May 30 - June 01st 2008 Got lost on our way to the airport ... haven't even LEFT Montreal yet and we're lost! LOL. Well, we find our way early enough to catch our flight. This is the first time of all .... 3 trips I have taken that things have gone PERFECTLY. No delays, no bumps. If anything we were suppose to leave Montreal to Philly to Charlotte to Saint Thomas and we ended up catching a direct flight from Philly to Saint Thomas. Not saving any time but saving an oportunity for disaster. We slept in Philly at a [View Full Entry]

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Embracing the Rhythm of Life: Yoga and Drumming in the Caribbean Life is a series of stories. As a story is in the business of stringing words together to create an idea or image, life is a string of moments, each one holding an instant of our past, a teaspoon of our future, some with sugar, some with spice, some with smelly things we’d rather not encounter at all. Together, these beads of moments create the story of our lives, which in turn create the collective story of human society, of our planet and its species; all of this folds into [View Full Entry]

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What a big and exciting day we had today! Once more, the Carnival Liberty was in port with the Carnival Triumph and Carnival Glory, so my hometown friend, Heather was there. This time, she was excited to have a visit with my visiting family. So Mel, Brad & I first met up with Heather for a nice little visit in one of the crew centres on the pier. A nice way to ease ourselves into the day. Then we met up with Jody for our tour - parasailing! The thought of parasailing used to really scare me. I had no interest [View Full Entry]

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After all the commotion of St. Thomas, such a big port town, we were ready to get back to St. John again. So we set sail, well not literally because we still have no main sail, but that is another story for another blog. More accurately we motored on to Leinster Bay, only 5 miles away on the north side of the island. Luckily all the islands here in the USVI and BVI are incredibly close together so it was a short trip. Not only can you see the next island in the chain, but almost all of the islands in [View Full Entry]

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We arrived here a couple of days ago from the BVI's. We are presently in Honeymoon Beach, Waters Island. We had a wonderful reunion with cruisers we had not seen for some months. Our cell was activated also. Today M was picked up by Kim, Island Siren, and off they went by themselves. We had a real good time. Doing what the ladies do best, shopping. Home Depot is here, and so is Cost U Less, like a Sams. We were able to buy rum for 4.95 a bottle and Vodka for 3.65, unreal! This weekend we will be in PR. [View Full Entry]

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Okay, so life in paradise is not always what it is cracked up to be (although that might be hard to believe if you follow the travel blog). That’s because I always try to focus on the good parts of our trip when I sit down to the computer and write, reminiscing our recent adventures and going thru the pictures. But the truth of the matter is that this isn’t a vacation out here all the time. It’s a very challenging life. We both have broken many toes and have sustained a multitude of other boat bites and permanent damage- we [View Full Entry]

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The island of St. John is very different than the other USVI in that it is a National Park. Roughly two thirds of the island is protected and therefore pristine. There are no houses, hotels, shops, or restaurants within the park boundary. The anchorages are tucked into natural bays, in the shadow of the lush mountainside with beautiful beaches and deep aquamarine water- absolutely gorgeous. The National Park was expanded in 2001 to include the surrounding reefs and seabeds. In fact the park service provides mooring balls for boaters to use which help alleviate the damage from anchoring. Thus the snorkeling [View Full Entry]

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April 9th, St Thomas, 7:25pm Five hours of sleep is not enough for me to function properly, I need to make a note of that. I did make it to the desk on time this morning though, and amazingly at 7am we do not have a lot of guests needing assistance, imagine that! When we closed the desk at 9am I went right back to bed until 11am. I met Ed on the gangway and we headed for the pub for lunch. We met Pete and Scott there as it is a popular hangout for crew because of the good food [View Full Entry]

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The trade winds were going to blow up to 30 knots (or about 40 mph for you landlubbers) and the seas were going to build up to 12-14 feet here in the Caribbean and were predicted to be this way for at least a week. So it was time to leave Ponce and find a safe harbor, one which would provide adequate protection and also entertainment for a week. So we decided to saddle up the Rum Runner and sail on to Culebra in the Spanish Virgin Islands. Yes, the Spanish Virgin Islands, the less known and less visited grouping of [View Full Entry]

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April 2nd, St Thomas, 12:35pm Sorin woke me up at 7:00am this morning to “remind” me that I was going to help Maru with dispatch today, which I was not too happy about because I had no golfers today so I was looking forward to going out and exploring downtown since I never have time because of golf. Work comes first though, something that if you are thinking about coming to work on a cruise ship you have to get used too. I met Maru in the office at 7:30am and we headed outside into the rain, yes rain for dispatch. [View Full Entry]

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