The fate of 8

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Day 2, St. Thomas and Water Island

Our first stop was the island of St. Thomas. Julie and I decided not to book an excursions on the cruise ship and do all of our exploring on our own.

So, we took a taxi to Crown Bay Marina, where we then took a water taxi to "Water Island". A small island, 10 minutes away by boat, with a population of 161 people and a BEAUTIFUL beach.

When we arrived at Water Island...we noticed this open air building. It serves as a post office and library, and is officially the "Federal Building" on the island.

The islanders get around the island on golf carts, and a guy stopped and offered us a ride up to the top of the hill. This was the view of Honeymoon Bay from the top of the hill.

Heading down the hill to Honeymoon beach where we spent the majority of our day!

We spotted this iguana basking in the sun on our way down to the beach.

Walking onto the white sand beach..... absolutely beautiful and there were only 4 other people on the beach for the first few hours. THEN, a group that paid $80 + for an excursion to the same beach arrived. Our paying $10 round trip for our water taxi, made our own trip priceless :)

Our beach day in paradise....crystal clear waters, warm sand and water, and plenty of palm trees.

Heading back down the hill to catch the water taxi back to St. Thomas.

We spent the rest of our afternoon touring the shops in St. Thomas. Photo above is an alleyway with shops.

A little sitting area in one of the alleyways, between shops

The walls are filled with all kinds of various stones, rocks, bricks etc. The photo doesn't really do it justice.

Back on the ship in the evening, Julie and I put on our Oregon Duck attire and prepared to watch the BCS bowl....which didn't begin until almost 10pm Carribean time.... it was a LATE night!!!

The sports bar where we watched the BCS bowl...... Good game DUCKS!!! Better luck next year!!!

Back in our room at 3 am, we found our first towel animal -- an elephant

Julie and I with our elephant!

A little trip to paradise........Day 1

This year, my friend Julie and I turn 40, so we decided to start our year off with a little trip to paradise!!!! We booked a cruise on the Carnival Victory and flew to Puerto Rico!!!!!

After checking in our luggage, we headed out on foot to explore Old San Juan!!! Our first stop was the Capital building.

The ceiling of the capital is all done in mosaic tiles, and tells the story of Puerto Rico

They still had Christmas decorations in place. Here I am in front of the Christmas tree.

Next we toured Fort San Cristobal

View to the West from the WWII Observation Post

Loved all the colors along the streets of old San Juan...if you look closely you can see all of the traffic along the streets...bumper to bumper....we were glad we arrived early because of the traffic jams that came in the early afternoon.

Photo taken at the fort

Me with Puerto Rico in the backgroud

View to the east from another WWII observation post

The heat and walking throughout the town had us stopping at Hard Rock Cafe for a beverage!

Our bartender.... Obviously he is used to tourists and we asked him if he'd pose for a photo!

Old Harbor Brewery was another stop....we sampled some of their microbrews

We browsed at the open air markets along the pier and stopped at La China Dulce (orange juice)

Where a guy with something similar to the "rotato" peeled oranges and we bought one for 50 cents

Julie with the peeled orange...You just eat it like you would an apple.

Loved the frog peeking over the top of the building.

A view of one of the cobblestone streets in Old San Juan

A pirate ship that was docked near our cruise ship. Pretty neat, but not neat enough that we wanted to pay $10+ to walk on the deck

A view of our ship at port -- taken from the top of Fort San Cristobal

Another view of the ship, taken while walking along the pier

The view from the 11th floor facing the back of the ship

Another view...

The adults only area ....we spent several hours on our day at sea on this level laying out in the sun

In the evening

Leaving port at 10pm, and the party begins...there is a Congo line heading our way in this photo

The Red and Black lounge where we listened to people singing karaoke

15 already????

On January 7th, we celebrated Brandon's 15th Birthday!!! Can you believe it???? 15 already!!!!! Where has the time gone?

Brandon with is brothers and sisters.....as luck would have it, I was out of birthday candles. Our "emergency" candles were finally put to use after storing them for 10+ years....