Still Sailing

Well, here we are midweek into our last week of Vacation. I hit the wall on the 13th, was homesick and ready to pack my bags and head for Twinkle Toes. What does that make it, 10 days? So I'm good for about 10 days before the homesick hits. I muscled through it and by the morning of the 14th I was ready for more explorations. It didn't hurt that we hit land again, we had been at sea Saturday (well, docked in Miami for the switcharoo of Cruisers), then at sea Sunday and Monday....That's too many days with same-old-same-old, I guess. So we landed in St. Maartin or Sint Martin depending upon which side of the island you ask. I was happy happy happy to be skipping off the ship and onto some new things to see!

In St. Maartin we had a Sensational Beach excursion booked. The weather has been iffy this week, so we had a cloudy with splotchy rain day in St. Maartin, but despite that it's still one of my favorite islands. Who cares if we get rained on at a beach? Not me. It would be kinda cool to see a real live tropical storm. The trip took us on a narrated tour across the island and I found out a few interesting tidbits:

1. There are no snakes on St. Maartin.
2. To place a call from the Dutch side to the French side is an overseas call.
3. There are a lot of butterflies on the island - they were floating around everywhere.
4. Even a cloudy day is a pretty day.
5. You can't depend on the Nudie Beaches to deliver on the promise of nudity. I looked. Didn't see one nipple or wiener.

On the way back to the ship we caught a good downpour, which we could have avoided all-together except that I was on a mission to find these little carved elephants I had seen on the way to our tour bus. We finally found them and Kenny was in disbelief that I only bought one, for $2 - all that looking around for a $2 elephant. But I wanted it, it reminds me of the book I finished Water for Elephants, which I loved. So I needed that $2 elephant.

Today we're having an unexpected Sea Day because the port of San Juan is closed due to a storm. It was pretty rocky, but not nearly as much as I would have liked - I LOVE the back-and-forth motion of the ship. I'm beyond happy that we aren't docking in San Juan, there is nothing I need to see there ever again, and a day at sea meant the dining room was opened for lunch. Which means that I could get the most fantastic lemon curd cake ever made. They only serve it at lunch, and lucky for my ass, I just discovered it and had my first piece just about an hour ago. I'll be having it again on Friday. Yes, I'm planning a day around a lemon dessert. It's just that good. I thought of my fellow lemon-lover Beth when I enjoyed it today.

So here I sit blogging when I should be doing something else, but I'm ready for some level of normalcy. I'm heading to the deck to read for a while, Kenny's in the gym (that's code for Casino). We did really well there last night, I hit the $1000 on Wheel of Fortune and Kenny won $800 sitting next to me on another crazy machine. No Rob, we're not ahead by a long shot, but it helped to recoup some for the remaining few days.

We just booked next year's vacation. We hunkered down, bit the bullet, and we're heading North! To Alaska! We leave Sept 11th, 2009 and will be on another 14 day-er. In the midst of all the recession talk I've seen on CNN Headline news.....but whatever, can't live in fear. But I sure hope Sophie isn't giving me the "I told you to save your money, Dolly!" story. So we'll be off to Alaska and on to seeing something new next year. I'm not done with the Caribbean, but Kenny is and it's not always all about me (or so I'm told).

That's it for now. Tomorrow we're back in Labadee, Haiti, where I hope we see sunny weather again. I'm off to do something either relaxing or exciting - not sure which direction it'll go :)