Cruising--Day Four & Five

Tuesday, October 21, 2008—Port of St Thomas USVI

We woke to a beautiful morning, and headed out early to get breakfast, and clear Immigration. We had to go through customs, as we had been in the Bahamas on Monday, and were now entering US Territories.

We waited in line to clear Immigration ourselves, and then waited again, as Immigration had not cleared the ship. We finally got off ship at 8:45 or so (waiting for over an hour, between Immigration, and checking off of the ship) and headed to find a taxi to get us to Coki Beach. Most transportation is a modified F250 or F350 with an open air bench seating area on the chassis of the truck, which has 5 rows, and each row could hold 6-8 people.

We caught one of these and went up and over their “Mountains”, which the tallest was 1450 ft!! We then went through the middle class area, stopped at KMART to drop off a few riders, and then the driver got us into the nicest area of all, and dropped us at Coki Beach.

I was a bit unnerved, as I wondered what Sean got us into, as it looked like a pretty shady place. Sean, Tracey & Bill got their scuba gear, and I was set up with snorkel gear. We boarded the boat, and after a few unsettling moments, we were off into the Caribbean/Atlantic Ocean. St Thomas is where the Caribbean meets the Atlantic. Regardless, it was beautiful…

We stopped at our first site Mingo Key and before long, Toby, the dive master, Sean, Tracey, Bill & another diver that joined us were off. I chatted with Peter (the owner of Coki Beach Dive shop) for awhile, and then donned my snorkel gear, and hit the water. I enjoyed the pelicans fishing while I was snorkeling, and the fish were incredible. I had an enjoyable 30 minutes or so of puttering around while the rest were diving. Bill, Sean & Tracey had about a 50-60 minute dive, and then we were off to our next destination.

On the way between dives, Toby shared history and stories as we moved from one dive spot to the other. Once the divers were all in the water at our second dive spot, Steven's Key, I visited with Peter some more, learning about the islands around, and then I headed into the water to do some more snorkeling. It was great. The divers came up a few minutes after I got in, all anxious to share what they saw. They saw a barracuda, and many beautiful fish under the ledges—what an awesome day for everyone! We HIGHLY recommend Coki Dive Shop for a personalized dive....and now that we've had a small group dive, not sure we can do the big shore excursions again! What a great way to spend the day!! We headed back to shore, all tired, excited, and hungry!

After some lunch and a shower, we headed back out to do some shopping on the pier…not many treasures, but Bill did purchase a camera with an underwater housing. They will be diving in Nassua, and he was bummed to not have a camera to catch all the underwater sites from his first two dives.

We had a great afternoon, and pulled out of St Thomas with a great sunset. What a great port and a great day.

Dinner was great, and the entertainment fun, as Tracey and our waiter Putu cut up the rug to "Shake Shake Shake!!"

Our best towel animal ever...the frog!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008, Port of San Juan, Puerto Rico



We arrived in Port this morning while we were all still sleeping. After the big day yesterday, we all decided to sleep in, as we didn’t have any excursions in San Juan. The weather was cloudy at first, and cooler with a higher humidity. We got dressed, had a leisurely breakfast, and headed out to explore. There wasn’t much to do besides shop, or hit the Bacardi factory, and we decided not to do that…so we did some shopping, exploring, and walked the narrow, crowded streets of Old San Juan, and it certainly was not designed for cars!! I would say 50% of the cars had scrapes, scratches and plain old rust & dents from scraping either buildings, or other cars. It was not some place I would like to drive. It seemed everything traveled East..I never did see a one way street that went west! I think you had to go down to the newer road by the shore to head that direction!We hit a few stores, and then an old park. We could see the sea wall and were high above the shoreline. It was a neat park with pigeons and I expected to see Mary Poppins at any time singing "Feed the Birds"! We headed back to the ship--to the cool air! We could see the one of the Forts from the ship, and although it would have been neat to do, it was not worth the walk up to the fort in the heat. Back for another nap, and then visiting on the balcony. We loved our balcony...and spent a lot of time there. San Juan was not one of the more ‘beachy” ports, but more for those who liked to shop. While it was fun to see...not sure we need to head back there anytime soon!

We had a lazy afternoon, had lunch up on the Lido deck, and then sat & visited with Sean & Tracey, then hit the bar for our Monkey Coconut drink holders! It was fun, and we headed back to our rooms for some R&R before dinner.