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

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

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