A small post today as we have today and tomorrow our last days of the cruise at sea cruising to Fort Lauderdale in Florida USA. Its amazing when you look at the map just how far we’ve gone

Its been 3331 nautical miles covered when we reach Fort Lauderdale. The ships gallery has calculated 34,000 bread sticks have been eaten on the cruise.

Tonight we went to a short show where the captain and the staff paraded with flags from there country to say goodbye and we all clapped and cheered to say our thanks.

Then we had dinner with the captain and I got to ask some questions that have been on my mind like “what do you do if the anchor gets caught on a rock in the sea?” He’s been a captain of cruise ships for 25 years so of course he knew all the answers.

After dinner we went to the observation bar which is at the top at the front. This is our favourite evening bar on the ship as Claudio the bar man there is the fastest cocktail maker on the ship and he always gives us gossip of what’s happening on the ship.

We watched the ‘Hangover Part 2’ late at night then fell asleep.

Today is our last stop in the Caribbean and our last stop on our cruise which is sad. We are stopping on the tiny island of Jost van Dyke in the British virgin islands.

Here we are climbing onto the modern tender boat for the last time

It was nice to be on a beautiful Caribbean island again but this time everyone and everything was in English.

We went on a snorkeling trip to the island that was in the book ‘Treasure island’.

We did some snorkeling which had no turtles this time but lots of tropical fish to see. There were 3 caves you could snorkel into but they got a bit dark and scary inside so we didn’t go too far in.

I don’t have any photos of the snorkeling but here I am trying another of the local rums. Each island has at least one local rum and its not much more to buy than the cost of bottled water. This local rum was called ‘Paradise rum’.

After snorkeling we visited Pirates bight, Norman island for a rest.

After that stopover we returned by 45 minutes boat back to Jost van Dyke to explore the beach front. It was like paradise.

Now this is what you called beached

The famous Foxy’s bar who was a local musician who opened this bar and by the looks of some photos he was knighted.

This is a lucky monkey 🙂

Ah its paradise in a hammock

We are at our 2nd to last stop on our cruise now and it is the very beautiful and very rich island of St Barts.

This is again a small island 7km by 4km in size and is the most expensive island in the Caribbean. Hotel rooms here start at several hundred Euro’s a night (as this is a French owned island) up to 20,000 a night for the top end.

It is the favourite short holiday destination for all the rich and famous with designer brands of clothes and other luxury items at every corner.

The cheapest smallest house on the island is about 2 million euros to buy. Even a coffee in a hotel is around 8 euros!

Everything is priced so high to keep it exclusive you cannot even stay 1 night on the island without a fair amount of money.

The water is so blue and the bays are so beautiful.

We took a minibus tour of the island. The air con broke down and there was no windows, we all felt so uncomfortable and I felt sick from the heat.

We had a free tour and lunch included. This is where we had lunch and the views from the pool were good.

How about this for a big bottle of rose wine.

We were hot!

I didn’t take any photos of the big name designer shops but there were every brand you could thing of. Nothing as low as Nike or sports brands allowed and not 1 fast food place on the island just restaurants only.

It was a beautiful stop today, a small island named Terre-de-Haut with lots of french culture, a small piece of France in the Caribbean.

As soon as you step ashore it is a real colourful place, it looks Caribbean but all the language and signs are french. Caribbean foods mixed with French things like crepes.

The main bay is particularly pretty with its different coloured houses.

Funny little car from the locals.

It started to rain very heavy so we looked into a couple of shops. These black babies made me laugh, made me think of the Little Britain sketch when the young council estate mum said “I wanna Black baby like the other mums” 🙂

I also found this food ‘Rape grated’ that can’t be good!

The houses are very pretty and looked after.

We explored the quieter side of the small island with a walk to a beach on the far side, which was deserted.

After the walk to the beach we stopped at a small beach front restaurant for lunch. The style of food was more Caribbean than French which was good.

They made a coconut rum punch and it was so laced with rum Sanna couldn’t drink it at all (she made the funniest dace when she drank it). It was even too strong for me. They said the locals run is 50% and is a bit strong for off islanders. I watered it down and then it was nice.

For lunch this is coconut chicken with a banana I think mild curry sauce and rice.

Sanna had Caribbean salad which had prawns and fish in it. They both tasted great.

On the way back we walked past the recycling plant, these crushed bottles and cans looked cool I though, the photos sent very sharp though.

Tonight just as we were leaving port I spotted this big traditional clipper boat sailing out to sea.

Today we arrived in the Caribbean at Barbados. There were 3 cruise oships visiting that day, our ship was the smallest this was huge 3000 passengers I heard. It had a massive TV screen on the top deck and even a water slide!

This was just outside the harbour it looks like a wreck to me but a local told me its not, I don’t think I believed him.

Here’s a colourful local bar which was at the marina hence all the maritime flags.

Banks is the main beer in Barbados, the only beer that’s made on the island. I tried it ans it was a light larger with a slight  sort of German pills taste.

We were booked to do a snorkeling tour with the turtles from a sailing catarmaran

All aboard and set sail!

Here are the 3 cruise ships in port. Ours is the small one on the right and the huge mega ship is the one with the weird T shape funnel on the top.

Sitting on the mesh on the front when going over the water was fun.

Snorkeling with the giant turtles was fun. The guides fed them with fish to lure them within touching distance. I’ve not snorkeled in a while, I swallowed 2 mouthfuls of sea water, yuk.

As you can see the water is so blue and the water temperature was 27 degrees.

This is a good photo, Sanna spraying the guy working on the boat 🙂

Blue warm water.

Mount Gay rum is made in Barbados and it is really cheap. After the snorkeling I tried a local Banks beer and then they kept making me Mount Gay fruit rum punches.

They kept making doubles and after the 45 minute sail back listening to chilled out music that really suited being on a sail boat in the Caribbean, I was quite drunk.

This is Thomas the captain who is also Barbadian but is white, he said only 4% of Barbadians are white. He was interesting to talk to, to ask about life on the island and sailing this boat for 14 years now, taking out tourists each day.

After the snorkeling we went to the Mount Gay rum distillery. The tours were now closed but I bought a huge 1.75 extra old rum for only $38. The rum is so cheap here.

One more look at that massive ship in the harbour, it was huge!

Not much to write down today as it was a whole day at sea. Sanna’s feeling better but has a blocked nose. I’m feeling not so good so I must have caught it.

A quick lovely photo of the pool area at night.

Today we put down anchor just a few hundred metres off of Devils island at 7am. It was a tender launch, the sea is still very choppy, it was hard for the older people to get on and off the tender boat.

As soon as you get ashore to this hell of an old prison it first seems like tropical paradise with palm trees everywhere.

You get ashore and the tiny island which is a few hundred metres across has lots of convict made paths. This one the first leading up to the governors house.

This is the only pretty house on the island, it was a 2 floor house built for the governor of this prison island. It has a small garden and some nice views.

A couple of views from the governors house.

This is a view over to the famous Devils island. There are 3 islands that make up the Devils island but one of the smallest ones is actually the one called Devils island. So this one below is the true Devils island that in the film Papillion he ends up on at the end of the film.

This water storage pool by the prison has caymans living in amongst the water lilies as the sign says.

We are now exploring the jails and these are the solitary confinement cells. If you’ve seem the film you should recognise these cells.

These are the prison officers houses which now some people live in it looked like.

We went for a walk in the rainforest around the perimeter of the island. Lots of wildlife we found and very friendly.

This is the graveyard for the prisonofficers. All the convicts that died were rowed out to sea then a bell was rung and the body dumped in the sea. It wasn’t long before the sharks learnt that a ringing bell meant feeding time, and they would gather in anticipation.

So this is the real Devils island just a couple of 100 meters across massive waves and rips.

How’s this for a big leaf!

Some More Beautiful Photos

We both have to say Devils island had been the nicest, peaceful and most beautiful place we have visited so far this trip. It used to be hell when it was a prison island but now its a beautiful place to visit.

A short day it felt today. We are out of the amazon and at sea. The waves are bigger now, the ship is rocking side to side back and forth, the occasional bang of the biggest waves on the side of the ship followed by the vibrations.

It’s either all that were not used to or we’ve been hit by germs from the dirtyness of Brazil, but we are both not feeling very well. Some soar throats, sicky stomachs and generally really tired. Sanna is worse than me currently.

Exciting news though, we had an invitation to have dinner with the captain as the honeymoon couple! What a honor, terrible though we had to decline as we just didn’t feel up to it, a real shame.

It’s Easter, if you didn’t know it still happens at sea and there were large chocolate bunnies everywhere and the the staff had hidden hundreds of chocolate eggs all over the ships common areas to find.

Its been raining a LOT, it is the wet season here in the tropics. The outside pool area looked very wet by nighttime.

We came back to the cabin to find another animal in the bathroom, a rabbit! Tonight is a rocky night at sea and then tomorrow Devils island.

In preparation we are watching the film Papillion about one mans repeated escape from Devils island.

Today was our first day with no port stop as we are starting to head out of the amazon river and into the sea now.

Not so much happened today. We got up and did a Pilates class and a great breakfast again.

After breakfast we had a lovely couples massage in the Seaborne spa and then we had complementary access to the exclusive spa serene area which is a quiet beautiful area with all places to relax, shame I didn’t have my camera.

We went to a cooking demonstration hosted by the ships executive chef and they made crab cakes with a spicy sauce and for dessert creme brulee.

At lunchtime there was a big clothes and luxury goods sale on board! The staff told us there was a email to them from head office saying to knock 50% off everything on board as they will replace all stock when the ship gets to Fort Lauderdale.

It was a shopping frenzy in a make shift market made up of tables in the club bar. It shows even rich people love a good bargain 🙂 50% off was really good and I bought a quality polo shirt for $20 and Sanna some designer D&G glasses for just $67.

Then I got down to some reading on deck and I was handed a fruit juice cocktail that matched my new polo shirt I just bought in the sale.

In the afternoon we did a ‘Kineses’ class in the gym and then I forced myself to do a 30 minute run around the outside deck.
Sanna’a a bit tired and a bit sniffly so we had a short dinner and when we got back to the room it had been ‘honey mooned’ for us like this.

And we had this bottle of wine for us as a present, is it a good one?