Take a good look at me, 'cause I'm sailin' on a boat!
Our first port of call was San Juan, Puerto Rico. From our place on the dock, we could see El Moro, the big fort up on the hill.
Very cool looking place. And had it not been raining, we would have wandered up there. Next time. As our first excursion had been canceled, we decided to just go on the Distillery tour.
The atrium had a fabulous fountain, that I would love to have in my backyard one day. :-)
And there was a really cool tree out by the bar area.
We spent the majority of the day making fun of one of the other girls on the tour, because she was appalling. She had heard it was going to rain, so all she wore was her bathing suit and a pair of sneakers! OMG, WE WERE SO OFFENDED! Also, the tour turned out to be kind of disappointing...we thought we were going to get a tour of the actual distillery, but apparently, they were all sorts of paranoid about company secrecy, that we got a "virtual" tour and a tour of their museum-like area. But we got free rum, so that was okay. I got a present for my friendly, neighborhood bartender at my crappy, basement bar there. Is that weird?
Later, we got back to the ship, got dressed for dinner, with Cortni all sparkly and leaving a trail of those sparkles everywhere we went, like Hansel and Gretel.
And we got to talk to Heidi and Tom about their para-sailing adventure, which was set for early the next morning...basically as soon as we pulled into St. Thomas at 7 AM.
The next day was our big snorkling adventure, so after the show (which was a very silly comedian), and karaoke for the second time*, we went to bed.
Monday, Day 5, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands...otherwise known as OMG TURTLE DAY!!!!
We woke up and had some breakfast, and then headed to the pool for a while before we were scheduled to meet up with our group. Unfortunately, we dawdled a bit and didn't have time for lunch before we left...this later turned out to be a mistake on my part. Finally, we headed out, and met up with Alex, our guide for the day. Alex was seriously cute. And silly. We got along well. :-p
It turned out that we were getting to the cove on a pirate ship!! Well, it was a sailboat that was flying the jolly roger, so PIRATE SHIP!! I can't remember the captain's name, but he was fun, too. Cortni got to steer for a bit,
and I helped hoist one of the sails.
And jeezus, that's freakin' hard. It took us about an hour to get to the cove, and the seas were fairly rough. I loved it so much. I haven't been in a boat that size on the ocean with any sort of waves since college, and I didn't realized how much I missed it until I was standing at the rail, feeling like we were flying. A couple got seasick, though. Oops. Not me. Finally, we got there, got our equipment and got in the water. I had never been snorkling before, and it freaked me out for about two minutes. Once I got over the "omg, my face is under water and I am still breathing" thing, I was fine, and snorkling quickly became me new favorite thing. And the turtles cooperated! We saw four huge ones, and they just sort of hung out the whole time we were there. There was also a reef with lots of cool coral and fishies. I was very proud that I remembered quite a few names. I still have to get my underwater pics developed, but TURTLES!!!!! After a couple hours of snorkling, we had to head back, and that's when the rum started flowing. And by flowing I mean, "DEAR GOD, THAT'S A LOT OF RUM!!"
Alex totally loved me and Cortni, and spent quite a bit of time hanging out with us on the trip back...
He seemed to really like this pose...
And he found a really good spot to put the temporary tattoo we all got...
Unfortunately, the girl who was acting as onboard bartender really liked us, too. Because I went from nicely tipsy to "What the hell happened!?" Seriously, I haven't been that drunk since college, and don't remember getting back to the Grandeur. Thanks to Cortni for being the best babysitter in the world...and apparently I didn't do anything too stupid or obnoxious, because she wasn't even mad. I didn't make it to dinner or the show that night, that's just how drunk I was. I probably should have gotten sick, but I didn't. Let's just say that the next morning, I was feeling fairly delicate.
*One little note about karaoke. They had it every other night, which was probably a good thing. Because every night they had it, more and more people would show up, and Cortni and I would have people asking us ALL DAY, "What are you going to sing? Are you going to sing tonight? Would you sing a Hall and Oates song for me? Do you take requests? Do you have representation?" and so forth. By the last day they had karaoke, it was less than standing room only - people were PACKED in - and when our names were called, we got a standing ovation before we even sang. It was hilarious! We were totally famous.
Next up...Hispaniola.