Reflections of My Travel

Today was another dive day so we met up for early breakfast and got off the ship as soon as we could. We met the owners of Pro Divers shop outside the port gates and they walked us around the corner to wait for their van. It ended up being a long wait but at least we were in some shade. We finally made it to the shop for gear pickup and boarded the dive boat. Our first dive was a wreck but I never got the name of either site today. Shame on me.  It was about forty-five feet and had a pretty open boat

looking down on the wreck from the surface

sylvis

looking in the portholes

checking out the boat

you can't see me!

that we swam through  

following the leader through the wreck

and what’s left of a bus and a tractor.  

old bus

hubby... shoulda taken that left at albequerque

hubby: she thinks my tractor's sexy

We saw part of an octopus that was comfortably holed up nearly out of site. All I really caught of him was his beak and that’s about all the camera got too.

shy octopus

And we saw an eel but there was so much silt stirred up that my camera had a tough time focusing on him. 

eel

It was a lot of fun exploring the three wrecks and seeing fun creatures. 

squirrel fish in the porthole

candycane shrimp

tire fish?

Our second dive was at a reef a couple miles offshore. It was nearly seventy feet and was a beautiful site.

my camo is better than your camo

i dream of genie... and by the way, these things are incredibly camera-shy

so much beauty under the sea

We saw a couple beautiful lionfish 

the black lionfish was far prettier than the white one

and a not-so-pretty scorpionfish.

scorpionfish

seascape

It was a very mellow dive.

hubby holding his hands behind his back because i yelled at him about holding onto me so that he could conserve O2 by having me drag him around

sylvis

peach

tiger

lobster, it's what's for dinner

pipe organ?

fishie

not as effective a hiding spot as he thought

school of fish

school of divers - yes i am amused by the resemblance between this and the above pic

I liked that the guide today didn’t make us all surface together. Instead, he let us watch our own air and computers and we were able to use all the bottom time we could/wanted.

40+' of perfect clarity

me and hubby

showing my love

riding the safety stop

there's some story to the flying donkey but it comes from their prior cruising together so i'm not in the loop

When we got back on the boat, we were running a bit later than expected and the boat bypassed the shop and dropped us off near the cruise port instead, which was nice and convenient. Although it didn’t make all that wet gear any lighter to carry.

hubby, me, and miracle

st kitts

flora

We got back to our room to rinse all our gear and hang it to dry and then went to lido for a light snack since we missed lunch. We happened to be up there when it was time to sail away from St Kitts so we went up to deck to wave goodbye. It was a lovely island from the water. The past guest reception (sadly ours was at a different time from the rest of the group) finished us off and we went to dinner stuffed. This early dinner thing has been pretty difficult for those of us who are used to eating late at home. We decided to go to the main show with Sylvis and Peach. It was a comedic ventriloquist, Mr Phil Hughes. Overall, we were not impressed. He did a bit at the end of his show where he called three audience members up on stage and used them for “dummies” and that part was pretty funny but the rest of it was a little ho-hum. I feel like we’ve been a pretty tough crowd this week.  

towel animal du jour: tortoise

While hubby got up to gym, I chose to sleep in this morning. It’s my vacation and I’ve gotten up early the last three mornings so don’t you judge me. When he got back from the gym, I got up and we headed to the breakfast buffet. While we sat eating, nearly everyone from the group passed by at some point and chatted. We finally decided to visit the pool with some of them so we spent about ten minutes in the pool and probably five minutes in the hot tub and that was enough of that.

monkey on my back

sylvis

We then tagged along for the group’s poker run cabin crawl. I was hesitant to participate but I felt more comfortable after spectating and would probably join in next time. They basically went around to seven host cabins picking up treats and a card from each of the first five cabins. The last two cabins were discard cabins if they wanted to trade a card each cabin to try for a better hand. The guy who won had four queens and got the $80 pot they had built up. Pretty cool but it was just as much fun to watch.

the prettiest shots i've ever seen

forget "how many people can we cram into a cruiseship stateroom" we're going for the "how many people can you get on the tiny couch" record!

While the awards were being handed out, our little group ducked out to go fishy-bomb a cabin. Apparently one of the ladies is terrified of fish so they got the room key from her husband and they put fishies all over the place in there. She took it like a sport. It was a fun afternoon and required a pre-dinner nap.

hubby and me

you can never have too many "look at us all snazzied up" pix

our ontarioan dinner companions

We then spent the remainder of the night enjoying the AO shows of the new comedians onboard. The first and final show were from Mr Jason Blanchard. Loved him! He had great material and we laughed like crazy. His final show, he was getting heckled by some ridiculously drunk woman and he managed to heckle her back until she finally got up and left. A thunderous applause followed her departure.  He was definitely among the best of the cruiseship comedians we have seen to date.

The middle show of the night was by Mr Carl Rimi, whom we had seen on the Elation back in May. It was mostly the same show we saw six months ago – same jokes, same annoying swagger around the stage, same tired attitude and overuse of “meh” and “my life’s in shambles” – but I will say that he at least had more prepared material than back then instead of spending all his time heckling the audience. Though I still didn’t find him to be anywhere on par with Mr Blanchard, I do think I laughed a little more than I did that first time we saw him… so there’s that for him.

towel animal du jour: eskimo!

I had actually intended to accompany hubby to the gym today but my head wasn’t having it. I’m not sure why my head has been so angry this week. It’s gotta be something on the ship. By the time he returned and I consented to getting out of bed, most of the breakfast buffets were closed and I actually got a sammich from the deli instead.

they really know how to dress up fruit on a cruiseship

We took our time eating but nobody came by our table like yesterday. We then headed to the lobby to peruse our portraits from the week and we ran into fishphobia and her husband. They talked hubby into a beanbag toss tournament in which he skillfully placed second out of forty-three participants.

hubby getting competitive

fishphobia tossing a sac

hubby putting on the pressure

fishphobia's hubby

such graceful form

silver medalist!

We went from there to the art auction, where we ran into the fellow Orlandians in the group, Master and Bubbly. They had the Donald Duck piece that I was so enamored with on the last cruise. It is Ducky See Ducky Do by David Willardson and I was so tempted to get it but I just couldn’t bring myself to spend that much on a Disney serigraph. I do love that piece though (although now that I’ve found the artist’s website and perused it, i find that Corkscrew is the one I really MUST have).

one day, maybe, i'll actually own this painting instead of just drooling over it

When the auction was over, we went back to the room to start packing before our final dinner on the ship. How much do I love that my final dinner consisted of a beautiful bowl of baked mac-n-cheese with bacon? First time seeing that one on a cruise menu and it very well may have been my favorite of the week.

towel animal du jour: heart-shaped chocolate box

because the eskimo thought it was a fire to warm up to

We then visited the future cruise desk to get a credit on our next Carnival cruise and ended up in the main theatre to watch the Battle of the Sexes and Liars Club games. We intended to skip the first AO comedy show, by Mr Rimi, and only see the one by Mr Blanchard but someone read the schedule wrong and we were there for Mr Rimi’s first show. We occupied a large section right up front on the side. He spent half the show trying to heckle our new Orlandian friend, Master, to no avail. Our new Fishphobia friend kept bending over my shoulder to say how lousy this guy was. The credit I gave him last night for being slightly better than the last cruise we saw him on was definitely premature. We were much happier when Mr Blanchard’s show started. He still rocks and I was very upset with my bladder when I couldn’t wait until the show was over so I did miss a couple minutes of the show. Stupid bladder. After that show, we all agreed we’d rather not go back in for Mr Rimi’s last show so we gathered in the hall taking pix and saying goodbyes. Packing is done other than toiletries and my pillows and blankies. One more buffet until vacation is officially over.

sylvis and me

part of the gang waiting for the show to begin

the other end of our couch

our original cruise buddies!