Reflections of My Travel

We had talked earlier in the week with one of the ladies at the excursion desk to find out about snorkeling. We told her that we had been twice last week, in Nassau and in Key West, and that we found the reefs to be a huge disappointment what with them being practically dead and all. She recommended that we skip the snorkeling at all of the ports except Tortola.

She said that would be our best chance to see an intact reef. Happily, she was right. I’m not going to say it was as nice as what we saw in Hawaii or what hubby saw in Australia, but it was by far the best we’ve seen in the Caribbean. We took a boat out to Norman’s Island and snorkeled

in two different spots. First they stopped by a couple of caves

and we were given forty-five minutes to explore the caves and surrounding areas. This was where the good coral was

– not in the caves but at the point of the cliffs.

The caves were pretty neat too. There were giant schools of little minnow-like fish that were all swimming and turning in unison.

It was hypnotic to watch thousands of fishies all moving together perfectly. Also, we saw our first squid!

Two of them.

They were a lot of fun to watch

because as we followed them around,

they’d keep changing colors to blend into their new environs.

Next we went to a little beachy area where we pulled up to a dock and were given another forty-five minutes to do what we wanted around there. I think most of the folks headed straight to the beach to rest. We stayed in the water and continued snorkeling.

There really wasn’t much in the way of coral around this area

but there were tons of devil fish

and even some barracudas

and rays but they were too fast for pix.

We had a great time and it was definitely the best snorkeling that we’ve had this trip.

Back at the ship,

we enjoyed a quiet afternoon, had an early dinner, showed up a bit late to the early show, went to a mini-improv show by last night’s comedy troupe, and then went back to catch the late show too.

Tonight’s main show was a comic juggling duo by the name of Sharkbait. Good grief, they were HILARIOUS! We wanted to see what we had missed at the beginning and to see how many of their “mistakes” in the first show were actually part of the shtick (most of them). I thoroughly enjoyed the show both times and laughed heartily.

After the late show, we headed up to another lounge for the Dancing with the Pearl Stars contest. Earlier in the week, S had mentioned that she wanted to try to participate so we found them and waited to hear them call out names. As luck would have it, her name was drawn by the same crew guy that she had done the salsa class with earlier in the week. I’m not sure if other cruises we’ve been on have had this competition but it was a lot of fun to watch. Basically, there were nine crew members who drew names of nine volunteer cruise passengers and they paired up for several rounds of different dances.

The first few rounds, S and Jimmy were not in the top or bottom 3 so they just kind of eked by. Then they were in the bottom 3 but they made the cut. The next round they were the first ones in the top 3 and before long, they were in the final round with two other couples. The dances they did ranged from disco to polka to chicken dance so it was interesting to watch the… um… interpretations.

The final round was the last 3 couples doing the Time of My Life song from Dirty Dancing. There was some funky stuff going on up on that stage. S and Jimmy were the only ones playing straight and they were the only ones to do THE LIFT. Alas, they didn’t win,

losing to one of the topless floor wigglers. Most importantly, S had a great time and we had a lot of fun watching and rooting for her.  After that, we four headed up to the ice cream machine to find that it was closed. WHAT?! On Carnival, you can get ice cream 24×7. On this whole giant ship, the only place that you can get any sort of food after midnight is the little comfort food diner. That just doesn’t seem right to me. Also, they are much less flexible. For instance, there is a hand-dipped ice cream station in the main buffet but they refuse to put the ice cream in a bowl – cone only – and the comfort food diner serves brownie with ice cream but they will not serve ice cream alone. I just don’t get it. So, three of us got brownies with ice cream and one of us got a full meal (W must have skipped dinner!).