Boy I am so ready to be home. Woke up this morning and found the ship already docked in St. John's. I woke up, started getting dressed to go up for breakfast, and had to wait for Mari and Carolyn. It is amazing to see how, what the harbors look like, and what they do to attract visitors. As you can see in some of my photos, the scenery is not always pleasant. The kids apparently were out late last night or early this morning (this depends on if you look at a glass half-full or half-empty). Carolyn said they got in late. We went up to the buffet style breakfast on the lido deck. Nothing fancy, did try an omelet. Once we were finished eating we returned to the cabins to get ready for beach excursion. When we got back, we found the kids awake and already eaten. Marissa was wearing a cloth triangle sling with her left arm in it. Turned out Marissa hurt her arm or shoulder last night in the disco flailing her arms around and felt something pop or stretch. Therefore, she ended up going to the ships infirmary instead of waking us to see what to do. Now we are stuck with $100 - $200 medical bill until we fill out some paperwork for insurance for reimbursement. The diagnoses turned out to be a muscle strain and included fees for the doctor, infirmary visit, medication and utensils for the shot. David says he tried knocking on our cabin door to walk us but we did not get up. Asked him why he did not call the cabin, or knock on the balcony door or window. He did not have a good answer. The way the cabins are designed one cannot hear anyone knocking at the door unless they are pounding. Therefore, they spent about three hours in the infirmary. The darn thing is that I would have told Marissa to ice her shoulder, and take some ibuprofen. If would have been worse this morning then we could have taken her down to the infirmary for further treatment. Oh well, what is done is done.
Anyway, after everyone had gotten ready we headed down to the meeting spot for the beach excursion on the pier. Wow, this was a popular excursion. There ended up being about 60 – 70 people going to the beach. There was several taxi vans hauling about 12 – 14 people in them. The route taken to the beach only lasted about 7 minutes. It was amazing seeing the houses and streets. We take for granted what we have back in the home in the mid-west. Seems like everyone is living almost on top of each other in the cities and the streets are so narrow. I guess I really would not like to live here on the islands for a long period. Same with the ship, there are workers that have been on the ship about 7 months now and they go home for 2½ months and then return for another tour. It would seem that work would be so routine being employee on the cruise ship. The scenery would be constantly the same and one would lose track of time since things would be repetitive. Anyway I think living on an island would be the same but not as extreme.
We made it to the location, a small beach side resort nothing fancy but it was quant place alongside the sea. Everyone filed out of the taxi like it was a clown troupe car. The troupes made their ways through the bar/restaurant area to the white sandy beach. The sun was not high yet so many people grabbed a beach chair and started sunning. While I did grab a chair I immediately went for a shady spot under an umbrella. Everyone else in the group (Carolyn, Mari, David and Marissa) setup camp in the sun and started either sunning or headed down to the water. While watching the droves of people employees or residents of the area started pedaling their goods. One person weaving palm leaf baskets or hats for $15 but they need your exact size for a hat. Then someone else selling natural Aloe Vera from a plant leaf they had picked for $10 or $15, another person pedaling trinket necklaces and bracelets that they supposedly had handcrafted. Or, bare back horse ride on sand shores or in the water. Someone else wants you to rent a skidoo or jet ski for 30-minutes. If none these things interested you, one could have had a body or body part message for $15 for 15-minutes. I got tired of telling these people no. While I was sitting under this stationary umbrella at the top of the beach near the building, an employee wanting to charge me $6 dollars for sitting under a fixed shade area harassed me. I told him I would move and ended up moving down by the family. Carolyn ended up renting an umbrella and sharing it with me. I watched the people and took a few pictures at the beach. I watched the kids. Marissa was not wearing her sling on her arm. I was amazed how she was using her left arm when she was adamant about the agonizing pain she was in at the boat. Now she did not have a care and no one would notice how she used it. Oh well. I did snap a few pictures for the guys back at the station of the scenery at the beach. About 1:45 pm, it was time to go back to the ship. I laugh (inside) at Marissa; she put on the sling before leaving the beach after she used her arm so much for swimming, carrying and holding things. As we returned to the ship, I snapped a few more pictures of the streets, markets and people on the island.
Headed back to the room and cleaned up. Damn, even sitting under the umbrella I got a little sun on my legs because I can feel that my shins are sun burnt and was really trying to avoid getting any sunburn. David and Mari upper backs do not look very good. It almost looks blistered, red with skin peeling, yuck, not very attractive. Marissa's forehead is burnt from her hair being pulled back on her scalp from here braided hair. I did bring some 50 spf sun block but they either did not want any or waited till they had already been in the sun a lot before having any put on. Since it was after 2:00 pm, we decided to go grab a light lunch up on the lido deck. Now I am back updating the blog and posting some of today's pictures. Mari is snoring and napping. I will update the blog again this evening before retiring, so later.
Carolyn, Mari, Marissa and I had supper in the dining hall; David went and had pizza up lido deck. Tonight's supper was nothing to fancy tonight. Afterwards we went to the show in the theater. Tonight's performance was a magician. He was okay and had to improvise because the light and sound people had computer issues and could not get the lighting to work properly.
Well, tomorrow we will arrive at Basseterre, St. Kitts by 7:00 am in the morning. Right now, we can see the lights from the island in the distance. According to the route is the ship is going to circle around the island from to get to the next port instead of going directly to the next location. Mari and David are supposed to go on a snorkel excursion since the similar excursion they were going to go yesterday was cancelled. They need to be up early since they meet at 9:15 am for the excursion. The rest of us are going to stay behind and may do some shopping. Also check out more photos to the left here since I got a few more as we left the port.
See you all soon.
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