Fun & Sun

Well, Hello There, Landlubbers! We've been at sea since Sunday - time flies! Here's a quick recap of where what we've been up to. Joanne and I enjoyed our first class flight from cold Cleveland to sunny San Juan on Saturday. Once we arrived, we found our next flight, which was a twin-prop Cessna, and held about 8 of us. The worst/scariest part of it? We had to give 'em our weight. I was not prepared for that and told the girl I needed to write the number down for her, that's not something that I just blurt out. Joanne bravely blurted. The ride to Vieques Island was about 20 minutes. It was quite a nifty flight over the islands surrounding Puerto Rico, dotting the sea like little emerald jewels. We landed and made our way to a little bar area where we waiting for our luggage - it was arriving on the next flight, because we managed to get on an earlier one. So we had burgers and Presidente beer and waited. It finally arrived and we got a taxi and headed to our hotel, The Tradewinds. Saturday night we were fulfilling one of my Life List goals, to swim in a biolumenescent bay. They picked us up around 6:45 right across from our hotel and took us to the excursion. After a jumpy bus ride to the bay, we boarded our poontoon boat and we were off. The starry night was Ah.Maze.Ing. Seriously, the most incredible sight. We could see fish swimming and jumping along as the boat moved, they were flickering in the dark with the neon plankton. We stopped and jumped in the water. It was pretty cool, it was more of a glow around your body verses a lot of lightening bolt-type glows, which is what I had sort of imagined. But when I lifted my arms out of the water, the droplets that fell off glinted like diamonds. It was pretty magical, especially floating on my back in that water and looking up at the night sky. Overall, it was a dream worth fulfilling. I don't need to do it again, but it was something that I can look back on and say I did and feel accomplished. Sunday we flew back to the mainland and caught our ship. Tuesday was our first stop, in Barbados. Another Life List dream realized. It was about like I expected it to be from my adult perspective. A pretty island, but it's not Aruba (which is one of my favorites). We took a catamaran trip, which offered snorkeling with turtles and then a swimming break. I skipped out on the turtles, I wasn't too fond when I swam around with stingrays so I was okay in the boat. Marine things - other than dolphins - aren't really my thing. Unless they glow in the dark. Yesterday we had a 7 hour tour of St. Lucia. It was really fun. Pictures to come. Today, Antigua, where we had a 4 hour beach escape trip. It was amazing. I've managed to shield myself from that Wicked Wicked Sun. I did get burned up pretty good in Barbados, despite my SPF 50 liberally applied. I had a tich of heat/sun stroke that night, and have some sun poisoning on my hands, despite my best and deligent efforts to keep 'em slathered. Joanne, naturally is as brown as a nut. Curses to my freckles! Tomorrow is the nudie beach on St. Marten - if Joanne wants to go. I told her that there's weiners in abundance over there, but that seemed to be more of a detractor than an attractor. Go figure :) We did buy a bottle of rum today, simply for the fact it's called Big Black Dick rum. Who wouldn't want a sip of that? Come to our house, you can have some, too! Okay, off to dinner/drinks/casino. Speaking of Casino - I almost forgot! We won at the casino on the first night. I won $1000 on Wheel of Fortune, then we played another one together and split another $1000. It was good times. Too bad that lucky streak didn't last.....but maybe tonight :)