The first cruise...........

I graduated from Mulberry High School in 1975, or at least that's when they gave me a sheet of paper and told me not to come back anymore.  It's hard to comprehend that was over forty years ago.  That "time flies" stuff really is true, especially after a bunch of it has flown by!
While on the cruise last week Beth and I were talking about our first cruise.  We weren't a couple back then, it wasn't at the same time but ironically it was on the same ship.  For me, I can't remember the exact date but it was probably 1972 or 73.  I used to have some pictures from that nautical event but they were probably tossed out a couple of years ago when we sold everything and became vagabonds. 
My Mom, Dad and I joined about 20 other family members (Aunts, Uncles & Cousins) for a high seas adventure on the "Flavia"  Nothing too extravagant by todays standards, probably 4-5 days at the most leaving from Miami and going to the Bahamas, a distance so close that if Sarah Palin was standing in Miami she would proclaim that she could almost see the Bahama's.  Beth's was several years later when she was a Senior at Mulberry and the Senior Class trip was a Bahama's cruise.
Needless to say there have been a lot of changes in the cruise industry over the years.  As we were talking we got to wondering about the size of the Flavia and other unique things we could remember.  There are quite a few nostalgic folks out there so finding information about the ship wasn't very hard.
The Flavia was at one time a part of the Cunard Fleet but was later sold to the Costa Cruise Line.  Costa Cruise Line still exists today.  They had a very unfortunate event a few years ago when the captain steered the ship too close to the shore and hit the rocky shoreline.  The ship capsized and 32 lives were lost.  You can refresh your memory or learn more about this through the link below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster
The Flavia seemed like a whopper the first time I saw it.  It was 15,500 gross tons and carried 850 passengers.  Coming from Mulberry it was not only huge but I'm sure it was one of the fanciest things I had ever seen.  I got a kick out of learning that all the cabins were actually "one class" with either two or four beds.  I'm sure there are guys in some of the federal prisons today who have rooms that are much nicer than what the rooms on the Flavia were back in the day.
Three other things I can remember about that first cruise:
First, there was no "cashless system" back then.  The reason that was so meaningful for a semi-rambunctious 15 or 16 year old was that if you were tall enough to get your money on the bar they'd happily serve whatever you ordered.  Today the age restrictions seem to be strongly enforced, although no one has checked my ID in a VERY long time.  The "pay as you go" didn't produce a paper trail that forced any explanation as to who ordered all those beers and margarita's to Mom and Dad.
Second, saving the whales, dolphins, and environment wasn't very important back then.  If you hung out on deck after the evening meal you could watch the crew dumping trash overboard.  These days it's hard to even get a straw in a paper wrapper on a ship for fear the wrapper might blow overboard.  This isn't a bad thing, just funny to reflect back on the change.
Third, the crew were mostly Italian.  If you really wanted to make an impression on a teenager from the culturally deprived city of Mulberry just throw him on a ship with a bunch of folks either speaking Italian or with strange sounding accents.  Amazing!
The Flavia was taken out of service in 1982.  In 1989 it caught fire after being anchored and neglected for a number of years.  It's final fate was really no different from a favorite old car you may have had growing up.........sold as scrap metal.
So today underage kids have a harder time getting alcohol, the environment is cleaner and the crews are from all over the world representing multiple cultures and languages. 
By comparison, the Celebrity Eclipse we were on last week is 121,000 gross tons.  It carries 2,850 passengers, has multiple classes of rooms including suites with their own personal butler (nope, we didn't have one of those).  In addition to 2,850 passengers there are over 1,200 crew members on board. Needless to say there have been a lot of changes over the years but you never forget your first time!

The Flavia!  15,500 Gross Tons & 850 Passengers

Celebrity Eclipse- 121,000 Gross Tons & 2,850 Passengers

One of the "Single Class" cabins on the Flavia- Some rooms had two beds and others had four

Our room on the Eclipse-Nice but no where near the nicest on the ship

Update

We're back on Anna Maria Island which is still one of the nicest beaches on the planet.  I've gone back and added captions and some links to the blogs posted during the cruise.  One of these days I'll get a laptop that is smaller and weighs less than a Buick that will make it easier to carry when we travel.
Enjoy!

AMI-still one of the best

Is this Heaven..........,No, it’s Zeerovers!

We’ve been in Aruba for 24 hours.  Beachquest 2018 continues!  Our last visit to the “Happy Island” was over 20 years ago and it’s nice to be back. I’m sure it’s changed quite a bit over our absence but since I can barely remember last month I can’t point out any specifics other than a few new looking beach resorts.
Speaking of beaches, we just happened to find one, which I know is a big shock to everyone.  We landed under a large shade tree on Palm Beach that we shared with one large green iguana and numerous small blue iguanas.  They seemed to be as content staring at the water as us. I couldn’t talk them into joining us for a swim when we finally wandered into the slightly chilly water.  Speaking of chilly.....I need to apologize to some of my friends in Texas that I keep sending weather reports.  19 in Burleson, 82 in Aruba!
Over the years another good friend/relative Richard White has steered me to some mighty fine dining establishments.  Mostly they have been BBQ joints around the Kansas City area (current temperature 21 degrees). So when Richard has a a recommendation I listen. He told me about a place he had visited in Aruba a few years ago. His description had my mouth watering so I was anxious for Beth and I to give it a try. Once again I humbly bow to his greatness.  Zeerovers is a small waterside restaurant that was just a short bus ride away.  Outdoor  picnic tables along the docks where local fisherman were bringing in the days catch (can’t get much fresher than that). We had an amazing meal of  unbreaded fried shrimp, cornbread and fries.  The shrimp are sold by weight. We simply said we want enough for two hungry people. The gentleman behind the counter smiled, dug his hand into a cooler and offered up what he called a “big handful” of shrimp that had been swimming around the island earlier in the day. After what seemed like an eternity (probably 4-5 minutes) those perfectly fried morsels were delivered to our table. Soon after and for the next half hour or so our tastebuds were doing cartwheels of joy. I was reminded of the line from Field of Dreams about heaven.....Zeerovers is pretty darn close.  Thanks Richard, I owe you one!
http://www.aruba.com/things-to-do/zeerover
We just finished our last beach swim at Eagle Beach. In a few hours we’ll be back on board and start our two day, 1077 mile journey back to Miami.  As Jimmy crooned and I’ve quoted before, “it’s been a lovely cruise”.

True Happiness!

Fresh "Catch of the Day" being unloaded on the Zeerovers Dock

Our kind of place!

Aruban Sunrise

Eagle Beach

Colorful Curacao

As we expected Curacao was a little more vibrant than Bonaire.  We docked in the capital city of Willemsted. Even though it was larger and busier it still had a very nice and laid back feel to it.
It was just a short walk from the ship to downtown and thankfully like Bonaire there was no gauntlet of vendors and hawkers to navigate.  The downtown area is divided into two sections by St Anna Bay. To get from one side to the other you had two options, a short and free ferry ride or walking across the Queen Anna Pedestrian Bridge. If you ever find yourself on Jeopardy and the answer is “The Queen Anna Bridge” quickly ring in and say “What is the longest pedestrian pontoon bridge in the world?”  On the way back to the ship we had to take the ferry. The bridge was open to allow a cargo ship out to sea.
https://www.curacao.com/en/
The downtown was clean with both commercial buildings and houses painted in bright colors. There was a nice “floating market” along the bank of the bay selling nice looking fruits, vegetables and locally produced goods. We even stimulated the economy a small bit. Beth bought a nice beach cover up with a tag inside proclaiming “Made in India”.  I guess we actually stimulated two economies!
After looking around a bit it was off to the beach. We took a city bus for $2 per person each way to Mambo Beach. It was a fairly busy beach with a nice swimming area.  We know there were nicer beaches but this one was easy and inexpensive to reach. Sun, sand, water it met all the requirements!
A special hello to a great couple from the UK that we met last year in Alaska (Derek and Flora).  It was great to hear from you.  So nice to have friends like Anne and Beth from Australia and Derek and Flora from the UK reading this silly thing!
The pictures are posting pretty good now but the captions don’t always show. I’ll work on those when we get back to Florida.  Most pictures are pretty self explanatory......it’s a beach somewhere in the Caribbean.

Floating Market

Downtown street-Willemsted

Mambo Beach

St. Anna Bay & Downtown

The ABC islands in BCA order

Our last three ports on this adventure are the ABC (Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao) Islands. These three islands are affiliated with the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  In terms of population Curaçao is the largest (160,000) followed by Aruba (105,000) and then Bonaire (20,000). Curaçao and Aruba are independent countries while Bonaire is considered an “independent municipality”.
We’re doing them a little out of order. Yesterday was Bonaire. Today, (Tuesday, January 16) we just docked in Curaçao. We’ll then have two full days in Aruba before two sea days as we head back to Miami.
Bonaire is a fairly large island with a small population. What could possibly beat that combination?  It certainly had a friendly and laid back feel to it. Sometimes stepping off these ships you have to run a gauntlet of vendors selling tours and tacky souvenirs.  Not so in Bonaire. There were a few stands set up that would have been easily avoided but there really wasn’t a reason.  If you want to check something out, stop by and have a look. If not, have a good day!
http://www.tourismbonaire.com/
Not wanting to do a tour or buy something once again we headed to the beach. A nice gentleman directed us to Coco Beach which was an easy 20-25 minute walk along the waterfront.  The water was clear and it was easy to see rocks and corals 15-20 feet deep. There were fish of all sizes, shapes and colors swimming everywhere making this a snorkeling and diving paradise.
Coco Beach was very nice.  Great facilities and a small restaurant/bar overlooking the water. The only drawback to this beach was the challenge of getting in the water.  There were two options. Over rocky coral or off a floating/moving dock. Not having water shoes we opted for the dock and soon found ourselves floating around for the next couple of hours in paradise.
It was a fun day on what was almost our very own Gilligan’s Island.

Sunrise coming into Bonaire

Flip Flop Tree on the way to Coco Beach

Affordable Signage

Coco Beach

St. Lucia, Barbados and a fun day at sea

It’s about 7:00 local time on Monday, January 15.  We’re easing into port at Kralendijk, Bonaire.  I have a great sunrise picture to prove it and hopefully will get to post it and a few others soon.  More on Bonaire in the next blog, I’ve got a little catching up to do.
We went “off the grid” just before leaving St. Lucia on Friday afternoon. We had no service in Barbados on Saturday and we were at sea yesterday.
Like our first two stops (St. Thomas and Antigua), we spent the majority of our time on St. Lucia and Barbados refining the fine art of beach sitting and relaxing in the refreshing, blue Caribbean water.
St. Lucia is part of the Lesser Antilles Windward Islands. We were docked in the port city of Castries (it’s always good when they dock these big things in a port). Interesting fact I learned about the harbor, it’s actually located inside the crater of an extinct volcano. It was a busy day in port with several other cruise ships in town. The city, island and numerous beaches were all big enough that it didn’t feel crowded.  We hopped on a taxi/van with some other beach goers and off we went with James (our driver) to Rodney Bay Beach.  We were dropped off at a busy section of the beach but a 10-15 minutes walk took us to a very sparsely crowded area. There was plenty of shade and a funky little refreshment stand called Marie’s Fish and Cool Beer Shack. It was being operated by an older, friendly island lady (not sure if it was Marie). In addition to serving a steady stream of tourists there were a number of locals who seemed to make Marie’s their daily watering hole.  There were no changing facilities other than a couple of pieces of tin roof nailed to a palm tree.  One of the locals who pointed us to the makeshift facility told us they had been asking for a changing room for 20 years. He then broke into a semi-toothless grin and said....  “bad government”......can you imagine that?  The water was refreshingly cool and we sailed away from St Lucia quite pleased with our first visit to the island.
Barbados was the largest (population) of the four islands we visited the first week.  It’s population is just under 300,000.  The capital is Bridgetown, which is where we docked.   It was an easy 30 minutes walk to Carlisle Bay Beach and the clearest of the clear water we have found so far this cruise.  As usual we found our way to the most deserted stretch of beach (far end, near the Hilton) and set up shop for the day.  The air temperature was warmer (mid 80’s) so there was probably more time in the water than on land.  Four amazing beaches on four amazing islands in four days.....not bad!
After a relaxing day at sea yesterday we’re ready to get back to work here in Bonaire!



Maries Fish and Cool Beer Shack

Floating Fruit and Vegetable Stand

Rodney Beach

Rodney Beach Up Close

Fun with Glenn and a matter of perspective

This was our first visit to Antigua, making it our first new country for 2018.  There are a couple more newbies on this itinerary as well as a few more planned for later in the year.
Antigua was discovered by Columbus back in 1493. I assume his “discovery” was much like his “discovery” of America and that there was a welcoming committee already here to greet him and his buddies upon their arrival.  From the 1600’s through the early 1900’s their major crop and export was sugar. While farming is still present the economy is much more diverse with tourism being the major driver. We saw what appeared to be a vibrant and thriving island.
We docked in the capital city of St. John (there are a lot of Saints in the Caribbean).  The city has a population of over 31,000. The population was a bit swollen since there were a total of four ships here today. According to our taxi driver Glenn they can accommodate up to five ships per day. His preference is two ships a day. Not too busy but not too slow. Even with four ships it didn’t seem overly crowded. The cash registers were humming and the local economy was having a good day.
Glenn loaded about a dozen of us into his mini-van taxi for a fifteen minute drive to Valley Church Beach.  I’m not sure who had more miles on them, Glenn or his taxi, but to borrow a Texas phrase they both appeared to have been “rode hard and put back in the barn wet” a number of times. The beach was magnificent. We found a log to use as a back support under a shade tree that we called home for most of the day. Our ability to stare mindless at water, especially crystal clear Caribbean water for hours at a time never ceases to amaze me.
http://www.visitantiguabarbuda.com/
On the way out to the beach we passed some fairly typical looking homes that, like Glenn and his taxi, had weathered a few storms.  The British guy I was talking to commented on the “poverty”.  I could only snicker and think to myself, “I hope that chap never ventures over to India”.  I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.

A very good day!

Valley Church Beach

Trying to reason with hurricane season.....still

After two very relaxing sea days we docked in St Thomas, USVI yesterday (Wednesday, Jan. 10).  St. Thomas is a US territory with a Dutch and pirate history. A couple of it’s previous residents were the notiourous Blackbeard and Sir Francis Drake. Blackbeard was a pirate to the core. Drake’s legacy is a little more ambiguous. He was the second person to circumnavigate the world. He was knighted by the queen for this feat. He was also a slave trader who enjoyed attacking and looting other ships, particularly the Spanish. No pirates now, just a beautiful tropical island with friendly people  who had a very tough 2017.
The island, like many others in the Caribbean was hit by not one but two devastating Category 5 hurricanes.  Evidence of the destruction was easy to see around the island.  Roof’s were missing from some buildings, other buildings were completely destroyed, roads were washed out and some folks still are without power. There was a small, older cruise ship docked next to us that was housing FEMA workers who are continuing to provide assistance.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/us/virgin-islands-hurricanes.html
It’ll take a while but the island is returning to normalcy and the resolve of the people is admirable. We visited one of our favorite and most scenic beaches, Meghan’s Bay. It had been closed for over a month after the storms. The debris had been removed, trees replanted or replaced and they were doing a bustling business. It was a little surreal because as we sat there we could see power company trucks working in the distant hills and hear the faint sound of chainsaws still clearing downed trees.
I’ll post pictures when I can but the Wi-Fi has not been completely restored yet.  A minor inconvenience for me. These good people have bigger fish to fry.

Welcome to St Thomas!

Meghan’s Bay

Meghan’s Bay

FEMA Assistance Ship

Stumbling into “hip and trendy”!

Yesterday we said our goodbyes to Sarah, Joey and SBJ. It was great being able to spend so much time with them.  They’re very fortunate to live and work in such a beautiful area.  Sure there are the occasional fires, heat waves (most homes don’t have AC), and earthquakes but who doesn’t have to deal with a few minor inconveniences every once in a while?  Speaking of earthquakes, there was a magnitude 4.4 quake the other night.  Beth and I slept through it but it did wake up Sarah, Joey and James.
Getting from their place to San Francisco was fun. We took the Blue & Gold ferry from Tiburon to Pier 41. Our hotel was just a couple of hundred yards from the ferry terminal. This was very convenient and appreciated since the weather was a bit rainy.  This is our third time in SF in the last eight months. Little did we know when we were here last May that the Bay Area would soon be home to the Martin family.....pretty cool!
We recently purchased something that is quite interesting. It’s called Movie Pass.  I won’t go into details, you can research it yourself. If you enjoy going to the movies occasionally you may want to check it out.  Since getting it we’ve seen many of the Christmas releases (we’re not Star Wars people).  We really enjoyed “All the Money”, “Darkest Hour” and “Molly’s Game”.  We also thought “Shape of Water” was about the strangest thing we’ve every seen.  Sex with the Creature from the Black Lagoon.....seriously?
So we walked about a mile and a half to the theater to see Molly’s Game. We ended up in the Marina District which is west of the touristy Fisherman’s Wharf area where we were staying.  We liked it a lot. When we looked it up it was described as one of San Francisco’s hippest and trendiest neighborhoods.  Clearly that made us hip and trendy, at least for a few hours.
It’s now Saturday afternoon.  Today has been a combination of city and trail walking. It’s taken us to the Land’s End/Ocean Beach area. Lot’s of miles and hills and spectacular views along the way.
Pretty cool that we were staring at the Pacific Ocean an hour ago and tomorrow we’ll be cruising the Atlantic Ocean.......beats working!

 

Happy New Year from the Left Coast!

We're almost three full days into the new year and so far so good.  I'm also almost three full days into my sixth decade and I'm still standing.  Wow!  That first sixty years sure went by quickly.  I hope the next sixty slow down a bit or I'm going to be old before I know it.  It's been a heck of a ride so far and I can't wait to see what lies ahead.
We always enjoyed New Years Eve in the great state of Texas.  It usually meant catching an early dinner and movie and home by 9:00.  We were usually able to stay awake until 11:00 to watch the ball drop in New York.  California doesn't whip Texas on too many things.  The beaches are nicer, the wine is better, but the taxes and cost of living are higher (not good things).  One thing California really beats Texas on is New Years Eve.  You just have to stay up until 9:00 to watch the festivities from Times Square.  We watched it, kissed, wished each other a Happy New Year and the lights were out by 9:15.
We've got another day and a half here with Sarah, Joey and James.  It's been great spending so much time with them.  Totally unbiased opinion, James is about as cute as possible.  Sweet personality, happy almost all of the time and more energy than a squirrel on Red Bull.  We've loved every minute of it but by about 7:00 PM Beth and I are whipped!
Friday afternoon we're going over to San Francisco.  If the weather cooperates we've got a big hike planned for Saturday.  It'll take us from Fisherman's Wharf out to an area called "Land's End".  The majority of it will be near or along the coast and it looks quite spectacular.
Saturday night we have an overnight flight to Miami.  Sunday we head out on the Celebrity Eclipse for a 14 day cruise.  The itinerary includes stops at St. Thomas, Antigua, St. Lucia, Barbados, Bonaire, Curacao, two days in Aruba and a few sea days mixed in.  We were on a cruise from Barcelona last year at this time.  There seems to be a pattern emerging.
I didn't bring my laptop (I'm using Sarah and Joey's) so my blogs from the cruise will mostly be pictures.  Sarah tells me she rarely reads what I write and just looks for the pictures.........she'll be happy!

December 31, 2017

December 31, 2016

Swinging on the streets of San Rafael with Mom and Poppy

Sticker time........a tribute to James's favorite reindeer

Sunrise on the way to Sonoma

Mimi, James and a famous bridge

Water painting at the Bay Area Discovery Center

Catching fish with his bare hands!  So what if they were plastic.