My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
I’m baaaaack! That’s right! I’m back on the Caribbean Princess. My contract (and start date) changed 5 times before they started emailing and messaging me to make sure I would join the ship. I stopped looking at the itineraries because every time I did, my contract would change. When I stepped on the ship, it seemed like this would be the one that would stick.
Here’s my team (for now) — Dan from Brazil in the back who I am so glad to reunite with after working with him last contract (he’s here until January), Ana Dulce from Mexico who joined three days after I did (she’s here until February) and Romeo from Jamaica. I worked with him for 2 cruises before I went on vacation. He leaves later this week. But in this picture we’re all together (it happens so rarely that the whole team is together that when it happens we have to announce that it’s happening).
We’re celebrating Dan’s birthday.
I spent my first 2 week cruise getting acclimated, and then on the second cruise (same itinerary) I signed up for some tours. This was my first opportunity to leave the pier — an adventure in St. Thomas. After having a burger at my favorite stop, we took a 20 minute roller coaster ride (alright it was an open air bus that they called a taxi) over the steep hills to get to the mini pier.
We had an odd number so I got my own Kayak. After Kayaking in St Maarten last summer, I resolved to sign up for every kayaking tour I could find in the future.
I just love sitting and floating and gliding over the water. This time I came prepared with one of those clear waterproof bags for my phone so I could take pictures.
I could barely see what I was capturing so I had to take a few.
We kayaked along the mangroves (mostly damaged from the hurricanes) and then we docked at happy island where we went snorkeling. With my fancy water bag, I could take pictures above water, but not underwater.
On the sea floor, people had gathered shells in a pile like a shrine and fish would swim around in there.
After the snorkel we went for a ‘hike’ (really it was a walk on uneven ground). The island was crawling with hermit crabs. The crabs don’t grow their own shells. The find them and then when they grow, the biggest crab finds a new shell and then they all pass down their shells to the smaller crabs.
There were some really pretty views from the island.
This is Caribbean toilet paper, though you can also use the leaves to cook food and as plates to eat off of them. Separate leaves for each task, I’m assuming.
It was later in the day and the light was doing really cool things
There’s me with the view!
They called this the blow hole. The water came in through the rocks and splashed up like a blowhole. I could have gotten the lady to take a picture of me in front of the blowhole for $30, but that wasn’t worth it to me.
The view on the way back
And I found these cool rocks.
We kayaked back to the pier and then bussed back to the ship as I caught up on all the messages I’d missed since my phone was last connected to the world.