Day 7 - St. Thomas

We woke up early to find we were still at sea. We came into St Thomas around 8am and docked in Crown Bay shortly after that. We gathered our snorkeling gear and headed down to Deck 5 and waited for the ship to clear. We disembarked around 8:15am and met our snorkeling guide. We had a short walk across the pier and boarded the "Dancing Dolphin" catamaran.


We set sail for a 25 minute boat ride to Buck Island. Here is a picture taken from the catamaran of the Noordam (right) and Emerald Princess (left).

Here is our first snorkeling site at Buck Island. Buck Island is part of the Capella Islands about 2 miles south of St Thomas. Buck Island is also a National Wildlife Refuge. We also saw a lighthouse here that is owned and operated by the Coast Guard. We saw several turtles and lots of fish.

Getting out the way of incoming traffic

A stingray swimming by

Marine life

Sea Turtle

Our 2nd snorkel stop, other side of Buck Island


We saw two sunken ships (one was a junk and the other was an old cruise ship). Here, scuba divers are surveying the ship.

Scuba divers were forcing fish to swim near the surface



Here we are at Honeymoon Beach, our 3rd stop. This wonderful beach is located on Water Island, right off of the West Gregerian Channel and close to Crown Bay. We take a leisure break here for about 2 hours and enjoy lunch, the beach and the lovely blue water.

The "Dancing Dolphin" at Honeymoon Beach



DH finds a conch shell, complete with living conch inside

View from Honeymoon Beach

Leaving Honeymoon Beach

Arriving back to Crown Bay


Once we got back to the dock (6 hours later), we headed back to the ship to drop off our snorkeling gear. We left the ship to take a taxi over to Havensight to visit a dive shop. Havensight was quiet as there wasn't a cruise ship docked there. So, our dive shop was closed as well as half of the other shops. I did visit my favorite store to get my "Sandals" pendant. I didn't have to haggle negotiate with the sales person...I got a really great deal. Tip: go to Havensight when there are no ships docked there. The stores are willing to give a better deal. Better for them to sell something, then nothing at all.

We had an awesome day in St Thomas. We've been here several times and this was our best snorkeling excursion in St Thomas and probably the best one on this cruise. DH thinks so. I still love snorkeling in Bonaire.

We were sad to leave this beautiful island. We were thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day and looking forward to some Zzzzzzzzs.

I know we headed to the Caribe Cafe for dinner. I just can't remember what we ate for dinner.

The Emerald Princess - Pool Areas

I'm sure some of you are wondering why I'm posting while on the ship. Well, I have some Internet minutes to burn. Approximately, 250 minutes...free minutes. DH has the same. So, when I blow through mine...I'll start using his account. :)


While in Grenada, I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the Emerald Princess pool areas.

The Adult only pool (aft):

Here is the Movies Under The Stars (MUTS)/Calypso pool area. DH and I have watched many nightly movies here. The popcorn is quite nice.

Neptune Reef Pool:

Day 6 - Dominica

We had an early snorkeling excursion this morning, so I set my watch alarm for 6:15am. I woke up to find that we were coming into Dominica.

Dominica in the morning

We ate a quick breakfast and made our way to the pier around 7:50am. There was a group of 40 or so fellow snorkelers who would joins us for a trip to the Champagne Reefs. It was a 20 minute boat ride along the coast of Dominica.

We donned our snorkel gear and jumped into the cold water. A little to early in the morning for this much excitement. This was a guided snorkeling tour, so we followed our guide around the reef as he pointed out different corals and fish.

Sea Life

Fan

Sea Life

We ended up in the warmest part of the reef where the bubbles rose from the volcanic vents under the sea. We snorkeled for 1-1/2 hours and then headed back to the dock.


Sea life

Throughout the morning and afternoon, we had brief periods of "liquid sunshine" or what we know as rain showers. DH and I did some window shopping and found that the Dominicans are very friendly.

Afternoon rainbow

Leaving Dominica before the next big drench

Leaving a beautiful island


This is our 2nd time to this beautiful island.

This evening was Italian Trattoria in Caribe Cafe. We nixed dinner here and went to the Pizza Bar for some Margherita pizza.

Later in the evening, we went to see a musical show called "I Got the Music". It featured music/tunes from Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, and Britney Spears. The singers were pretty good.

Day 5 - Grenada

Another late post for this port. We were still at sea when we woke up around 8am. We're suppose to dock around 12 noon today.

Today is designated as a "down day" and I plan on doing a load of laundry. I know, I'm on vacation. I figure I can take an hour so that DH and I can have some clean clothes for the remaining week. There's a laundromat on each deck of this ship.

Yes, we pack light or within the 50lb luggage limit. That includes our snorkel gear, shoes, clothes, and various AC adapters for all my gadgets that I use while on the ship.

As we approach Grenada and dock around 11:30am, we see that the Celebrity Galaxy is already in port. Here is a picture to compare the size of the two ships. The Emerald is on the left side and the Galaxy on the right.

As a lot of folks are getting off the ship, I use this opportunity to take some pictures of the ship. It's quite hot on the top decks with a slight breeze.

This is our 4th time in Grenada. Been here and done that. We've snorkeled here and it's not on our top list.

We do get off the ship to do some window shopping, but that's about it.

Tonight in the Caribe Cafe was Madras Curry Buffet. Yummy.

This evening we went to see a magician/comedy show with Jeff Peterson and his dog. It was pretty good.

Day 4 - Bonaire

** Update: Added additional snorkeling pictures...lots of them **

We woke up around 6:30am and was happy to see the island of Bonaire. We docked around 7am in Kralendijk.



This was our first time in Bonaire. We were anxious to get here and see this beautiful island and marine life. We were not disappointed.


We met our excursion group around 8:20am and took a water taxi over to Klein Bonaire an island marine park. We took the 20 minute ride to KB and was dropped off on the beach (No Name, I believe).

Approaching No Name Beach, Klein Bonaire

We dropped our bags and grabbed our snorkel gear and headed towards the northeast part of the island (looking at the island, we headed left). We entered the gorgeous blue water and only had to go a short distance before we were in the coral reef. The reef was beautiful. The water was so clear. I took over 100 pictures here. You can see in this beach picture the light blue and then the dark blue areas. Where the two meet, is the start of the reef.

We drift snorkeled several times. We would get out and walk back to our starting point, walking further to increase our snorkeling distance. On one side there is an abundance of coral and on the other side, the reef drops off into blackness. For some reason, the theme from Jaws kept going through my mind.

Here are underwater pictures taken by DH with his Nikon 5600 (point/shoot) in a Nikon Underwater Housing. I believe Nikon lens are the best. Proof is in the pictures. What do you think?



































Here are additional underwater pictures (taken with my Olympus Stylus 790SW, waterproof camera). It was neat to swim alongside of the coral reef instead of above it. To get on the other side of the reef, we had to find "openings" and swim through. I had to be careful when taking pictures, as the current would push me close to the reef without realizing it. You can see how clear the water was.

I was able to capture a cool shot of DH diving after a fish. There were fish everywhere. We snorkeled for 1-1/2 hours. We headed back to the ship around 11am.

We ventured into town to do some window shopping. We visited several dive shops and met some wonderful people.

We left Bonaire around 2pm. A really short stay, in my opinion. As we headed out, I could see the salt mines. No pink flamingos to be seen.

Bonaire is part of the Netherlands Antilles or ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao). The island encompasses 112 square miles. 24 miles long and 7 miles wide at the widest point. There are only 15,000 inhabitants.

We had a great time here. The weather was perfect. Warm and breezy. The water here is just drop dead gorgeous and very blue.