Cruising the Eastern Caribbean

We have returned from a week on a Holland America ship, cruising the eastern Caribbean.As you can imagine, I took WAY too many pics, so am endeavouring to keep it relatively brief so as not to bore you too much!

This is the beautiful ship that we sailed on.  It is called the Nieuw Amsterdam.  Many times we found ourselves in the hallways onboard going the wrong direction!

There are very many beautiful flower arrangements and large sculptures, etc on the ship, so I made a collage of some of them.     Some of my on-board time was spent in digital workshops learning about photography and computers - especially the new Windows 10.  One of the things I learned to do was to make a collage of pictures. 

I really enjoyed watching a competition called "Dancing With The Stars At Sea".  If you watch Dancing With the  Stars on TV, you will recognize Tony, who danced with Broadway and tv star, Florence Henderson (80 years old) on the tv show, and Kym, who danced with Dragons Den star Robert Hertjavik (spelling?).  They were some of the judges for the everyday people who danced in the competition.  They were amazing, and included 2 Canadian women, plus men and women from many places in the world.

A collage of some of the dancing pics. As the stars on the tv program, these people were also dancing for a "mirrorball" trophy.

Another group of entertainers that we would call our very most favorites was this group from Trinidad and Tobago - called Island Magic.  They were a steel drum band, and they could make amazing music with these drums!  Loved them! 

Four of our seven days were spent visiting different islands in the Caribbean.  There were SO many beautiful flowers!  Here is a collage of just a few of them.

We didn't choose to do any of the excursions offered by the ship, but just explored a bit on our own.  The first stop was Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos Islands.  It was a lovely place to wander, then to relax on the beach. 

The second place we stopped was in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and I liked it so much that I will be adding a few more individual pictures! 

  We walked up to one of the 2 historic forts in San Juan, and on the way, we found this iguana sunning himself on the barbed wire fence surrounding the fort.  This is probably just the first of lots of iguanas you will see this winter! 

I'm not sure what kind of bird this is, but I couldn't resist! 

 San Juan, which means "rich port",  was discovered in 1493 by Christopher Columbus, and at different times in history has been owned by the Spanish, the Dutch, and the English.  Now it is an American Territory, and hopes to become the 51st state. The fort was built over 150 years, and this is one of the tunnels inside it.  It was a fun place to visit!

 I was defending one of the turrets! 

 Unfortunately, we were running out of time and couldn't visit the second fort, so we took a trolley ride back downtown, and wandered along this lovely walk near the waterfront.  It was still decorated for Christmas!

I believe this very noisy bird - a parakeet? - was defending a nest made in a palm tree.  There was a lot of noise and we could see other birds fleeing before the wrath of this Mama!

And it was time to go back to the ship for "sail-away".

The third island we visited was St. Maarten, where we stopped in the town of Philipsburg.  The island is quite small, but half of it is Dutch, and half is French.  We were in the Dutch part.  We went ashore to wander, and took a water taxi to the downtown area, which is where the beach is. 

I had my picture taken near the beach with Jack Sparrow.  I'm hoping this picture will get me another year's subscription to "More of Our Canada" magazine. 

More pics from St. Maarten. 

All of the cruise lines have a private island somewhere in the Caribbean, and this is Holland America's private island.  It has an amazing white sand beach, with lots of things to do and see, and they serve a bar-b-q lunch on the island at noon.  When we were here 3 years ago with our kids and grandkids, we all went horseback riding on the dunes, the beach, and in the water.  It was great fun! 

Anna and Rylee, why do you suppose I was able to float so easily in the sea, without paddling my arms or legs?  If you can guess, please reply to my letter and tell me what you think. 

While I swam and walked the whole length of the beach, Paul was relaxing in the sun and reading.  It's a tough life! 

As we ate our bar-b-q lunch in the picnic shelters, several chickens and roosters wandered around looking for crumbs.  This is the only baby we saw. 

This was definitely my favorite island of all of our stops!  The ship was anchored offshore at this stop, and we had to be "tendered" to shore.  Too soon it was time to go back! 

We had really great stewards to look after our cabin on the ship - I didn't even have to make my bed!  And every night, we found a towel sculpture and some chocolates waiting for us.  My favorite was the lobster - the same night that we had lobster to eat for dinner! 

Well, I finally did it!  That's it for today.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures and the stories, Anna and Rylee.  See you again next Monday!  (P.S. Charlotte, I always think of you when I see "that sun on the water").