Carribean - Day 2

Today was really incredible. If every day cruising was like today, I can see why so many people swear by it.

First off, we grabbed breakfast on deck 9. We made our way down to the port - the first time that Alesha and I have been to a foreign country together. That's where we met Paul, one of the ships three videographers. He was on our tour for the same reason we were: they served free food!

We walked through the port, and down to our transportation: a gaudy yellow, green, and red triple-decker party boat, the Tiki Island. We got a tour of the bay and all the celebrities who owned houses along the way. The guide was a bit difficult to understand, but he repeated each statement he made literally 3-4 times. We saw Gilligan's Island and the Blue Lagoon on the way to our destination: Pearl Island.

We had two guides: Scarlet and Shanaynay. (Yes, that's what she told us to call her.) We got our "free drink"--more punch than run, but still quite tasty--and headed over to the gazebo for our snorkel "training". Training pretty much consisted of the phrase "don't breathe through your nose". We found we were allowed to keep one treasure we found, either a conch shell (planted, of course) or a shell with a pearl inside of it (planted also). The pearl was guaranteed to be worth at least $200. We had about 1½ hours to search. With that, we were ready to snorkel.

The view was spectacular. After I figured out how to avoid filtering salt water through my nose, the experience got much better. Honestly, I think I expected a view out of a Great Barrier Reef documentary, perhaps with hordes of huge fish gliding blissfully over the coral. It was a sandy, rocky bottom, but we still saw some cool stuff. There were bright yellow-and-blue fish, white crabs, pale "pike" fish, tan starfish, and deep-red sea urchins. I even saw a stingray in the enclosure next door.

It didn't take long for Alesha to find her shell. I took it back to shore and set out to find an oyster. And guess what--I found it! It was hiding in the crack of a rock at the far end of the bay.

Shanaynay brought us all back to show us how to open everything. She opened the oyster that I had found and removed the pearl. It was kind of nice having Paul there; he caught the whole thing on video for us. Shanaynay then pulled out a live queen conch in a shell. She proceeded to slice it and dice it (alive, of course) and make a salad. (There was also some mention of an aphrodisiac, but I'm not sure what she was talking about...) She made some fresh conch salad, which was actually quite tasty.

After this, we headed back to port on the party boat. Our entertainment was watching people attempt to limbo. We checked out a couple of shops, but we didn't hang about very long. We had important plans, namely, a two-hour nap.

We were able to entertain ourselves for the rest of the evening. The Captain's Cocktail was that evening, so I got to try a whiskey sour. And speaking of trying things...

I had only had sushi once before in my life. A buddy of mine in North Carolina had heard I'd never had sushi before, and took us out to a new restaurant to have some. I really wasn't impressed. Actually, much less than impressed. I decided then and there that I didn't like this sushi stuff. Only after we were done did he inform us that the sushi we had wasn't all that good. Now why would you do that to someone? At any rate, I knew I didn't like the stuff, but I had to try it again sometime. Lo and behold, the ship served sushi on board. New verdict: I'm still not a big fan.

After the previous night's experience in the restaurant, we had pizza from the 24-hour pizza place. I had a goat's cheese pizza. Very tasty. From there we went to the on-board Vegas-style show on the ship. Honestly, I wasn't really impressed. But then again, Vegas-style shows don't really do it for me in general. After the show we went out to the hot tub and soaked for awhile.

And that's it! We retired to our cabin after a wonderful day at sea. What could cap off a day like this? Our Pearl Island video footage was playing on channel 17. I guess that means we'll have to pick up the video...