2018 October Family Cruise - Day 08 - St Kitts

Separation day....we all had different excursions today.  They all started around 8:30 AM.  Denise, Karlie and Atticus were going on a Rail and Trail excursion.  Mike and Cassidy were going on a Rail and Sail tour.  Ashley and Brent were fulfilling Ashley's dream to swim with dolphins.  Travis, Kenzie and I were going scuba diving on last time.  I was a bit concerned in that my ears were still really popping.  And I was a bit congested which is not a good scuba diving thing.  It turned out that were all back on the boat telling stories of our adventures.  But before I describe some of them, go back and read about Barbados and St. Lucia.  More pictures have been added for those days.

Rail, Trail and Sail people had a great time.  Denise, Karlie, Mike and Cassidy had a nice train ride that exposed them to the entire island.  They were told about the sad history of how island life evolved and the domination that occurred against these people over the years.  Mike and Cassidy had a very wet, very bumpy Catamaran ride back as the skies swelled up and it really rained hard for quite a while.  This was concerning to all of us...not for Cassidy and Mike as much as Ashley and Brent.  They had tickets to swim with dolphins.  But they would cancel in bad weather and they did not get their money back....only a credit.  It turned out that Ashely and Brent got there early and were able to sneak into the 11 AM show instead of the noon show...which they canceled.  They had a great time mingling with two dolphins one on one. It fulfilled one of Ashley's bucket list items.

As for the scuba divers.  We went out with Pro Divers St Kitts.  We arrived to a wonderful boat, great equipment and great dive masters.  The first dive took us to a reef about 60' down with ledges on both sides that dropped way off.  We just hovered over the reef...with a ton of shark!!!  It was crazy having shark swimming all around us.  The coral was as beautiful as St Lucia.  But to dive with shark...pretty crazy.  Our 2nd dive was going to be over volcanoe vents.  We were told there that we should see a number of Moray Eel.  Which we did!!!  Many!  The crazy event down there was the fact that a nurse shark showed up at the same time our dive master was feeding an eel a lion fish.  Kenzie had the camera and was watching the eel try to consume the lion fish when all of the sudden the nurse shark appeared and the eel freaked out and took off leaving the lion fish which the shark immediately grabbed on to and took off.  It is all on film.  

We have had 4 FABULOUS dives the past two days.  Unbelievable.  We were talking and saying how glad we are that we all certified to do this.  The dives today were our 11th and 12th.  Hard to believe.  What a cool thing to do.  Not sure how much longer I'll be able to do it.  But I hope Dustin, Kerri, Mike and Cassidy will get certified and dive with us someday.  I have the same hope for Karlie and Neza...but I kind of doubt that Karlie would ever consider it.  But I know Neza would.  Maybe someday for him too!

More to come later for this day...so check back.

The afternoon on the boat was a lazy one.  After our excursions, we spent time out by the pool eating tacos, burgers and stuff while visiting and talking about our fabulous day in St Kitts.  Little Atticus is the star of the boat.  The ship help is constantly stopping and admiring him.  One young steward wants to hold him all the time.  They don't see many this age on the ship.  Probably reminds them of their young families back at home in the countries where they live.  All the ship help is so kind and working so hard to support their families whom they miss very much.

Dinner tonight was a casual dinner.  Mike was absent though, apparently not feeling well with an upset stomach.  Probably too much family for one week of time!  :-)  I'm just teasing.  It has been so good being together and enjoying our wonderful kids and their special 'others'.  We love them all!  I can't imagine the eternities and not having everyone of them by our side.  After dinner, we went to the 'Latino' show.  It was a good show full of upbeat, very fast, Latino music.   The performers did a nice job of dancing and singing.  Atticus loves these shows as the lights, sounds and so on just memorize him.  After the show, we gathered upstairs to listen to more Latino music and play cards.  We had some nice rounds of Skum.  Denise thought she might dominate until Brent...I think it was Brent...took her down from the Skum position.  Pretty funny.

Denise is doing better.  Looks like a battered wife though.  She has little aches and pains all over her body which is not surprising.  I'm sure she hit lots of things as she tumbled down those crazy stairs.

St. Martens tomorrow.  Only Mike and Cassidy have a planned excursion.  The rest of us have to figure out what we want to do.  Hopefully it will be a lazy day as we prepare to make our journey home on Sunday.

Pictures....

Excited to be at St Kitts...

The welcome plaza at St Kitts....

The scenic railway with Karlie and Atticus getting ready to board...

On the train....

Mike & Cassidy in front of their train car....

Mike and Cassidy on their Catamaran heading back to the cruise ship....

Some island shots....

Brent and Ashley were thrown monkeys to catch and then the person wanted $10 for the picture moment.  It is a trick that folks will do in places like this.  Brent and Ashley paid.  :-)

Watch out Bren...Ashley has a new boyfriend.  I think it is a boy....

A happy camper Ashley is....

Acrobatic Brent.  How cool is that...being pushed by Dolphins!

Who needs a regulator anyway!!!

Lobster Roll anyone?

...or how about Caribbean Shark for dinner?

Ahhh...the Morray Eel would prefer Lion Fish....

But wait...the bigger shark wants the Lion Fish...and he got it!

Our cruise Director...Travis (and photographer).

Swimming with sharks...

Tim being sized up for dinner....

Everything is AOK....

Alone in the underwater world...

The eel all knotted up trying to consume the Lion Fish whole....

The group looking at pictures and the old guy trying to quickly blog.....

2018 October Family Cruise - Day 07 - St Lucia.

I slept like a baby last night. Wow...swaying ship, cool room and pitch black darkness.  Can't ask for better sleeping conditions.  We were up at the usual time going around 8 AM.  Although...Denise, Karlie, Mike and Cassidy were not quite sure what to do today.  They were going to figure it out.  After eating some breakfast, Travis, Kenzie, Brent, Ashley and I headed off the boat to the little harbor where 'Scuba Steve' was to meet us and take us scuba diving.  The boat arrived right on time with 6 other scuba divers on board already.  They had our gear all prepared.  We set out for a 25 minute boat ride to a location where a sunken ship was.  It was nice visiting with the new passengers.  One couple was from South Carolina, another from Wisconsin, and a single fellow was from the UK.  The other guy I never spoke with.  So who knows where he was from.  But eaves dropping, I heard him say he had dove all over the world.    He was just fine being alone.

Once we arrived, we put on our gear.  One of the things they have you put on is a weight belt.  I had 4, 4lb bricks on my belt.  The problem was that as tight as I could get it, the belt was not going to stay on my behind.  Once we got in the water, it was even more apparent.  So I signaled the Dive Master to come over.  I asked him if we could remove the weights and put them into the BCD.  He agreed.  So as every one descended to the bottom (about 50 to 60'), we fiddled with the weights.  Eventually they were in and then off I went.  The descent was a bit more painful than other dives.  I could not get my ears to easily balance.  But I just took my time and worked through the pain and eventually made it.  Brent, however, could not get his ears to equalize. So he never made it down.  Bummer!  The first dive around the wreck was fun.  We went in and around the sunken vessel.  Lots of coral had built up around it..  Lots of sea life in and around it.  We spent a good 35 to 40 minutes down.  They told us at 1000 PSI we were to notify the dive master.  I did.  But he said that everything was ok.  So we did another 10 minutes.   In the end, I had about 150 PSI left in the tank.  Kind of close.  But I was ok with it...I was watching.  Beautiful dive.

After surfacing, we were on the boat for about 40 minutes.  They offered us some juice and a native potatoe sandwich.  It was all good.  We had great visits while we waited.   The 2nd dive was going to be along a coral wall.  It was going to be a much shallower dive...about 30' at the deepest.  The dive was beautiful!  So much coral.  So many different formations and tons, I mean tons, of sea life.  All kinds of beautiful fish.  It felt like you were swimming in a salt water fish tank.  So much fun.  I loved it so much.  Brent was successful getting down this time.  The dive master really helped him by giving him some very good ideas and instructions to get down.  That's the good news.  The bad news was that Mackenzie, 15 minutes into the dive, touched her toe against a sea urchin, which stung her.  Apparently, being in salt water and such, it was really painful.  So after indicating to Travis, they both went to the surface and hailed the captain of the boat.  Kenzie got in the boat and Travis came back down.  We dove for a good 40 minutes weaving around different coral formations with so much sea life.

All in all, a great dive.  We were back at the boat by 1PM.  Kenzie and Travis went looking for soft candle, a waxy stuff that is to help get the spines out of her toe.  I hope it works.  After showering, I was sitting in my cabin wondering what the islanders did today.  Denise eventually showed up and told me that they all had hailed a driver who took them around the town and into the mountains at the highest point nearby to see the full island.  It is only something like 5 miles by 7 miles big.  Not big at all.  But the island is really pretty...at least the port where the  cruise ship is moored.

Slowly we have all hooked up together as we grab food and just chill for the remainder of the day.  

As usual, on an elegant night, we all met up at the front of the ship to get pictures in our formal wear.  I went unique in a white shirt, tie and blue jeans...nice ones.  We met Travis and Kenzie there and they took some really good pictures of the two of us.  Eventually, Brent, Ashley, Karlien and Atticus joined us.  Cassid and Mike were already seated at the dining room so we had to pack up and head the there.  However, as Denise head down the outside stairs, her shoe caught one of the stairs wrong and she went head first tumbling down the stairs.  Upon landing at the bottom she hit her head on a pipe.  I was at the top when I heard our kids yelling.  I thought I'd find a pool of blood where she hit her head.  People responded pretty quick calling 911.  We called for Mike, our ER Doctor in the family.  He came and checked her out.  She has a big goose egg on her forehead with other miscellaneous bumps and bruises.  We ended up in the sick bay of the ship checking the medical facilities out.  We then went back to the room.  I think I felt more pain knowing I was missing jumbo shrimp and filet mignon!  Actually, I'm grateful her damage was not much worse.  Going down 3 quarters of a metal and wood staircase and not having anything broke was pretty amazing.  We hung out in the room for a while.  But Denise did not want to miss the Motown show.  So we went down to the main stage and waited for the kids to come.  The act was really quite good.  It was full of music that we all know.  After, we went and visited while listening to some Motown trivia, played a couple of rounds of Skipbo, then off to bed. She will look like a battered woman tomorrow with new places hurting. :-(  

What a day!

Pictures....

Since I did not go on this tour, I cannot comment on every picture.  But the islanders were Karlie, Cassidy, Mike, and Denise....and oh yes....Atticus.  You can obviously see our boat in the background in the port of call.  Pretty setting it is.

Hopefully I'll have some dive pictures soon and will post them before we leave.  If not, it will be tomorrow sometime.

The lion fish is a prevalent fish in the Caribbean.  So much so that the divers try to spear them and feed them to other species of fish.

Crazy diver...no reg in his mouth.

....but everything is ok.

Kenzie still breathing.....but later she was stung by a sea urchin on her toe and had to go up.

Floating in the sea.....

Travis from the bottom looking up....

Ashley swimming backwards...

Brent saying that he is ok....

Pack of three divers....

Kenzie and Travis inside the ship wreck....

The whole gang top side....

Beautiful sunset...great picture location.

Great looking kids.  The next shots are great but we missed Mike and Cassidy as they were at the dining room already.  Bummer...we wish we had a shot.  This is Travis and Kenzie.

Brent and Ashley....

Whose bigger?   Hey...I'm talking height...not width!!!!

The fall re-enactment by Ashley....(at the actual site)

Denise went down the stairs head first and banged her side of  her head on a metal pipe.  It was a nasty fall as I described above.  Lots of places are hurting.  But this was the worst.