Crossing the Equator

We are  back home so I can do justice to the trip, internet  access on the ship left a lot to be desired.


CROSSING THE EQUATOR
We’ve crossed the equator to the southern hemisphere in an airplane, but they make a big deal out of crossing on the ship--click on the picture to see the yellow line with the word EQUATOR on it to see exactly where it is!!





 Looks boring (or what do you do when you are at sea for five full days)? We have not had time to be bored, but we don’t have to do anything fast. It’s a small ship, only 760 passengers and 11 floors (our room is on the 7th, dining is on the 5th, the pool is on the 9th, and the track is on the 10th--so we haven’t taken an elevator at all). We walk half an hour before breakfast, breakfast takes an hour, then line dancing (for me), or pool time, then Trivia at Sea, then lunch for an hour (not that we eat that much, but we usually have some good conversation). Then there are wine tastings, the casino, sitting on the deck to read (or take in some good sun), watching a movie, and then dinner (which is usually a two hour affair). We sit at a table for eight so there is always something to talk about, and we do enjoy our leisurely meal and dessert with a cup of coffee. After dinner is “showtime”, although on a small ship the theater is small and the “company” is made up of a band/orchestra of four, and eight singers and dancers. We’re usually back in our room by 10:30 or so, I guess we are just to worn out from our busy day to hit the clubs after hours!

Hawaii--The Big Island

 The sunrise coming into the Big Island was amazing--notice the full moon and the sun shining on the top of volcano Mt. Mauna Loa (click on the picture to see snow on the top of the mountain).

 Off to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park for some fascinating sights and a chance to look at the active volcano Kilauea caldera. We couldn’t make the entire 11 mile loop trip around the caldera because of excessive sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide levels in the air due to the volcano.

We visited a candy company, a Japanese garden, a macadamia nut orchard, and ended up at an orchid farm where the different kinds of orchids were amazing.

Cruising Hawaii

Our new year finds us taking another cruise. This time we flew to Honolulu and boarded the Ocean Princess to cruise Kauai, Maui, and the Big Island of Hawai before spending five days at sea on our way to Tahiti. Stay tuned for the highlights.

Although we had spent a week in Kauai many years ago, we found our one day here showed us that the island has indeed become much more commercial and populated, but we enjoyed the beauty of the the falls, the beaches, and all the green.

Our limosine tour took us along the scenic ocean highway to the cloud covered Iao Valley situated in a volcanic crater, on  to the Maui Tropical Plantation, and a stop at the Heritage of Maui Park which highlights the peoples and cultures that have created Maui’s population.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Mitch catered the New Year’s Eve dinner at the RV Park and 53 of us enjoyed his “famous” ribs along with potato salad, baked beans, dinner rolls, and cake.

All good cruises must come to an end!

 Our last cruise day was on Princess Cay and it proved to be a gorgeous day to play in the sun and sand and water.

Our next cruise begins on January 7--a twelve day cruise around the Hawaiian Islands and on to Tahiti. Stayed tuned for our cruise updates!

We got back to Ft. Lauderdale and Caryn and Brayden picked us up at the docks. Brayden's question: "Are we going to bake cookies today?" Yes sir, we sure are--a double batch of sugar cookies to cut out and decorate (of course there is the eating of dough and mouthfuls of colored sugar). But we ended up with some beautifully decorated cookies.

Antigua/St. Thomas

The sun was shining on beautiful Antigua (pronounced Antiga) and its 300 and some beaches, but we had to hit the shopping area first. Unfortunately the shopping area had none of the quaintness and charm of Old Quebec City and the taxi fare to a beach started at around $12 per person so we opted to catch the sun on the ship.






The view coming into St. Thomas is welcoming...to all three cruise ships in port and to the private “duck” planes flying in for “business.” Brayden would love to watch this plane land on the water!

Booze is cheap on St. Thomas so we prepared for the future. We’ve been to St. Thomas a couple of times so again we chose to darken our tans shiptop with the beautiful blue waters down below.

St. Lucia/Barbados

Our second port was St. Lucia and we decided to just
take a short walk around the shopping area and spend the day on board just lazing around a “not so busy pool” and watching a movie on the big outdoor screen.














Today we visited Barbados and took a taxi van ride around the island. Again our driver/tour guide was excellent and filled us in on information about the city, towns, and countryside.

 We passed some monkeys looking for some handouts of banana
 

and spent some time in the beautiful blue water on the white sand beach.