Leaving St Thomas. :-(

Leaving the last island behind, we headed up the gangway and back to the ship. Sharon and Mark went to the Internet Café on Deck 8 to catch up, and Caitlin and I donned swimsuits and lounged poolside for an hour. Actually, I fell asleep. Soon it was time to get ready for the last night’s dinner on the ship. Caitlin and I ordered the smoked salmon and pasta in tomato cream sauce, and Mark shared some of his mahi mahi with me. Mark also had the sirloin steak with béarnaise sauce, but I can’t remember what Sharon ordered. Whatever it was, it was great. Ivan brought us our last round of shots, along with a page showing the recipes for each one that we’d enjoyed during the week.

After dinner, we headed down to the Photo Lab on Deck 2 to pick up the “Week in Review” DVD of the cruise. Then it was time to pack up. We were required to get our bags packed and outside in the hallway by midnight, and just keep a carry-on (carry-out?) of the items we would need the next day. The last towel critter for the journey was a manta ray.

Goodbye, Brenda and Franko!

Back at the pier, Brenda and Franko gave us all hugs and took this group photo for us.

Markets in St Thomas

Soon we were headed back down to the harbor area, and back into crazy traffic. We could see little markets all over the place. This one even had fake designer handbags.

Mountain view of the ship

From one of the mountain outlooks, we could see the entire harbor, including our ship.

Mountaintop, St Thomas

We thought we were pretty high up for those pictures, but then we started to climb even further to the “Mountaintop – Home of The World Famous Banana Daiquiri”. The view was spectacular, and the daiquiri, made of fresh bananas, was pretty good too. You could see Magen's Bay from this vantagepoint also.

Magen's Bay, St Thomas

We saw everything at Coral World in less time than we expected, so we called Brenda and Franko to come and pick us up early. They had actually just arrived with other passengers, so after buying a few souvenirs in the gift shop, it was time to go. We had a few hours before we had to be back on board, so we asked for a short guided island tour. They agreed, and we were off. There was a cheesy song playing on the truck radio, over and over – apparently when they really like a song, they just set it on “repeat” and that’s what you get. For an hour.

Up mountains and down mountains we went, to several beautiful spots on the island.
We were very glad that we weren’t driving on those roads. Magen’s Bay was one of the first stops, and it was breathtaking. This is a bay that shows up on a lot of photographs of St. Thomas!

Coki Beach, St Thomas

If we had gone snorkeling that day, it would have been at Coki Beach, right next to Coral World.

Coral World: Caribbean Reef Exhibit

There was a new “Caribbean Reef” exhibit in a low, round building. This was particularly cool. Each tank contained a nice selection of sea life. This was the first time I’d ever seen real seahorses, and they are the darndest things. They were swimming around, and occasionally would stop and curl their tails around a branch as an anchor. The rock lobsters in the next tank were really cool too. When we exited the building, the pelican was perching right outside the door. He was very nonchalant about having his photograph taken from only 3 feet away.

Coral World: Sea Grape Tree

We wandered down another trail and found some more critters. This round-leafed tree is a sea grape, and we saw these at all 4 islands.

Coral World: Lorikeets

After we left the observatory, we checked out the shallow “petting pool” which contained small sting rays, star fish, big slug-looking things, and a few other sea creatures. Then we started down one of the trails and entered a large netted area for lorikeets. These beautiful birds were quite friendly, especially after we paid $3 for a cup of nectar. The second they saw the nectar being poured, they were all over it. The birds lapped it all up within just a few minutes. One was walking around on me, literally.

Coral World: Underwater Observatory

Coral World has a 3-story underwater observatory built off a short pier in the ocean. We walked across the pier, then down the circular staircase to the bottom. It was like snorkeling without getting wet – hundreds of brightly colored fish at all the windows, coral, anemones, sea urchins, etc. The next two levels up showed more fish, who preferred swimming around at a different level from those at the bottom. Caitlin didn’t go snorkeling with us, preferring to hang out on the beaches, so I bored her to tears by excitedly pointing at all the fish: “Oh, we saw that one, and that one, and one just like that!” Over and over. Poor Caitlin.

Coral World: Pelican

In a tree above the sea turtle tank, this pelican was busy preening his feathers. We saw pelicans all the time on all of the islands, and this was the first time I’d seen one actually sitting still.

Coral World: Sea Turtles and Iguanas

When we arrived at Coral World, I exchanged cell numbers with Brenda and Franko (our drivers), and they agreed to pick us up at 3pm unless we called for a ride earlier. They also gave us discount cards for $4 off each admission. When we entered Coral World, we were immediately greeted by a lot of iguanas. The schedule said that the sea turtles were being fed now, so we headed over there first. The two turtles were at least 3 feet across, and were enjoying a lovely lunch of lettuce and tomatoes.

Checking out St Thomas

There was a “shopping mall” within a block of the pier, and we walked there first. Although it was called a “mall,” it was actually 4 parallel long buildings with shops in each one. We were able to find t-shirts and trinkets, and most importantly: I found a pharmacy for some non-drowsy decongestant. With the last required souvenir shopping out of the way, we took our purchases back to the ship, grabbed some lunch at Deck 5’s Café Promenade, and headed back out to see the island.

We thought that St. Maarten had some steep roads, but compared to St. Thomas, St. Maarten was more like North Dakota! In addition to the steep ups-and-downs and hairpin turns, they drive on the left here. This was not the day to drive ourselves around. The first place on the agenda was Coral World at Coki Beach. We got a “taxi” to take us there. The vast majority of the taxis in St. Thomas are actually big-engine, 4-wheel-drive pickups that have been renovated to carry passengers in the back. Those trucks had no problem getting up the hills, and we could actually see quite well as we went along. At one intersection, a guy was selling coconuts out the back of his truck.

Day Seven: St. Thomas

At dinner last night, we learned that there would be a mandatory U.S. immigration check of all passengers beginning at 7:00 a.m. Everybody on the ship was required to report by 9:00 a.m., so I guess it was just incentive to get an earlier start to the day. After the typical big buffet breakfast, we gathered our things and left the ship. I had woken up extremely congested (this started the day before) so we decided to just do some shopping and touring around.

Goodbye, St. Maarten

After the ship sailed away, it was to wash off the sea salt and sand, and get ready for dinner. Tonight was lobster night! The lobster was – like every other dinner on the cruise – just phenomenal. All 4 of us ordered it, and we all finished pretty quickly. Nareen asked if we enjoyed it – heck yeah – and would we like another serving? Heck yeah!! After finishing our second lobster tail each (Caitlin only ate one), we had dessert.

Right after dinner we headed down to Deck 2 to check out the photos that were taken the previous evening. The photos in the second formal night were great of all of us, and I bought a few 8x10’s to keep. We compared the suntan levels from the Monday and Thursday photographs, and it was amazing to see how much darker each of us had become in just 3 days, and how much my hair had bleached out. Another week, and we would probably be unrecognizable!

We dropped the photos in our rooms and headed up to deck 11. The plan was to play a game, but it was raining again so the availability of dry seating and decent light was rather limited. A dice game called Farkel was in order, and I lost so badly that it’s a good thing I didn’t have any money on it. Soon it was time for bed.

The St. Maarten towel critter was a monkey!

Back to the ship

While we were looking for a gas station to fill up the car, it began to rain hard and sideways. It was an absolute downpour and the streets were several inches deep within a minute or two. By the time we returned with the rental car, 20 minutes later, the rain had stopped. Mark’s foot was hurting, so he headed straight for the room. There's me in front of the ship, on the pier.

Sharon and Caitlin and I went up to the bow of the ship on Deck 5, and watched the ship depart from the port.

Snorkeling in St Maarten, at Dawn Beach #3

This was all very reefy. And very, very cool.