So it begins

At Sea, V

Published Date : March 30, 2012

Today was another day at sea.  As per usual, I started the day with breakfast in the dining room with my mum and dad.  They weren’t really sure how they were going to spend the day, while I had plans to take in a few demonstrations during the day, as well as another wine tasting in the afternoon.  Sea days can be incredibly boring if you’re not willing to join in on some of the organized activities.

First up was a presentation in the theatre on the aquatic life in the Caribbean.  Our travel director, had a slide show for us on the different species we may have been seeing since we had been on board, including fish, sea mammals, birds and coral.  I wasn’t expecting much going into the show, but I was actually quite impressed by it.

Next on the agenda was a seminar on art investing.  Going in I knew nothing about art and had no real interest in investing in it.  I just like learning new things.  It was a very informative session and I came away with a much better understanding about how art is valued.  I still have no intention of ever buying any though.  My home is decorated entirely with photos I have taken myself or souvenirs I have picked up in my travels.  Fine art would just ruin the look! ��

Heading to the Lido buffet for lunch, I ran into my mum in the line-up.  Great timing!  We had a nice leisurely lunch before going our separate ways again.  They were off to the Crows Nest, while I was headed to the observation deck to find a nice quiet place to read in the sunshine.

My final activity for the day was another wine tasting.  This session was to taste some of the premium wines on board and learn a bit about pairing the wine with food.  We had four wines and one champagne this time, with small portions of salmon, shrimp, feta, pate, chocolate truffle and lemon to sample with them.  Four out of five got the thumbs up from me this time.  My favourite was the 2007 Silverado Cab Sauv paired with the feta cheese.  Mm, mm good!  The 2009 Merryvale Starmont Chardonnay and 2008 Firesteed Pinot Noir get honourable mentions as well.

I met up with parents in the Ocean Bar for Happy Hour and people watching after the wine tasting.  Being a sea day, tonight is another formal night for dinner.  From there, we headed on to dinner ourselves.  I have yet to be disappointed by a meal on this cruise.  Absolutely delicious!

My parents went on to watch the night’s entertainment in the theatre, but I headed back to my cabin to get an early night.  Tomorrow is Half Moon Cay, Bahamas and I’ve got a date with a snorkel at 08:00!

A Shark's Tale

Published Date : March 31, 2012

I was up early again today having breakfast in my room before heading out on deck to watch as we anchored at our final port of call.

Half Moon Cay (Little San Salvador Island) is owned by Holland America and everything on the island is there specifically to cater to the cruise ship industry.  There is no pier on this island so passengers have to be transported to shore by tender.

I was in line for the first tender.  I had decided to go with the first snorkel trip to avoid the crowds and to get on the water before the fish all took shelter from the sun for the day.  My cunning and devious plan worked perfectly.  Between the two cruise ships in port, only 7 people signed up for the first snorkel!!!  Every other trip for the day had 50+ people on it.

One of our guides for the day, used to be the dive master for the island before they did away with SCUBA excursions.  They just weren’t getting enough interest to keep the dive trips going.  Too bad.  Lucky for us though, the conditions were too rough for us to go to the snorkel reefs, so we were taken to the dive reefs instead.  Deeper, healthier coral with more life.  Excellent!

I took the underwater camera with me this time.  Rather than buying a housing for my digital camera, I had decided to rent an underwater setup from the local dive shop back home – a Sea Life Mini II with external strobe.  The quality of the pictures was excellent and I have no complaints about the camera itself, but I had endless troubles with the strobe.  I had it set to auto and found it was always too bright, washing out my photos.  Rather than struggling with manual settings on a camera I was likely never going to use again, I decided to leave it on auto and see if I could touch up the overexposed pictures later.  That project is still on my “to do” list.

Despite the problems I was having with the camera, I’m glad I took it with me.  Swimming over the outer reefs in the deeper water, I spooked a 5-6ft nurse shark out of hiding!  I played cat and mouse with it in the reef tunnels for a while, but I didn’t want to stress it, so I moved on after a few minutes.   

The surf had picked up while we were in the water and I had a hard slog back to the boat against the building current.  I was very glad I had elected to use my dive fins!  I had hoped to spend a bit more time exploring the reefs closer to the boat, but I started to feel a bit seasick in the growing swells.  I couldn’t be disappointed though because I had 45 minutes of fantastic time in the water, complete with shark sighting!

Back on land, I stowed my snorkel gear in a locker and set out to explore the rest of the island.  I stopped to pay a visit to the sting rays in the lagoon and managed to sight a couple of new species of bird (Bahamian mockingbirds and banaquits) as well as a cool lizard that had stopped in the middle of the trail to sun himself.  Returning to civilization, I enjoyed an excellent barbecued lunch before finding a quiet spot in the shade to park and read for a while.

I finished off the day with a guided kayak tour around the lagoon.   There were only 5 of us, so I got my own boat.  Yes!  Our guide turned out to be pretty useless.  He barely knew how to kayak himself, so he was no help to the other two couples who had never kayaked before.  I ended up having to teach them how to paddle and steer their boats.  I love teaching people to do activities that I enjoy, but I was a bit miffed at having to spend my time teaching rather than just enjoying the afternoon on the water.   It was really just a minor inconvenience though, since I always enjoying being on a kayak.  We did a loop around the edge of the lagoon, seeing a couple of conch, a starfish or two as well as one lemon shark!  We finished off our circuit by paddling past the sting ray enclosure.

We had a short wait for our ride back to the terminal.  By the time I had collected my gear from the locker, I made it just in time to board the last tender back to the ship.  First off, last on again it seems!

I had just enough time to clean up before heading to a mandatory info session regarding disembarkation in Florida tomorrow.  From there, I went up to the Crow’s Nest to sit in with my parents on their info session.  They’re staying on board for another week – lucky devils!

We finished off the day with another gorgeous meal in the dining room before watching the final show in the theatre.  Tomorrow it’s back to real life.