Reflections of My Travel

I love having such a perfectly dark room! I truly wish I could get my bedroom at home to be so dark. And since we’re all the way at the end of the ship/hall, there’s no noise from people passing by. It’s so much easier to sleep without so much disruption.

This morning, the group actually made plans to meet up at the gym at 09:00 so we got a decent workout in early. Hubby and I did weights and then we each finished with 2000m on the rowing machine. We then hit the breakfast buffet as a group but when the others made their way out to the sun decks to soak up some rays for the afternoon, hubby and I chose to go back to the comfort of our room and rest for the afternoon… we didn’t even make it out for lunch.

After dinner, we chose to go to the Phantom Theatre to see the main show – a comedic juggler by the name of Marcus Monroe. I’d like to say that I’m just a bit jaded because when we saw Sharkbait on our NCL cruise, they were just incredible so our bar is very high. They call Mr Monroe the rock star of juggling but, for us, it was just a painful hour of our lives we won’t get back. His juggling was good and entertaining but his jokes were not and the pacing of his show was slow and boring.

We left there and met back up with the group for another AO comedy show by Eddie Capone. We had told our friends our impression of him from last night but I have to give credit where due… this show was much, much better. He had more prepared material and I laughed a good bit. We then wandered around the ship until we ended up back in the dance club which was, once again, dead. We left our friends in there and went back for Mr Capone’s second AO show of the night since he had so vastly redeemed himself. Sadly, the second show was more like last night’s than the one earlier tonight and we were, once again, left disappointed.

It’s also worth mentioning that the comedy host, who I think is also the assistant cruise director, is completely obnoxious and takes entirely too long to disperse the necessary information before each show. *Chaka khan*

towel animal du jour: brontosaurus!

Today was our first port day!

that would be our great big cruise ship on the right... totally cowering from the monstrosity that is the rc allure of the seas. we look like one of their muster boats

st maarten - hubby, me, sylvis, peach, tiger, master, quartz, and bubbly

 We met up with the group for an early breakfast and got off the ship around 08:00 to hail a taxi to Orient Beach. The water was a beautiful turquoise blue and the sand was white, soft, and silty. The waves were pretty fierce and there was a good bit of seaweed so I abstained from water play. We rented some loungers and umbrellas and I held down the shade the whole day. Hubby went for a run up and down the beach and played in the water with some of the others in the group. The beach was a n3kk!d beach but I only saw a few people exercising that option. Many more took the topless option. I remained in long sleeves all day under my slice of shade. No skin cancer for me, thankyouverymuch. Honestly, I was bored and done with the beach after the first hour, just as I would be back home, but I tried to remind myself that not everyone has a beach in their backyard and so it’s a bigger deal for them than for me. It was a nice social day but, even though I never left the shade, I came back with more sun on me than I wanted.

watching the kite surfers

beach day in st maarten... much like sitting in my backyard but with more mountains

me and hubby enjoying a home-away-from-home day

hubby itching to surf

We got a taxi back to port around 14:30, after finding a cabbie who would give us a 8 for 7 deal since hubby and I failed to bring enough cash off the ship. We felt like deadbeat losers but, seriously, who would have thought a day at the beach, without any food or drinks, would cost so bloody much???

When we got back on the ship, we had a much-too-late-for-such-an-early-dinner-seating lunch and took a short nap before dinner. After, we caught up with Sylvis and Peach to watch the ship’s version of Minute To Win It. We finished out the night with the marriage game which is the cruise equivalent of the newlywed game but with three couples – newlyweds, middlyweds, and oldlyweds. Always good for a laugh, that one. 

towel animal du jour: horseshoe crab

hubby and i wondering around the windy ship

Today was the day I was super excited about. After an early breakfast with the group, we were off the ship at 09:00

flora

bird in a tree

hubby, master, sylvis, and peach getting ready to dive

tiger and quartz soaking up rays

and caught a small boat to the Ti Kaye Resort where we had arranged to go diving out of the Island Divers shop. Seeing as how we’ve only been certified for three weeks and have been awfully busy with getting ready for this stalking, this was our first REAL dive. We made a gear and wet suit stop at the shop and then headed out on a boat to the Petons.

colorful reef

so pretty

hey, that's me!

hello there!

fish in a bowl

hubby

look at that wild hair!

what hair?

there is no fish

the gang

Our first dive was a site called Superman’s Flight because the mountains were in a flying shot in one of the Superman movies and also because it is a drift site where the boat drops you and the drift takes you to the other end where the boat picks you back up. Effortless as far as swimming. The water was beautiful… 82 degrees and super clear. We got down to seventy feet and I looked up and felt like I could reach out and touch the surface. The reef was among the best we’ve seen.

st lucia sea/landscape

hubby and i survived our first real dive!

st lucian civilization

Our second dive was a site called the Devil’s Hole. It was more shallow, about forty-five feet, and generally not as nice as the first but I still had a great time and saw a few eels. Sadly, the batteries died in my camera and I was not able to get many pictures.

me and sylvis being bobbers

feather duster in a bowl

The coral reminded me of the old cartoon land of the Snorks.

anyone remember "the snorks" cartoon?

But I did get some very jerky video of us, eels, and trunkfish.

I did discover that, despite being told that a shortie wetsuit was a good idea for a tropical dive, it’s really just too danged hot. My thin skin suit would have been more than adequate. After our dives, the boat brought us back to the resort where they had facilities to rinse out and dry all of our gear and we were served a nice lunch at the restaurant.

lovely lunch location

hubby, quartz, tiger, sylvis, peach post diving

sylvis and peach

crabs

Unfortunately, as we were eating and our gear drying, the sky opened up and drenched everything so our stuff was much heavier when the boat was finally able to take us back to the ship.

Ti Kaye Resort - St Lucia

leaving Ti Kaye Resort

On the bright side, we have a HUGE cabin with a GINORMOUS shower so we were able to hang everything to dry in there. I doubt it will be dry in time for tomorrow’s diving adventures but it should be less saturated. Due to the aforementioned delays, we made it back to the ship with under an hour to spare and by the time we got everything hung up, St Lucia was in the rear view mirror. It turned out to be an early night after a little post-dinner wandering.

towel animal du jour: sitting bulldog