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.

Cruise Day 1 and 2: Puerto Rico and St. Thomas

 Sunday morning, before going to the ship, we went to church in San Juan.  There was a church building a little over a mile from our hotel.  Sacrament meeting was much like many sacrament meetings we have been to except it was in Spanish and there was no air conditioning.  There were lots of windows and fans, so it was not too uncomfortable in a short sleeve white shirt and tie, but I felt sorry for the bishopric and missionaries in their suits.  After church we returned to the hotel and checked out and returned our car to the airport and then took a taxi back to the to the cruise terminal, which was less than two miles from our hotel. It was really nice to have the car while in San Juan.  We were able to go places and see things we would not have been able to do without the car.

When we arrived at the ship, we breezed through all of the preliminary paperwork and lines. We then boarded the Serenade of the Seas.  This was the first time we had been on a Radiance class ship.

Once aboard, we went to one of my favorite first day activities: lunch in the Windjammer.  As usual, lunch was very good.  Of course, we had to have desert.  Here are the first of many deserts on the cruise.

We had the traditional first day muster drill, except that it was not a traditional muster drill.  They no longer have the passengers wear their life jackets to muster drill.  There was some discussion of safety issues.  Whatever… It was not the same.  Since we were on deck 10 with all of the high class people, our muster location was the upscale steak restaurant, sitting at the dinner table.  Here is the muster drill.

Our first dinner was great.  Our waiter, Melroy and assistant waiter, Cesar were probably the best we have had.  I will have more about them in later posts.


The next morning, we woke up in St. Thomas.  

  Our shore excursion was snorkeling in Turtle Cove, which is at Buck Island, about 5 miles from St Thomas.  We had a leisurely boat ride to Turtle Cove.  

Once we arrived, we jumped off the boat and started snorkeling.  As might be guessed, Turtle Cove is named after the sea turtles that live there.  We saw several of them.  We also say a sting ray and a lot of really cool looking fish. It was a nice place to snorkel with visibility about 50 feet. 

As we dried off after getting back on the boat, we left Buck Island.  This is my sweetheart in the foreground and Buck Island and Turtle Cove in the background.  The water is such a pretty blue in the Caribbean. 

We had a nice boat ride back to St. Thomas.  

 Once back on the ship, a shower felt good.  After getting all cleaned up, Mom and Becky went shopping and John and I went to play miniature golf.  This is the view of St. Thomas from deck 13 where the golf course is. It is such a pretty place.

 The golf course was fun too.

 After dinner Monday night, we returned to our room and found a towel critter.  I believe it is an elephant, but it could be a cross between a sheep and Jar Jar Binks.