Memorial Weekend in Pennsylvania

At the last minute, Sam and I decided to join the rest of America going camping for Memorial weekend. We rounded up 7 friends who were going to camp at Marblehead, OH and convinced them to come to Allegheny Reservoir in PA. We camped along the reservoir at Red Bridge campground, which was a well run campground.

James, Sam, and I stopped by the Kinzua dam on the drive up. The dam also provides hydroelectric power. What was really cool was there was a giant water battery above the reservoir. During low demand periods, the excess power generated is used to pump water from the reservoir to the top of the ridge. During high demand periods, this elevated water returns to the powerhouse to provide the extra energy needed.
The water battery is back a few forest service roads lined with some of the most redneck campsites I have ever seen. They beat the ones in West Virginia!

Water battery

We reserved walk-in campsites because I can't stand camping next to a generator. The biggest downside to the campground was all the parties. There is no alcohol policy because it's a national forest so people got pretty rowdy.

Cross-country ski to your tent!

Even Emrys is surprised he's doing dishes.

We had a lot of fun swimming in the reservoir and playing with the aerobie. We lost one in the water, but had a spare to keep playing.
We hiked up a waterfall near the dam. There wasn't one big drop, mostly a lot of cascades. Kevin found a great natural waterslide, though.

The weather was perfect until our drive home. It rained in sheets as we drove through Oil City. Fortunately, it was nice and dry at home.

Homeward Bound

Day 9: Bayonne, New Jersey

After a rough night at sea leaving Bermuda and a chilly day, we arrived in the New York harbor. It was total pea soup just like the last time I was in Newark, NJ (at the airport). Sam was very excited to be sailing up the Hudson. I'll admit, it's pretty cool, but not at 6am when it's cold and rainy out and I just spend a week in the Caribbean.

This picture was taken from our stateroom balcony. I've only ever seen New York City almost completely obscured by fog.
This is the stern of a smaller cruise ship that appears to be heading for the Manhattan cruise terminal. I'm very glad we didn't disembark in Manhattan.
The Bayonne cruise terminal is pretty new and wasn't really setup to handle passengers in the rain. We were bused from the ship to our luggage warehouse. Due to some mixup with taxis, we took another charter bus to the airport.

We had layover in Detroit and laughed that our layover was longer that it would have taken to drive from Detroit to Cleveland (our final destination). By the time we reached Cleveland, I wanted nothing more than to be home and go back to work. The perfect vacation.

Bermuda

Day 5: At Sea...Not much to talk about.

Day 6 & 7: Kings' Wharf, Bermuda

We arrived in Bermuda around 1pm after traversing Bermuda famous reefs. Most cruise ships now dock in Kings Wharf, which is at the north end of the country and, as described by a local, "the ugly part". Sam was very excited by the maritime museum in the old British fort, so we had to visit.

The fort and original wharf were build by convicts (i.e. the Irish). The original wharf is still used and as been expanded to accommodate cruise ships. The fort seemed pretty robust especially given the island is surrounded by reefs. No wonder the British used Bermuda as their Atlantic naval headquarters until very recently.
The magazine was underground near an inland underwater cave. The magazine was definitely built for smaller people.
The upper portion of the fort had cannons laying around everywhere. Here are a bunch of 18th century cannons, but they also had a variety of more modern cannons as well as some WWII guns.
Unfortunately, there really wasn't much about maritime history at the fort. It was mostly as history of Bermuda, which was interesting but not what Sam was looking for. Probably the oddest thing was the dolphin experience inside the fort. Pretty weird, but you could swim with dolphins.

The next day we decided to see the pretty part of Bermuda, so we got up early and headed into Hamilton (the capital). It was refreshing to be in a city where people are just going to work in the morning. We even saw a few bankers in the classic Bermuda suit (Bermuda shorts, knee high socks, shirt, tie, and jacket). Before heading to the beach, we stopped by the Anglican cathedral. The stone looked like it was all imported!
We took a bus to the south shore, which is basically a national park along most of the shore or tennis clubs. These were definitely the most beautiful beaches I had ever seen. All the beaches were connected by trails so you could walk the length of the park. It was rather odd and British, but the park was mowed along the trail with picnic tables and barbecues. I'm used to national parks in a more "wild" state, but this was definitely manicured and maintained.
Since Horseshoe Beach is so famous, we thought we'd check it out for awhile. It lives up to all the hype and then some! Since it was still spring in Bermuda, the only people at the beach were cruise ship passengers. The water was pretty cold, but it was warm and sunny. The beach was great for swimming because you could walk out really far and still be in knee deep water.
We brought our masks and snorkels and snorkeled around some of the rocks. It is really hard to take pictures while snorkeling, but Sam got a few good shots of parrot fish.

This guy was pretty big

The coloration was pretty crazy

The best part about Bermuda was the incredibly friendly and polite people. It was British without being too stuffy. I was also very impressed with how well the society is integrated. There are a lot of different ethnicities in Bermuda, but it was culturally homogenous. It was a really family friendly place, too. Definitely worth a second visit.

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.