Cruising

Matt and I spent eight terrific days exploring the Caribbean in April with our friends, Clark and Laura. I took over 250 pictures so obviously these are just some of the highlights!

Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

We actually left a day early for our trip so we had a full day to explore Old San Juan. I'm not sure how many miles we walked but we saw so much including the beaches, both of the Spanish forts and this cute bakery. Although the first restaurants we came to included McDonalds, Taco Bell and and Burger King, we managed to find a neat restaurant that served a Puerto Rican specialty: Mofongos. (Anyone have an authentic recipe?) Mary Poppins' bag lady friend would have loved el Parque de las Palomas that hundreds of pigeons call home.

St. Thomas

Rather than booking a tour, we took a taxi down town. Along the way, Oscar, our driver, pulled over and offered to take us on a tour of the island for a fabulous price. He pulled over numerous times to show us things like these fruit trees, the airport and Magen's Bay. Oscar even agreed to wait a few hours for us at the beach. The water was beautiful and we found some cool shells for the kids.

St. Maarten/St. Martin

Rather than take in the nudist beaches of St Maarten, we opted to spend the day on the zip lines instead. The rotten people that they were, the operators of this excursion took our photos on the very first line...hence the expression that I am about to wet my pants. One lesson learned on the zip lines? DO NOT LET GO OF THE LINE WITH YOUR GLOVED HAND! When you do, you end up spinning in circles and going down the line backwards. I thought the guide was going to wet his pants--he was laughing at me sooo hard.

Bermuda

Unfortunately for us, our ship had some problems so our time in Bermuda was cut to less than four hours. Not much time do snorkel or even shop since we docked thirty minutes from the shopping district, but we did get to see some beautiful gardens and architecture. Like the building on the right above, many Jolly Rogers were flying high in the Caribbean.
In case you can't make out the girl's sign, it reads : I was on the phone while driving. One person we asked said that she was serving a sentence for being in a traffic accident and another said she was a model so we aren't quite sure how she ended up in the middle of the road bandaged up like an ICU patient.

Everything Else...

Having several days at sea, we still had fun things to do like this demonstration by the chef staff. They showed us how to carve pirate faces into watermelons and make this beautiful "cake" that is really a smoked salmon sandwich. The other shot is our ship going under the Key Bridge. I'm sure it was an illusion but it sure looked like the bridge was going to take off the top of the ship!

For a girl that doesn't really care for the water, this was one of my favorite sights on the entire trip. Sunsets at sea were gorgeous! The moon reflecting off the water on clear nights was equally beautiful--but much harder to capture with my camera.