St. Thomas

Our third stop on our fabulous vacation was St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We took a tour around the island where we go some awe inspiring views of the surrounding islands. It's a shame that these pictures don't do the view justice.
This is a picture of our tour bus. It was a bit nerve wracking sitting right next to the open door, driving 30 mph up very steep and winding roads with a posted speed limit of 10 mph.

Magens Bay is supposed to be one of the top 10 most beautful beaches in the world. The sand felt like brown sugar (without the stickiness), and the water was a beautiful turquise blue.

Our next stop was Magen's bay itself where we walked along the beach and swam/snorkeled in the beautiful water. All along the beach pelicans circled and occasionaly dove into the water, hunting the hundreds of thousands of small fish swimming in the shallow water. It was really cool.

Here's a small sample of what the fish looked like.

As we were snorkeling, we got a rare oppurtunity to see a sea turtle. We followed it around for a minute or two, and got yelled at by the lifeguard for swimming out past the bouy's marking the swimming area (we were no more a few feet out of bounds).

Somebody got married the day we were at the beach.

Along the rocks at the edge of the beach we found some pretty cool sea life. Later we found out that black sea urchins are quite poisonous, and we thought we had a close call until we looked up what black urchins look like and discovered that these were another type.

After swimming in the bay, we went up to Blackbeard's Castle, which was used by the Danish settlers as a lookout for pirates.

Jen formed a deep friendship with Captain Jack Sparrow.

Anne Bonny got jealous.

There were iguanas all over the place.

St. Thomas has an amber museum with some interesting pieces. We were surprised to see an animatronic dinosaur. Jen had to time this photo just right to avoid getting her head bitten off.

When we got back to our room, we found a towel puppy on our bed.

Puerto Rico

Our second port of call was Puerto Rico. We arrived at the port in the middle of the day, and it was fun to see the old fort and city as we sailed in. The ship arrived at our other ports quite early in the morning, so we didn't really get to see too much from the boat. When the Spanish settled Puerto Rico in the 1600's, they built this fort to protect thier land. The walls are 18 ft thick, and on the cruise they told us that even today this fort would be difficult to take.

After we got off the boat, we headed up toward the fort on foot. After about a half hour of wandering through the streets of Puerto Rico, we made it to the fort (thanks to our GPS).

We came across this statue in our wanderings. We're not sure what it means, but it was pretty cool.

This is a really colorful town with vibrantly colored walls on all of the buildings.

After our self-guided tour of the Old City, we jumped on a bus with some other people from our cruise line, and set out half way across the island for our next excursion: the kayaking to the Bioluminescent Bay. This unique ecosystem supports single-celled bioluminescent dinoflagellates that lives in the water and lights up when thouched. We got to the gathering place just after sunset, and after kayaking up a dark river for about 20 minutes, we got to the bay. It was really amazing to see the water around our paddles and kayaks light up as we made our way through it. When we drew up water in our hands and spilled it on our legs the water droplets would be filled with light. We also tapped our oar on the side our our kayak to startle the fish and it was as if they were glowing in the water below. It was such a unique experience. If you are ever in Puerto Rico or one of the few other places that has this phenomenon it is well worth the trouble. We didn't get any pictures while we were here since we needed to keep things dark to see the luminesence best, but you can see some example of what it kind of looks like here. The pictures on the website don't quite do it justice but they kind of show what it was like.

When we got back to our ship that night we found this little guy on our bed. Sailing away from port.

Next time we'll share about our experience in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I and Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

Funny story:

Jen- I had a cavity filled on Friday. Long story short, I ended up getting three shots to numb my mouth. When leaving the office I noticed that I couldn't close my right eye because it was so numb. After I few minutes I could close it again, but was feeling my nose and roof of my mouth go numb among other things. I stopped at Walmart to pick up a few photos before returning home to let the effects wear off. When I got to the photo counter I tried to speak. I mumbled to the nice lady that I just had dental work done and needed to pick up some photos. I think I sounded just like someone who is deaf that tries to speak. I was surprised how much harder it was to speak just a few minutes after leaving the doctor's office. The woman understood me and asked for my name. I couldn't tell her. She asked me if I wanted to write it and I nodded. She gave me a piece of paper and a pen (that wouldn't write). Anyway, it all worked out, but was very embarrassing. I went home and waited for the effects to wear off. Kyle had a fun time laughing at me all afternoon. I also tried to drink some water later and couldn't swallow. The water all ran out of my nose. After a few hours I suddenly sounded like myself again and was finally able to have that drink of water. I've never been so numb before.

Paradise Found

We're still alive. We have lots of catching up to do, so here we go.

We returned last week from an amazingly awesome vacation away from the kids. To celebrate both our 5th anniversary back in November and Kyle finishing Grad school a year ago, we finally took the plunge and went on a grand vacation. Up until this vacation the only real getaway we'd had since getting married was when we went to Vegas during our first year and stayed with friends on their air mattress that had a hole in it. This adventure was definitely overdue. Leaving the kiddos with Grandma and Grandpa Taylor for 5 days and Grandma and Grandpa Morrey for 5 days, we departed from Fort Lauderdale aboard the ms Eurodam and visited Grand Turk (a British territory), Puerto Rico, St. Thomas (one of the US Virgin Islands), and Half Moon Cay (the cruise line's private island in the Bahamas).

Our ship was amazingly gorgeous and elegant, though our rooms were small and simple. We didn’t pay for a grand suite though but didn’t spend a lot of time in our room anyway so we didn’t mind. There were lots of activities going on throughout the day and shows every night. We saw a magician, a ventriloquist, there was a comedian, and several dancing/singing performances. There were always several things to choose from. The food was fantastic. Every night we ate five course gourmet meals. Two of the nights were formal nights and were even extra special and fancy.

Our room:
The ship's main stage:

Bon voyage! (leaving Fort Lauderdale) Promenade deck and life boats:

Caribbean sunrise

Snorkeling in Grand Turk

barracuda

We got to swim with sting rays while in Grand Turk. This one was the largest one we saw, though they get up to 8 ft. We got to handle this one a little and feed it raw fish. Our guide told us that we would get seven years of luck if we kissed the sting ray's barb. We both did, and have video to prove it. (we're too lazy to post it now) Kissing it's face.

Getting a massage. You can see its mouth just over my shoulder.

sting ray swimming

This picture doesn't do this beach justice. The water here was turquoise and the sand was white and fine. It was 80+ degrees and a perfect day.

Wasting away in Margaritaville.
There was a John Glenn exhibit here to commemerate his splashdown here after becoming the first American in orbit in 1962.

My tribute to Daniel-san.

After returning to our room after visiting Grand Turk, we found a sting ray on our bed made out of towels and chocolate.

More of our adventures to come . . . .