Sailing into the Eastern Caribbean

Howdy All,

John and I were awakened by our alarm at 3:45 a.m. on January 5th. Our suitcases were already closed; we grabbed some coffee to go; our driver arrived promptly at 4:30 a.m. and we were off for our 7:00 a.m. flight to Miami. That was the only nonstop flight from Austin in time to make our departure from Miami.

John made me laugh out loud on the plane. He really, really hates eggs — doesn’t even like to discuss them. So he ordered a charcuterie plate for breakfast…..but it came with two halves of a hard boiled egg perched on the back of his tray. He fixed that the best he could, hiding them behind his cracker wrapper! Cracked me up!!!

And then it was on to our cruise. We were headed to a new cruise line that only began in August, Explora. Their first ship is Explore I and wow is it beautiful! We are headed on an Eastern Caribbean Cruise but one to amazing and different ports. We have been joined by Tomi and Bryan Storey, with whom we have shared lots of travel. We had requested rooms across from each other — instead we are far fore and they are far aft, quite a long way. We don’t visit one another, instead meeting wherever.

The suites were, of course, not ready so we went to have lunch. 

We got settled in our rooms and then we took a goodbye U.S. pic as we left the harbor.

The food on this ship has been truly amazing — the best cruise ship food I have ever had! You are going to see a LOT of pictures of the four of us either drinking or eating. Unfortunately, I poisoned myself on our first day — drinking all day then topping it off with two Bailey’s on the rocks. I haven’t done that in many years. It was fun at the time, but not so much that night later or the next day!!

We then had two days at sea to reach our first port. I think I slept a lot on our first “at sea” day, but I did wander around and take some pictures of the ship.

This is an infinity pool at the back of the ship.

Tomi and I think that chandelier looks like a bunch of HUGE diamond baguettes. It is really gorgeous!!!!!

On Sunday afternoon we watched the Cowboys vs. GreenBay game on John’s phone thanks to YouTube TV. The quietest bar is where we went.

Yes, it was a tiny screen, but it was better than nothing. We had a great time! We went to Sakura for dinner after the game.

On Monday, January 8th, we landed in Aruba — it was my birthday, double 7! It turned out to be fabulous and not so fabulous. It began at breakfast with me opening my card from Allan Hillman. Allan was John’s roommate at Columbia (not Colombia) and a member of the Columbia bridge team. After breakfast we went ashore.

We walked about a block on the main street. The sidewalk was tilted and John had moved the wheels of my scooter to a narrower setting so it could enter our suite. I was going along and, it seemed in slow motion, the bike and I fell over onto the walk. Many tourists and the shopkeepers all came out to help, offering me alcohol (hell no!), then hydrogen peroxide (she talked me into that) – it should have been another hell no! Anyway, many paper towels later with a lot of blood on the sidewalk, I ambled back to the ship with a 2″ x 2″ tear on my right arm. Welcome to Aruba.

Undaunted, we went to the butterfly farm. It was pretty cool!

We did enjoy our Aruba experience in spite of the fall. We enjoyed the French restaurant, Fil Rouge, for dinner. The waiters sang to me after dinner and presented me a special cake — after we had eaten our desserts.

I have no idea what’s wrong with my videos; why they only show half of the picture some of the time! 

Anyway, on to Santa Marta, Colombia, where brother Walt had sent us the name of a birding expert who referred us to an agency in Santa Marta. Sadam, the birding expert, was waiting for us on the dock and then we went on a 1 1/2 hour ride up the mountain. The last half hour on the WORST road ever! We arrived at a building with a long back porch and 3 or 4 hummingbird feeders, which is mostly what we saw — not the experience we were hoping for!

I did have a much better video to include, but it was 13 seconds and WordPress didn’t want to upload it. So it was back down the horrible road and back to the ship….and, later, dinner.

This is enough for now. On to the next stop, Cartagena, Colombia!

Bye for now,

Beth