Sunday, March 11, 2007

Getting Down To It.....

Hi!

Well it’s been an eventful nine day cruise.....Andy had a visitor, Paul, on the ship this week and it was Andy’s last nine day so there was much adventure to be had. As it turns out, this was Andy’s last cruise for this contract.
His baby is going to be born sometime during this next week so Andy’s signing off today. This is a boo and a yay all at once. We’ll miss him but we’re excited to meet his baby.

More about our adventures...

We started the week off with a whale watch in Dominica. We were there bright and early but the whales must have all had a meeting and decided not to show up. We saw a few flying fish but not even a blowhole of a whale. Boo Whales!!! What gives!!! We did get to ride on a Catamaran which was great. When the trip started we were all sitting on the seats and then they announced that you could go out on to the net part on the front of the ship. Paul and I were the first ones out there....quickly followed by Andy and Larrance.



The flying fish were very cool but I was miffed at the whales. When I see them back in Maine, I’m going to give them what for!!!

After that more bad luck, the pier we ususally swim off of wasn’t open because the Pearl has higher security than the other cruise ships. As we entered the water the port police, who in the past simply waved as they drove by, got on the bullhorn and told us to get out of the water ASAP. Boo Pearl!!! Let us swim and see the fishes!!!

After that we went to the little boardwalk bar to get a Ginger Shandy. We joked that the bar would be out of Ginger Shandy...well, guess what? They only had one left!!! So we ended up with Lime Shandy which was okay--but come on!!!

We took it easy in Barbados because we had a big day planned for St. Lucia. In St. Lucia, Michael, Andy, Paul, Larrance and I chartered a taxi to take us to La Soufriere and Anse Chastanet. This involved an hour and half drive both ways which was actually pretty fun...Here’s some pics from along the way...



Statues in a Yard

Guy on the side of the road with a Boa Constrictor

Banana Tree - from this tree we had fresh cut bananas!

L drinks LLB - lemon lime and bitters

Anse La Rey - a fishing village we passed through

Pitons - national symbol of St. Lucia

Our first real stop was La Soufriere. Otherwise known as the drive-in volcano of St. Lucia. We took a short tour of the caldera and enjoyed the sulphorous air. They say the fumes from La Soufriere are good for respiratory ailments. We all felt much better after going there..

La Soufriere

Oh, that smell!

La Soufriere in the background

More..

I feel better!

Me too!

From there we went on to Anse Chastanet...this is a small resort with a beautiful beach accessed by a terrible road. Once you get there, you’re on a fantastic little beach with a cute bar, showers, bathrooms and some of the best snorkeling since Belize! Yay! Larrance was particularly pleased since there was no music playing. No Reggae, steel drums, “Hot Hot, Hot”, Margaritaville, no Sexy Back! Just the sound of the waves crashing on the beach.




We went out to snorkel in small groups. The waves were a bit strong but once you fought through them you found yourself just off of a rocky reef area that was thriving with marine life. There were huge brain and fan corals and all kinds of fish: NassauGrouper, Black Grouper, Parrot, Tangs, Jacks and Squirrel fish, just to name a few. At one point, I was in a very deep part of the reef and I was surrounded by thousands of tiny silver fish and another school of tiny electric blue fish. There were so many I couldnt’ see through them which at first was fun until I realized that on the other side of this huge cloud of fish could be a big mouth with lots of teeth. Speaking of which on my way back to the beach I passed a Great Barracuda. It was swimming slowly away from the beach so I swam quickly in the opposite direction. This trip made me decide to buy a reef fish identification book so I can learn all the fish’s proper names. We saw hundreds of different kinds of fish and I can’t name them!

On Antigua, we went swimming at a place called Turner’s Beach which was very nice. And then we met the Magicians, Bob & Sarah Trunell, for a glass of wine at the C & C wine bar. This is an establishment just off the ship and it sells some very good South African wines. We all had a bit too much to drink as Bob regaled us with tales of the cruise ship industry back in the day. Bob & Sarah have been working on cruise ships for 19 years. 19 years! They both had some great stories and we look forward to having dinner with them in the future. If you want to learn about how the cruise ship industry got started, Bob suggested a book called “Devil in the Deep Blue Sea.”

On Tortola night, Andy appeared in his last Liar’s Club game show along with fellow cast member, Ben. Also on the panel were our cruise director Clint and the guest ventriloquist, Ken.

Ben had a fight with Ken’s puppet, Mr. Byrd.


Andy did a puppet show of his own.

After that, we had Paul help us take some cast photos....




Then we came to the last two days with Andy still on the ship. These days were filled with many dinners and drinks and stories. We feel so lucky that we got to be on the ship with Andy so our parting is bittersweet. We’re sorry to see him go but we know we’ll see him again in the future. Kisses to Andy!


~Jen

1 comment:

Unknown said...

howdy from maine, y'all! recent news: 2nd place for the drama festival, i got my license and i'm hosting a peace rally on saturday. congrats to andy about the baby. i met that guy named ben at improvasylum, he was hilarious. the only thing that comes to mind right now was a "stairway to heaven," bit he did using his two index fingers as phallic objects up to the sky. it was quite a good show. hurry back to maine! the weather is easing up slowly, in lieu of your return in a few months.