Caribbean (June 9-21, 2006)

The cruise started and finished in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a US territory and, although Spanish is the main language there, nearly everyone could speak English. It had a Mexican feel about it, except that the currency was in US$, we could flush toilet paper down the toilet and we could drink the water.

After we flew to Puerto Rico, we spent the first couple of days walking around Old San Juan. The most imposing building in the area is the large fort of El Morro, with the smaller fort of San Cristóbal farther along the coastline. The Spanish successfully defended themselves against the English and other nations in these forts.

Here is El Morro from a closer spot.

On the morning of our cruise, we caught the ferry across the bay to the Bacardi factory.

This view of the bay was taken the day before, when speedboats were going through their qualifying trials before the Offshore Classic races the next day.

The ferry ride over was delayed because the 1pm race was about to start, and the ferry ride back was delayed because of the enormous number of people coming over to see the second race at 3pm.

Our ship, the "Carnival Destiny" was docked at Old San Juan. It was bigger than the Carnival Pride, which we were on last year, and had similar types of facilities, events, entertainment, food, etc. Our cabin was on deck 2 at the front of the ship. It had 2 portholes (yay!!) but was rather stuffy, as the airconditioner didn't work too well.

The next morning we docked bright and early at St Thomas. Here is a view of Charlotte-Amalie, the capital, on our way in.

St Thomas is part of the US Virgin Islands (another US territory), so we were able to use US$ here too. After a couple of hours wandering around Charlotte-Amalie, we went on a tour of the island. Here is the harbour viewed from the hills above. Our ship is at left.

Magens Bay is known as one of the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean. Here is a view of it.

We didn't get to visit it, though. Instead we went to Coki Beach, which is great for snorkeling. I didn't rent snorking gear, but just used my swimming goggles.

The next day we visited Dominica, which is known not for its beaches but for its mountains and its rainforests. It is one of the poorer countries in the Caribbean, with less modern facilities. The roads were such that it was inadvisable to rent a car. Here's a pic of the port at the capital of Roseau on the western side of the island.

It rained on and off through the day, but that didn't interrupt our island tour. Here is a pic of the Emerald Pool. We also visited a plantation to sample tropical fruit, including freshly squeezed sugar cane juice!

That night was our first formal night on the ship. Here's a pic of us in the dining room.

Our stop the following day was Barbados, where we had decided to rent a car. I found the day rather harrowing due to Steve's driving, mainly as he has never driven on the left before. The narrow roads made me feel that we were continually going to go off the road and hit something. Steve tended to drive fast, which took away from the enjoyment of the scenery and made it much harder to give correct directions based on the reasonably detailed but not entirely accurate road map we were supplied with.

It was not event-free, but we and other people and animals made it through the day unscathed. Don't look too closely at the car, though!

In spite of that, we did enjoy a rum tour first thing in the morning at the Mt Gay rum factory on the outskirts of the capital of Bridgeport. A shame that we couldn't sample much, due to having to have our wits about us to drive and navigate. Steve bought a few bottles to take home.

The western (Caribbean Sea) coast is like something from a travel brochure, with its white sandy beaches and turquoise water .

We made it over to the east (Atlantic Ocean) side, to Bathsheba, which is more like east coast Aussie beaches.

Ater that, I had a lot of trouble navigating us back to the Wildlife Preserve, but we made it eventually. There were deer, tortoises, an animal that was a cross between a kangaroo and a hare, caimans (they're like alligators) and green monkeys. We made sure to be there in the afternoon after monkey feeding time.

There was always something to do on the ship, and even more activities were scheduled on our two "at sea" days. Here are some pics of:

The forward pool on Lido deck on an "at sea" day.

     

A quiet afternoon relax time with tea  and cakes.
Views of our cabin - with 2 portholes, this time!

     

Towel animals that the staff made.
A different one would appear each evening after bed turn-down service.

     

One of the nightly shows in the amphitheatre (dancing, magic, juggling and comedians)

Aruba - another sunny day and we made our way to the Jolly Pirates ship for a snorkelling and swing tour. I saw quite a few varieties of fish and some schools of squid on one of our snorkeling stops.

Lots of people tried jumping from the swing, including me!

Aruba is quite flat and arid, with low desert shrubs. It is an autonomous Dutch territory and Dutch is the official language, but everyone we met spoke English. Here's a pic of Oranjestad, the capital on the west coast, taken from the ship.

Our time at San Juan after the cruise was slightly more relaxed. We rented a car, and thankfully Steve could drive on the right again. We spent one long day driving around the east side of Puerto Rico, visiting a rainforest, a beach, then doing a kayak tour of a bioluminescent bay at dusk. It was all rather too much for Steve, but I enjoyed it.

El Yunque (Carribean National Forest), east Puerto Rico

Luquillo beach and the Caribbean Sea, north-east Puerto Rico.

Fajardo at dusk, just before our kayak tour of the bioluminescent lagoon at Las Cabezas de San Juan Nature Reserve.

Our flights home were through New York and LA, so I got to see a lot of the USA en route, including a view of the Grand Canyon from the south. Also, a splendid view of Crater Lake on our final flight to Portland. You can see Wizard Island to the right of centre, and Phantom Ship is just visible in the upper right (south-eastern) part of the lake.

Closer to Portland, we saw more familiar landmarks, such as Mount Hood.

Looking east to the Columbia Gorge at dusk - Vista House is just visible at left.