Sunday, Day 3 - St. Croix

Woke up around 7am this morning (after not getting to sleep until somewhere around 2am - ugh). Packed our beach bags and got dressed to meet Jacques and Gigi at 8:00 to go down to Blu for breakfast. We all had omelets, wonderful service and a great start to the day ... Except it looked like rain. In fact, before we could finish breakfast it was raining a bit. They even told us on the announcement to carry an umbrella if we were leaving the ship for an excursion. Hmmm, not good. Our plan for the day was getting a taxi to take us to Sand Castle beach to hang out and snorkel. Rain and beach day do not go hand in hand. But whatever - we came back to our cabins and finished getting our stuff together. Before we left the room there was an amazing rainbow right outside of our cabin. It was splendid!!! We took that as a good omen and left with smiles.

We were at the beach, in lounge chairs, under an umbrella 30 minutes later. The skies looked a bit ominous in places and we even felt a few sprinkles but what the hell. When you're on an island in the Caribbean does it really matter? The sun would peek out now and then until eventually mostly what we had was blue sky. The more the sun shone, the bluer the water was. I don't think I will ever tire of looking at that gorgeous blue topaz color of the water. It just mesmerize me. 

Our first dip of toes in the water was a bit of a shock. It felt pretty dang cold!! We persisted and eventually we were all the way in. Once the shock wore off it actually felt very nice. Of course when the sun came out it helped to warm up things too. Gigi never did make it in but Jacques frolicked like a fish. Going back to our chairs and just chilling out was pure heaven. Later in the afternoon we had a nice walk down the beach and so the rest of the afternoon went. Water, chill, beach, water, etc. it was really windy and so a a little rough. Didn't seem good circumstances for snorkeling so we never even broke out our snorkel gear today. Hoping tomorrow is better. 

Our view ...

Our first beer of the day ...

At some point we started talking to another cruiser floating in the water.  Didn't get her name but learned a lot else about her. LOL This is her 32nd cruise and she's doing another one in March and another one to Europe in September to celebrate her 50th birthday. Says she's done them all. I bet!!! She was telling us about the big group right down from us - there are about 80 in all and they're all part of a wedding party, which will be held on St. Thomas Friday. Holy cow. We don't even know 80 people, much less 80 people that would be willing to go on a cruise as part of he wedding party! How awesome is that? Food for thought. 

We started packing up to come back to the ship around 3:00. We knew we wanted to hit the spa and detox a bit, catch an early dinner at Blu and try to find the game on one of the TVs at 5:30. Wait. What game you say? Well. Let me tell you. Hehehehehe. The Cowboys vs Lions playoff game don'tcha know!!! I knew I couldn't see the entire game and eat dinner in Blu too so decided to eat as early as we could and catch whatever was left of the game as soon as we could get there. 

So returned to the ship, sauna, shower, dressed for Blu by about 5:40. The only glitch was that Blu didn't open until 6:00. Ugh. So we waited. It as worth the wait. The shaved pear salad was excellent. Bob also ordered macadamia nut crusted pan seared scallops for an appetizer that was divine. We all ordered the pacific salmon for our main course. You know it didn't disappoint. And the apple crisp with vanilla ice cream on top? Yummy. Add a couple of glasses of wine to that and we need cranes to leave. But hey, at least we skipped lunch, right? One of the best parts of the dinner tonight was that someone went and paged Gabriel for us so he came up from his current position to say hi. That was so sweet!! Even if he didn't remember us it had to mean something to him that we remembered him enough to want to say hi again. Mazy is upstairs in the Ocean Cafe these days at lunch time. So we should get to see him Thursday when we're crushing all day. Looking forward to that!

The only place we could find the game on was the casino. Surprisingly, there were very few people there. Then we discovered why. It was only audio. The picture was gone for some reason. Ever tried listening to a game in the middle of slots being played? Yeah. Didn't work too well. Eventually we decided to give up and come back tithe room. Even if the satellite was still messed up at least we could hear it better from there. Lo and behold we turned it on and magically there was a picture!!!! So we got to see most of the last quarter of the game and see my boys whoop up on some Detroit Lions patootie. <big fat cheesy grin> Works for me!! Final score was 24-20 Cowboys!!!

Not much else going on that we were interested in after that and the guys were about done so Gigi and I took a stroll up the to Emporium to see what kind of shipping we could do. Not much. We walked around but very little caught our eye. By the time we came back to our cabins it was about 9:30 and we were ready to prepare to hit the sack early tonight. 

I say that but here I sit and it's nearly 11:00 now so not but so early for me. 

St. Kitts and Nevis tomorrow. Another one of Terri's recommendations, the Reggae beach and bar. We have a 9:30 shuttle to catch. Breakfast at 8:00 in Blu! Better get some shut eye!!

Night!!