we had to walk out on the bridge.

 While on the bridge, we took photos of us.  In the background, you can see the highway bridge that we were on in the morning on our way to scuba diving.

 Another shot of John and Becky with the cute buildings in the background.

 On our way back to the ship, I got this view of the ship from the old fort wall.

 Dinner that night was a formal dress night.  We had the flourless chocolate cake, which was amazing.  This is Becky enjoying her desert.  It was really delicious.

 Since we were dressed up in our formal attire, we took quite a few photos while we were dressed up.  These are a few of the many photos taken. 

 The last one was taken of all 4 of us by a guy that was just passing by and I asked him to take the photo with my camera.

Cruise Day 5: Aruba

When we arrived at Aruba, John and I went scuba diving while Mom and Becky went to the Butterfly and Aloe farms.

The Scuba excursion was to two shipwrecks.  The first was the German ship, the Antilla.  During Warld War 2, the Antilla was in Aruba, which was safely away from the war.  That is until Germany invaded The Netherlands, which Aruba was part of.  The Dutch marines in Aruba ordered the Antilla to surrender.  The Captain asked for a 24 hour extension and it was granted.  Since the ship was almost new, the captain did not want to turn it over to the enemy, so he let most of the crew off and then blew up the boiler about a mile off shore in 60 feet of water.  Everyone made it safely to shore and were taken as POWs. After the war, the captain and crew bought the POW camp and made it into a hotel. 

We did not take a camera with us scuba diving, but this is an aerial photograph of the 400 foot long ship that still sticks up partially out of the water.  When we were there, we saw several groups of people snorkeling and also scuba diving.  It is great for both

Mom and Becky went to the Butterfly farm.

Here are some photos of a couple of butterflies.  The one on the bench is a real butterfly.

They also visited an Aloe farm.

They were also close to some nice ocean scenery.

After we all got back to the ship we ate lunch.  We then left the ship and took a local bus a couple of miles up the coast to a nice beach.  The beaches are all public and have beautiful white sand.  Another nice feature of the sand is that it does not burn your feet in the hot sun.  We have the parrot fish to than for that. Parrot fish bite off the coral to get the algae growing on the coral.  They digest the algae and excrete the tiny bits of coral as sand.  One fish can produce over a ton of sand per year from the coral.  The sand results in very pretty beaches.

John went snorkeling.

He found a starfish.

Mom found flat rocks that skipped on the water.

Mom, John and Becky hung out in the water while I took photos.

Becky’s red toenails stand out against the sand.

When it was time to go back to the ship, we went to the bus stop and caught the next bus.

After getting off the bus, Mom and I went shopping close to the ship.

Cruise Day 4: At Sea in the middle of the Caribbean

Day 4 on our cruise was a day at sea.  We got to rest up from the activities on St. Kitts.  After a leisurely breakfast, Mom and I enjoyed the view from our balcony.

 It was such a lazy day that we did not even take pictures until after dinner.  When we returned to our room after dinner, there was another towel creature to greet us.  Mom and Becky posed with the creature.

 They then showed off the tattoos they received on the pirate boat we took to Turtle Cove from St. Thomas on day 2.

 As we were getting ready to go up on deck to play shuffle board, John was trying to decide if plaid and stripes went together well. 

 We all helped him decide on a different shirt to go with the shorts.

 We then went up and played shuffle board.

 A close call was observed up close.

 We went for a walk around the deck.

 Mom and I took turns steering the ship without hitting any icebergs.

 They had he midnight buffet at 11 pm, so we dropped in to see the good food.  I am always impressed with the carved fruits and vegetables.  Since it was not “too late”, we had some of the food to eat.  It was then time to get some rest before our activities on Aruba the next morning.

Cruise Day 3: St. Kitts

On Tuesday morning of the cruise (I know it has been almost 4 weeks), we woke up at St. Kitts, named after Christopher Columbus. The shore excursion for the day was mountain biking.  I was not feeling well, so I stayed behind while Mom, John and Becky went on the excursion.  Here is what they looked like as the go off the ship.

 

 The island of St. Kitts is very pretty, so I went up to Deck 13 to take some photos.  I looked out and saw the biking group start out on their “3 hour tour”.

Somehow, I thought that this was one of the biking trips where they take you to the top of a mountain and you get to ride downhill all of the way down to the beach.  It is a lot more work when you start at the bottom and ride to the top before coming back down.  Especially when there are about 10 or more hills total.  They stopped for a few breaks.

Passed some beautiful scenery (ship in background)

 And caught a ride up an extra steep hill.

 Saw some more beautiful scenery,

 And made it to the top of the mountain.  From this view (looking south) the Atlantic Ocean is on the left and the Caribbean Sea is on the right.  The ship was docked on the Caribbean Sea side of the Island.

There are lots of monkeys on the island.  Mom got to hold one for some photos.  They are very friendly.

While Mom, John and Becky were on the bike trip, I continued to take some photos of the island from the ship.

I decided to go for a walk in the town close to the ship.  I was particularly amused by this jewelry store.  When I saw the 3 locations of their stores in Alaska, St. Kitts and Utah, I thought it was an odd combination and wondered about the connection of these three places.

Several of the gift shops had these entertaining “people” inviting customers to come into the stores.

Later in the afternoon, Mom and I went back into town and bought a present for Joseph at Pirana Joes.  Mom barley made it out of the store.  She almost got eaten.

In the evening, we had dinner.  This is our table, where Melroy and Cesar waited on us.