Oh No, Not Again!

Cruise #22- This cruise was all about getting ready for my last two cruises. Next cruise, Greg and Kim will be getting off and I know I will be going out more than usual. Also, my hand over will be getting on next cruise and I have been doing a lot of maintenance to have things in good condition before he gets on. My legacy will be to have the bus in pristine condition. The bus has gotten beaten up pretty bad over the course of my contract. I have been using bondo to patch the holes and now I have been painting it. This was Lisa's(nurse) last cruise. She has been here for my entire contract and is the one that came to get me when I stabbed my knee. We have become good friends and it was sad to see her leave. Hopefully I will get a chance to see her again.

The fly-ons for this cruise were JR McCollum, Michael James, Jerome Dabney and Mike Panzeca. JR McCollum is a nice guy who happens to do comedy. His act is O.K. He has a few good jokes but nothing to blow your socks off. He doesn't hang out after his shows so there isn't much to tell about him. Michael James is a good entertainer. His juggling is alright. His act has a Vegas strip feel to it. There is a lot of cheesy one liners and very family oriented. His ladder act is already less impressive the second time around. Jerome Dabney sings Motown stuff. He has a good act but it seems that his voice gets a little worse everytime he comes. It sounds like he just needs to take a break for a while. Mike Panzeca has been on many times. As always he was fun to hang out with in the crew bar.

This week in St. Maarten, Greg, Fede(showband drummer), Dan(showband guitarist) and Chip(bari sax) went to the french side of the island. We ate lunch at a french restaurant right on the beach near where our taxi dropped us off. I had the ham and cheese crepes. They were very O.K. I think they would have been pretty good if they were cooked correctly. They were a little burnt and that took away from the taste a little. When we finished Dan and Fede went for a swim. They swam to a nearby island. Greg, Chip and I walked down the beach. We decided to go right. This was a fatal mistake. The further we walked the more it became apparent that we were in the wrong area. We crossed over a rock barrier and BAM! We were surrounded by old naked people. It was the nude cruise all over again. We quickly turned around and walked the other way. We walked until the beach ended in a rock formation. The view on this side was much better. There were actually people our age on this side of the beach. We concluded our cab driver thought we were young tourists and decided we would want to see the nude beach. We actually just wanted to see some French culture. Oh well, maybe next time.

In St. Lucia this week, Greg and I went to the Wharf. We had lunch and watched the rain fight with the sun for "playing time". I had the chicken roti and a plate of jerk pork. Both were delicious. The Wharf has become my favorite restaurant in the Caribbean. The food is great and it is run by locals so the atmosphere is very laid back. Also, the view is really nice. It has a half moon bay and it is not overrun by tourists. The beach is gray because of the volcanoes in the area. After lunch, we headed back to the ship for a nap.

In St. Kitts this week, Greg and I had planned to climb the local volcano. We had heard that there was a trail you could access via taxi. After some further research, we realized that we didn't have enough time. It would have taken over six hours to walk the trail and climb the volcano and then get back to our taxi. So we decided to go with the old standby. We went to shipwreck beach. Upon our arrival, we decide we didn't want the same ole beach experience. We decided to walk down the beach. Everytime we had been there before we just hung out around the Tiki bar. We passed acouple of other Tiki huts and the beach came to a dead end. The end of the beach was rocky and we decided to climb the rocks to get some better pictures. It was worth the cuts on our feet. We discovered that there was a cave beyond the rocky beach. It was kind of cool looking. I wondered to myself if there might be pirate treasure in there, a laThe Goonies. When it was time to leave we discovered that our taxi had not come back to meet us. We talked to Dan and Fede and their cab hadn't showed up either. We walked to the road and just as we were about to freak out a cab drove by and we were able to convince him to take us back to the ship.

Nothing exciting happened in Fort Lauderdale this week. We went to the local Irish pub and ate some bangers and mash, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite meals. We did some shopping at Publix and headed back to the ship.

Talk to you soon,

Chris

Picture #1-The "safe" side of the beach on the French side of St. Maarten.

Picture #2-The "nude beach" side of the beach on the French side of St. Maarten.

Picture #3-Dan eating lunch in St. Maarten. He has pink finger nail polish on because the girl he likes pianted his nails the night before. It was our main topic of conversation that day at the beach.

Picture #4-Shipwreck beach from the dead end looking back toward our Tiki bar in St. Kitts.

Picture #5-The "treasure cave" at Shipwreck beach in St. Kitts.

Picture #6-Lisa the nurse. Sorry the picture is so bad but I usually didn't have my camara when she was around and this is the only picture I have of her.