San Juan, Puerto Rico

Saturday, January 9, 2016

San Juan is a very modern cosmopolitan city with glitzy resorts and casinos.  They have preserved its Old City quite well, and refuse to put stop lights in that section because it would spoil the image.

Since the ship docked in San Juan early, and our flight did not leave until the afternoon, we decided to book an "Old and New San Juan City Tour With Airport Dropoff".

We started with a visit to the state capital building, all built in marble:

After that the tour just seemed to take us from one section of the fortress wall to another (with 50 meter bus rides in between).  But they were probably different sections of Fort San Cristobal and Fort San Felipe Del Morro.

This is the Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzi Cemetery, you have to be rich and famous to be buried here.  For example, the actor who played Gomez in the Adams Family is buried here.

There was a small city center square where we hung out for an hour.

When they dropped us off at the airport, the gate to Westjet wasn't even open yet, so we hung out with Dee and her daughter.  Dee is actually a published author and Frankie has ordered one of her books to read from the library.

On the plane back, they actually had seatback entertainment, but not on demand.  Which meant that you had to watch whatever movie they showed, at the time they showed it.  We sat in front of a girl who turned out to be the stunt double on shows like Rookie Blue, Murdoch Mysteries, and Saving Hope.

One last Captain Kate Confucius saying of the day:

"Girl who sets goals high, reach summit."  This was quite clever, since the name of our ship was Celebrity Summit.

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

Friday, January 8, 2016

Today we were docked in St. Thomas, part of the US Virgin Islands.  Charlotte Amalie is the capital. The island is said to have been "discovered" by Christopher Columbus in 1493 on his way to the New World.  He did not stay long, and soon ships from other nations took advantage of the sheltered bays. The Spanish considered these other ships to be captained by pirates, so St. Thomas has the reputation of being a pirate island.  Some of the shops occupy former pirate warehouses.

This morning we boarded a 60' dive yacht which took us out to Shipwreck Cove for our excursion. We started off with half an hour of snorkeling, which went much better for Frankie because she was given a mask that fit perfectly.

Then it was our turn for the BOSS (Breathing Observation Submersible Scooter).  We had to grab an end of the scooter while it was under the water, and pull our head up into the helmet.  The helmet was full of air and had an oxygen tank attached to it.  There was free movement between your hands and your head (so you could scratch your nose if you needed to).  It was really hot inside the helmet, and it tended to fog up.

It was fun zipping around on the scooter.  It was controlled by a thumb button which made it go or stop, and you could steer.  We were about 10 feet below water.

They took us over the remains of a shipwreck (thus the name), 

and over some reefs where there were lots of fish.

Back to our ship for lunch, then we decided to go into town for shopping.  Right off the pier there were several huge warehouses full of shops.  We decided to be adventurous and try going downtown, but after half an hour in the sweltering heat, we ended up in an area with bars on the windows and decided to head back.

We checked out the Skyway chairlift and decided that $21 US each was a bit too much for us.

We checked out the shops by the pier.  This is the only thing we bought (they lasted for all of one shower):

The show on the ship was really good tonight, can you guess what song they are doing?

Captain Kate's Confucius saying of the day:

"Bicycle can't stand on its own because it's too tired."

Basseterre, St. Kitts

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Today we were docked in St. Kitts. This is actually a 2 island nation called St. Kitts and Nevis. Basseterre is the capital. St. Kitts is small, being 29 km long and on average about 8 km across. Interestingly enough, we were told not to wear camouflage onto the island.

We wanted to go to Romney Manor, and were told aboard ship that a taxi would cost us $16. Well, that price would only get us a seat on an open air multi-person tour, Anton called them cattle cars. We had a bit of a hard time finding someone to take just the 2 of us, especially because we specified no time limit to our stay at the manor.  We finally got Leroy for $60.  This was our "taxi":

Leroy showed us some sites through town.  A few times he stopped to show us something, and a guy with a monkey in a diaper would come over, wanting us to pay him for a picture.  Which we refused to do since it exploits the poor monkeys.

We explored the ruins of the Wingfield Estate from the 1600's.  It was a sugar mill and rum distillery.

  

We spent a fair bit of time at Romney Manor, which was settled by King Tegreman, a Carib Indian leader. It was all part of the Wingfield Estate.  When he died, the land was claimed by Sam Jefferson, the great great great grandfather of Thomas Jefferson.  Sam Jefferson sold it to the Earl of Romney.

Romney Manor is the home of Caribelle Batik, and we watched demonstrations of the extensive dyeing process involved.  One piece of material can be dyed up to 7 times.

We spent most of the time walking around the gardens.  We especially loved the 400 year old saman tree, its canopy covers over two thirds of an acre (the size of our property back home).

We complained to Leroy that we had missed the heiroglyphs.  Turns out he had taken us there but a guy with a monkey in a diaper distracted us.  So Leroy kindly took us back to see them.  Not sure it was worth it:

Then Leroy drove us to the other side of the island, to Timothy Hill, an overlook of the island with a view of both the Atlantic and the Caribbean Oceans.

We had lunch on board the ship, then went into town and browsed the shops for the afternoon.  We bought some fantastic t-shirts from a nifty store called Pirana Joe, here is Anton in front of the shop with his t-shirt.  Unfortunately, when we got home from our trip, we discovered that we had left the t-shirts behind.  So they never even got worn once.  :(

We found a bench and chatted with a couple from Germany who both work for Wolkswagon, they feel a little betrayed by the company.

This was our usual dinner seat aboard the ship:

Tonight the ship had a comedian for entertainment, who has appeared on America's Got Talent.  We actually did not like him and left.

Captain Kate's Confucius saying of the day:

"Woman who walks in circles, finds defeat."

Fort de France, Martinique

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Today the ship docked in Martinique.  Martinique was settled by the French in 1635, and is NOT a colony but an actual department of France.  They use euros here and speak French.  Napolean's wife Josephine was born here.

There was no ship excursion that went to the 2 places we really wanted to see, so we asked onshore at Information about renting a car for the day. While we were waiting, we noticed another couple, Rich and Laurie, waiting as well.  They had the EXACT same itinerary that we did for the day, so we decided to rent a car together.  Although we crashed their day, they were glad in the end for Frankie's knowledge of French which got us all through the day!

Our first stop was Balata Church, which is an exact model of Sacre Coeur in Paris.  It was built to commemorate those who died in WWI.

We spent a fair amount of time at Balata Gardens, a botanical garden with over 3000 varieties of plants and flowers, including 300 types of palm trees.

Balata Gardens has a treetop trail, a series of suspension bridges built in mahogany trees that are 100 year old. Anton thought the boards of the bridges were a bit old.  Frankie didn't know they were so slippery, and landed flat on her bottom.  Rich had a panic attack and had to take a pill.  Apparently when he was 16 he was driving a car full of people that went over the side of a cliff.  Yikes.

We drove to the small town of St Pierre, population less than 5000 people.  There used to be a lot more people until the volcano Mt Pelee decimated the town in 1902.  It killed all 30,000 people in less than 10 seconds.  Like Pompeii, it was not destroyed by lava, but by pyroclastic flow: extremely hot gases flowing down from the volcano.

The town has never been completely rebuilt, and we saw several ruins that were still there, including the jail building.  The ONLY person to survive the eruption was a prisoner who was in solitary at the time.  This was his cell:

He was found after 3 days and later toured the world with Barnum and Bailey Circus showing off his burns.

We found the museum (which wasn't easy!).  Even though it was small, it was extremely interesting to see the history and remains from the eruption.  There was a massive bronze bell that was flattened.

Back on the ship, there was a really good magic show for entertainment.

Captain Kate's Confucius saying of the day:

"Man who run behind car, get exhausted."

Roseau, Dominica

Tuesday, January 5

Happy 50th birthday, Anton!

Yesterday was an "At Sea" day, this is what we did:

Today we docked in Roseau, Dominica (pronounced Dom-in-eek-a).  It is a small island, 24 km wide by 47 km long.  It used to be a British territory but gained its independence in 1978.  It is known for its nature.

We had originally booked a kayak excursion but the ship cancelled it, so Anton chose the Emerald Pool and Beach combo.  

First, they drove us through town and pointed out highlights, there was lots of evidence of past hurricanes.  After Hurricane David, the island was without electricity for 2 whole years.  This is a bus that was crushed under a tree:

We took some curvy roads up into the mountains.  It was raining as we hiked through the rainforest to get to the Emerald Pool.

This is the Emerald Pool:

After the Emerald Pool, they took us to Mero Beach, a black volcanic sand beach where it was sunny.

Frankie accidentally discovered quicksand:

Since it was Anton's birthday, we booked the Normandie, a specialty restaurant on the ship with a $50 cover charge.  EACH.  Good thing we had a shipboard credit ("Use it or lose it")!

The restaurant was really nice, and the waiter did not believe we had been to Serbia.

We played shuffleboard in the evening.

Captain Kate's Confucius saying of the day:  

"Wise man do not play leapfrog with unicorn."

Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Yesterday we flew into San Juan, Puerto Rico, direct flight with Westjet.  No frills (including meals!).  Met Dee and her daughter and shared a taxi directly to the cruise ship, Celebrity Summit, and embarked on our 7 day Caribbean cruise.  First stop:  Tortola, British Virgin Islands.

The British Virgin Islands are a British overseas territory of volcanic islands.  So why do they use the US dollar?!?!  There are 4 main islands (Tortola being one) and lots of small islands.

Rather than book an excursion through the ship, we booked an all day tour ahead of time with Patouche Tours. Good tour, but Joe needed to be more patient as Frankie struggled with her snorkel mask because he gave her the wrong size.

Snorkeled at Cooper's Island:

Can you see the stingray?

Frankie saw the most amazing turtle:

After lunch, went to the Baths, which is an area of huge granite boulders that don't belong there because it's a volcanic island.

We started with an obstacle course hike from one beach to another:

It was amazing to snorkel between the boulders and through the rifts:

Back to the ship: our captain was Captain Kate, the first female American captain in the world.  She always gave a "Confucius saying of the day" which was really corny.

Captain Kate's Confucius saying of the day:

"Man who sneezes without tissue, takes matter into his own hands."