Rhone Video

I was wrong. Sam did get video of our divemaster doing a little underwater disco! The video is really of the jacks, but in the corner you can see Phil pointing out the disco tiles.

Day 4: Tortola, B.V.I

The highlight of the cruise, for me, was our dive in Tortola. We dove the RMS Rhone that wrecked off of Salt Island in 1867 during a hurricane. It was one of the first steam powered ships, which two boilers and a gigantic propeller. The story of the Rhone is quite sad, but it is now a wonderful home to lots of fish.

The dive instructor who briefed both our dives was an extremely dry Brit. He had all sorts of awkward hand signals for different highlights of the wreck. My favorite was the signal for the black and white tiles (part of the Rhone's cargo). He said something along the lines of, "And here you will see the black and white disco tiles. As I said the Rhone was ahead of her time. And the signal for those will be something like this." And proceeded to do the classic Saturday Night Fever dance. The best part was our divemaster actually did this underwater. Too bad Sam didn't get a picture (or video) of that, but he did get some other great pictures.

The bow

We did a swim-through of the bow section. We had never done a swim-through before and I was a little nervous on the boat thinking about overhead environments. But in the water, I was too excited to be nervous and all my gear was set perfectly (a rare occasion when using rental gear).

Inside the bow section

The plant life on the Rhone was really remarkable. There was more life here at 80 feet than at our St. Thomas dive, which I though odd. However, there is a pretty good current that passes by the Rhone, so there are lots of fish feeding and more plankton in the lee of the wreck.

Main mast and crow's nest

Bubbles from divers in the wreck

We ended our first dive of the bow section. While resting and waiting to start our next dive, I was really getting seasick for the first time. It was not fun. I got back in the water as soon as I could. We dove the stern section, which was a bit shallower. There were even more fish and a stronger current.

Jack's eating in the current

My favorite picture from the trip; an angel fish

Atlantis or part of the stern section

As our dive instructor said, "Are there any engineers here?" I raise my hand. "Right. So, what do you when you don't know what size to make something?" I say, "Make it bigger!" And so, you get the propeller of the Rhone. One of the first ships to have one of these.

The giant propeller with our divemaster, Phil, about to swim through.

This is our first couple dive picture. We are at our safety stop on the first dive of the bow section. You pretty much look like a total dork in underwater pictures.

We didn't even bother to look around Roadtown. There really isn't anything in Tortola except a cruise terminal, the Gorda Baths, and a 2000 ft mountain. The mountain would have been really cool to drive up to, but it was very overcast and you couldn't even see the top. Tortola is perfectly positioned on the Straight of Sir Francis Drake. You could see so many islands like St. John and the island Amway owns.

This was the heart of pirate territory back in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was pretty easy to picture Roadtown with unsavory bars, British sailors, pirates, wenches, and slaves. Of course, all those sailing ships mean one thing for a diver; wrecks and lots of them. A return trip to the Virigin Islands is in order.

Caribbean Cruise - St. Maarten

Day 3: St. Maarten, Netherland Antilles

This is the first vacation we have taken where we did not do any research about our destinations. Well, that's not quite true. We did research dive trips and determined the cruise ship actually offers a competitive price for the dives we did. However, we had nothing else planned for our other destinations; big mistake!

We docked in Phillipsburg on the dutch side of the island (the other side is part of France) and headed into town around mid-morning. We hoped to lounge on a pristine beach and just relax. But the locals were some of the pushiest and most insincere I have found in the Caribbean. From the overpriced water taxi to the street vendors, no one left us alone. On the bright side, we found the historical society museum and shop run by a Dutch retiree. She was very pleasant and helped Sam read the Latin on the map he purchased.

Phillipsburg, St. Maarten

We went to the beach in the Phillipsburg harbor, which is a decent lounging beach. But Sam and I are just not the type of people to sit around all vacation. We like very high energy vacations so the steep beach and rough surf did not make for the most fun beach for us. Although we did have fun tossing a ball around for awhile.

After being harassed by locals all morning, we found a European restaurant for lunch with a nice Dutch waiter. I know it may sound ethnocentric or something, but after only a few hours I was already having serious "I hate this place" culture shock. On our way back to the ship, we found the clear, Caribbean water again full of fish. Note to self: book a snorkel trip next time.
The highlight of St. Maarten was the Seawolf docked on the cruise pier. Sam was getting serious boat envy. It was the shiniest boat I have ever seen; you could see your reflection in the thing. It also had 2 ribs, 2 jet skis, and 1 sail boat on the back. Registry: Marshall Islands. Cost: $30 million.

Seawolf: 851 tons, 193 ft

We later found out St. Maarten is home to this airport and beach. Lesson: Research your vacation destinations!

Caribbean Cruise - St. Thomas Pt. 2

Here's some video of diving Sam took. Yes, it really sounds like that underwater.

Caribbean Cruise - St. Thomas

Day 2: St. Thomas, USVI

We arrived in St. Thomas early in the morning. I woke up very excited and nervous to go diving that afternoon. I hadn't been diving in about a year and never in salt water before this trip. Living in Ohio does not leave one with many salt water diving opportunities, nor warm water diving. But we still had the whole morning ahead of us, which is quite a long time when you wake up at sunrise.

Noon finally rolled around and we headed down to the dock to meet the dive operator. Of course, we had left our tickets in our stateroom so I ran all the way back to the top of the ship and all the way back down. I'm not sure if we really needed them, but it was good exercise, right?

We had put all of our gear(no weights) in a large duffel, which Sam lugged all the way to the dive shop. At the dive shop, we picked up more divers from the Royal Caribbean ship also docked and he then had to lug it all the way to the small boat dock. Needless to say, I was carrying some of the gear on the way back.

Our dive site was Buck Island, where we dove around some coral and then the Cartenza Senora. We dove in a large group led by two dive instructors, one leading and one bringing up the rear. It's really lazy diving because you don't have to do any navigating (that's with a compass, no gps).

Buck Island

We saw a lot of different fish, but mostly sponges and brain coral on our first dive. It was a very easy dive in about 60 feet with no current or surge plus the water was 82˚F. That sure beats the pants off of the 65˚F water in Ohio. I was even able to dive without a wetsuit of any kind! The whole time I was diving I was thinking, "It feels like I'm wearing nothing at all." Normally, I suit up in a 7 mm wetsuit, 5 mm boots, 5 mm gloves, and 3 mm hood. I still like the protection of neoprene, but it's nice to be able to move as well.

Bow of the Cartenza Senora

The most interesting wildlife we saw was a huge turtle. We saw a smaller one on the first dive, but on the second this guy swam right by my face. Sam was able to get some really good shots of him.

Extra okay diver

The freedom of lycra

For those of you who don't dive, this is what diving in a group looks like. Lots of bubbles and most people look about the same because the only colors you really see are blues and blacks. It takes some practice to be able to distinguish people in SCUBA gear at depth.

It was really good to be back in the water. I also am very spoiled from diving in warm water. I know I can count on Sam to make sure I get back in the cold midwest water. Besides, I wouldn't to miss out on driving that Ruffles truck at White Star.

St. Thomas is definitely worth a second visit. I now know why so many Americans retire to the Virgin Islands: it's still the US, the waters warm, and you're on island time. I'll take any one of those houses on the hill over looking the water.

Charlotte Amelie

Caribbean Cruise - Puerto Rico and Embarkation

Sam and I just got back from an eight day cruise from San Juan, PR to Newark, NJ. It was our graduation gift to ourselves and the first non-camping vacation since our honeymoon. I loved all the group camping trips we did in college, but it was awesome taking a trip with just my husband.

Here's the cruise itinerary we had:

Day 1 - Leave San Juan, PR

Day 2 - Docked St. Thomas, USVI

Day 3 - Docked St. Maarten, Netherland Antilles

Day 4 - Docked Tortola, BVI

Day 5 - At Sea

Day 6 - Docked Bermuda

Day 7 - Docked Bermuda

Day 8 - At Sea

Day 9 - Arrive Newark, NJ

Day 1a: San Juan

We arrived in San Juan a day early just in case we had flight delays (you don't want to miss the boat). From the air, we saw there was lots of open space and the homes were really close together. I always find it interesting that Americans really like their space. Especially in the Midwest, most people want at least a one acre lot if not five acres.

We spent the night at a hotel in the resort district. The hotel was just a few blocks from the beach. The beach had pretty rough surf and it was very windy, but this isn't surprising being on the windward side of the island. Before a much needed nap, we walked along the beach and found some fun tide pools. Sam even found a dollar bill in one of the pools.We walked along the street outside our hotel to find a restaurant for dinner. Puerto Rico is suppose to be the culinary center of the Caribbean, but I didn't have high hopes for finding a restaurant because I hadn't researched any before we left. We walked by lots of Asian and Latin American restaurants and settled on an Argentinian place. It was the right choice! We chose a classic Argentinian barbecue with only meat and cheese. They were all Argentinian meats and cheeses and they were amazing and fresh. I fell in love with blood sausage and marinated flank steak. However, it was a lot of meat for one meal and we were both craving salads the next day.

Day 1b: San Juan and Boarding the Celebrity Summit

Our cruise ship didn't leave until 5pm, which gave us until about 3pm to explore San Juan. Of course, we chose to see Old San Juan and visit the two forts that used to protect the city. Both forts are National Historic Parks and it was National Park Service week (we knew?), so we got in for free! The smaller of the two forts, San Cristobal, was a very confusing design at first. Then we found a diorama of the way the fort used to be and it made more sense. The fort was built to be the back wall of the city protecting it from a land attack with a canal between the ocean and the bay.

After seeing most of the fort, we made our way further into Old San Juan in search of lunch. We found a little cafe near the cathedral that served traditional Puerto Rican fare; exactly what we were looking for. Since this is the rum capitol of the world (home to Bicardi and Don Q), we ordered pina coladas and were not disappointed. We also tried mofongo with conch meat, which is mashed green plantains with meat and sauce on top. Plantains are a very starchy banana that really taste more like sweet potatoes. They are the traditional staple of the Caribbean and are really quite tasty. The other common way to prepare plantains is to make tostones, which are mashed ripe plantains formed into pancakes and fried. They resemble a potato chip. Unfortunately, neither Sam nor I have the habit of taking pictures of our meals.

Making our way to El Morro, we stopped by the cathedral where J. Lo and Marc Antony married, as a taxi driver was quick to point out. It was not all that impressive, unfortunately. The humid, salty air had caused much wear on the interior and not much protection or restoration had been done either. We quickly moved on to El Morro with its expansive lawn full of locals flying kites. The fort is in the more traditional five-point star design, modified to fit the land. I'm sure on a better day and with little boys this would have been a more impressive fort, but by this point we were ready to get our ship and start the cruise.

We took a taxi to the cruise terminal and began the somewhat chaotic process of embarkation. Sam accidentally put his passport in a duffel he gave to the dockside luggage handlers. Of course, the first thing you have to produce is your passport. Fortunately, his duffel was still out front waiting to be loaded and he found his passport, but it lead to a few nervous moments. It took Sam awhile to get down the gangway since he kept stopping to take pictures of the ship. We were greeted by the ship's crew with glasses of champagne, which we took to our stateroom where we had a whole bottle of champagne waiting for us. We were ready to start cruising.

Introduction

Sam and I are starting a travel blog to share with friends and family especially those who don't use facebook. Here, you will find pictures and stories from our vacations, weekend trips, and day trips.