Peru & Ecuador - Part 4

Day 2 on board the Santa Cruz II took us to Isabela Island. After breakfast we boarded the pangas to study the coastline of the island, which is a nesting place for several of the area's unique species including the flightless cormorants, Galapagos penguins, and boobies. After that we jumped into the water to snorkel. It was freezing at 67 degrees fahrenheit! I nearly climbed back on board the panga. They had provided us with partial wetsuits, but honestly it was still so cold. I'm glad I persevered though, as it was some of the best snorkeling I have ever done. The sea life was plentiful, and I saw so many sea turtles. I had not experienced that before. Unfortunately my underwater camera decided to stop working after only a couple of photos so I didn't get much there.

Isabella Island morning excursion

The panga ride back to the ship was quite chilly. Jim and I decided to hop into the hot tub on the back of the boat once we shed our wetsuits. It felt great! Then we had to shower and have lunch so we could rest up before the afternoon hike.

the ship had two hot tubs

Fernandina Island was our hiking expedition in the afternoon. This was probably my favorite spot on the whole trip. There was a high concentration of marine iguanas of all different colors. The sea lions were also abundant, and a sheltered rocky cove was a perfect nursery for the sea lion babies. They put on quite a show for us! The colorful Sally Lightfoot crabs scuttled along the rocks as well, and the American Oystercatcher traversed the rocks looking for a meal. We saw another sea turtle resting on the sand, paying no attention to those of us trying to take his picture. The beautiful sunset was a perfect ending to an exceptional day.

Fernandina Island

Sailing Away - 5

St. George's Grenada

Grenada was the next port of call, and we arrived at St. George's at 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday, February 20th. Located in the southeastern Caribbean sea, Grenada has a population of 110,000. It is 21 miles long and 12 miles wide. On this island all four of us agreed on a snorkeling excursion to an underwater sculpture park on the ocean floor of Molinere Bay. There are 68 sculptures in this park, but we only saw a handful of them.

underwater sculpture park

From there we got back on the catamaran and motored to Grand Anse Beach, where we could swim in the most beautiful-colored water I have ever seen. The rum punch added to the party atmosphere for sure.

Grand Anse Beach

Our visit to this island was short, and we sailed out of St. George's at 1:30 p.m. I was pleased to capture yet another pretty sunset off of our balcony.

sunset

Sailing Away - 4

February 19th's stop was at the island of Dominica (pronounced doe-min-ee-ka, and not to be confused with the Dominican Republic). Founded by Christopher Columbus in November 3, 1493, the island was and still is inhabited by the Caribe tribe. Its land mass is 29 miles long and 16 miles wide.

We arrived at the port of Roseau at 9:00 a.m. A full rainbow greeted us when we woke up, and the pretty morning sky highlighted the hills of the island.

Roseau, Dominica

Our friends went scuba diving and we elected to do the Champagne Reef Snorkel. The snorkel site was located at Soufriere-Scott's Head Marina Reserve. Located on the edge of a submerged volcano, you can actually feel the hot water venting from the earth's core. We swam through tiny, crystal-like bubbles which escape from the volcanic fissures on the seabed. It was rather like being inside a glass of champagne.

Champagne snorkel trip

We bid Dominica adieu as the Crown Princess left port at 5:30.

leaving Roseau

Sailing Away - 3

St. Thomas at sunrise

Sunday was a day at sea, and we arrived in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, February 18th. Now one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, St. Thomas was founded by the Danish in the 1600s.

We were in the first group of passengers getting off the ship as our excursion began at 8:30. The four of us decided to try the BOSS Underwater Scooter Adventure. That stands for Breathing Observation Submersible Scooter, and we had never heard of them until now.

I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous about this one since I have never gone scuba diving and like the sense of control I have with a mask and snorkel. In this, you stick your head inside a bubble, hop on your scooter, and they lower you 8 feet below the surface of the water. In the meantime, you hold your nose and keeping blowing out to pop your ears as you go down. But once we got going, it was so much fun! We were allowed to ride for 30 minutes, but it felt like only 10. Due to the size of the group - there were 38 of us, I believe - we went down in groups. We were allowed to snorkel after our turn on the scooters.

BOSS

After cleaning up and having lunch, we had some time to do some exploring of Charlotte Amalie. You could see that some areas are still recovering from the hurricanes of 2017, but a lot of buildings look remarkable intact.

Charlotte Amalie

The ship pulled away from the port in St. Thomas at 4:30 p.m. It was another beautiful day.

leaving St. Thomas

The Great Barrier Reef

Today was one of the days we most looked forward to on this trip - seeing the Great Barrier Reef. We booked an excursion with Tusa 6 after looking at many options. They came recommended by the tourist information center as well as over 1,100 reviews on TripAdvisor that rated the company as 4.5 out of 5 stars. That is pretty impressive. While the boat can legally hold 120 passengers, they never take out more than 60. That is still a large group, but we appreciated the fact that a larger boat would be a little more stable on the ocean, and they have access to 16 different reef locations so they can choose the ones that are most suitable for that day's weather forecast. The other companies only have two spots they can ever go to, regardless of the weather.

We left our apartment at 7:30 to walk to the pier as boarding began at 7:40 and the boat was to depart at 8. As it ended up, there were only 56 on board, including the 8 crew members. Nearly half the group was diving while the rest of us just intended to snorkel. Tea, coffee and danishes were available first thing. It took 90 minutes to get us to Hastings, the first reef location. On the way there a
beautiful rainbow appeared, which morphed into a double rainbow.

We all donned wetsuits as it is the end of jellyfish season. Wetsuits are like Spanx on steroids. They are incredibly difficult to get on, even when dry. I was surprised to see that the suit ended right above the knees as that left our lower legs exposed. We were given the option of using a full life jacket or a swimming noodle in the water. We like the snorkeling life vests as you can adjust the amount of air in the vest if you want to drop down more in the water. As they didn't have that kind, we opted to use the noodles. They worked surpringly well. 

We had two hours to swim before lunch was served, and we found out that is a long time in the water. We took a break about halfway through. We both agreed that it was the best coral we had ever seen. All colors of the rainbow were present in either the coral or the fish, and the blue of the water was unlike any I had seen. Jim has an underwater camera, albeit an old one so the technology is not as good as the new ones. Below are some of him pictures.

Because we were not allowed into the lounge area in our wetsuits, that meant we had to get them back off before lunch. Jim didn't get on the boat until awhile after me, so I had some complete stranger help me get the top part off, praying that my swimsuit stayed in place while he assisted me.

Following lunch we took off for the next spot, which was Michaelmus reef. That meant the very wet wetsuit had to be put back on. Jim headed out before me as I wanted to take some pictures, so I struggled to do it on my own. After about dislocating my shoulder, I went to zip it up only to find that I had put it on inside out! Now I had to ask a different complete stranger to help me get the darn thing back off. By the time I was finally in the suit again, I told the man they would probably be calling everyone back to the boat. Anyway, I got into the water eventually, and it was pretty rough. The strong waves would keep carrying me back to the boat, so I didn't venture off too far. Due to the waves, the water was not as clear as our first location so that was a little disappointing. I don't think anyone stayed in the water for the full time period. It was challenging just trying to get out of the water onto the back steps of the boat. Once again I got out before Jim, so this time a nice young woman from Germany helped me with the top part of the wetsuit. I certainly had a lot of people getting me dressed and undressed today!

On the journey back it was quite a wild ride due to the waves. I'm so thankful we are not prone to seasickness, because some people had a rough go of it. We were able to enjoy the afternoon refreshment, unlike some. The boat got us back in port by 4:00. One more item off our bucket list!

Cruisin' Part 4

Cabo sunrise

On Thursday we entered the port of Cabo San Lucas around 6:30 in the morning, greeted by another beautiful sunrise. It was interesting to see a U.S. naval ship in the harbor. That would be a nice assignment.

US Navy ship

one of the ship's tenders

Inexplicably, we had the shortest amount of time in this port, which has no actual dock for large cruise ships. All passengers going ashore have to be tendered into port, so you have to build in extra time for that. Due to time constrictions, we booked our excursion through the cruise line. We met for breakfast at 7:15, and then hurried to the meeting place we were assigned to catch our tender into Cabo. We had decided to take a Zodiac tour and snorkel trip. A Zodiac is an inflatable boat that can reach high speeds and thus is desirable to the military - think Special Forces here. None of us had been on one, and of course the guys were all excited about the ride. I wasn't thrilled about being bounced around, but on the plus side the boat doesn't hold too any people so the excursion was small. We had eight in our Zodiac, plus the driver and a guide. A second Zodiac brought several more people from our ship, though we really didn't see much of them once we took off. Below is the other Zodiac.

Zodiac

Paul and me 

One of the main attractions in Cabo is El Archo. Literally translated as The Arch, the three stories tall rock formation is also referred to as Land's End because if you followed a line south from here you would not touch land again until you reached the South Pole. The Pacific Ocean becomes the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez) here. The rock formations are incredible, and the boat was able to take us fairly close to them. There were numerous sea lions hanging out on the rocks.

El Archo

pretty fish

After ample time to study the rocks and take photographs, we headed to our first snorkeling location. The water here was a bit colder than Puerto Vallarta, and I was wishing I had the wet suit provided on the tour there. On the plus side, it did get me swimming faster! All was going well, and we were enjoying the variety of fish in the area when the female guide swam up to Paul, Kathy and me and told us to swim to a new area. "Towards the shore?," Paul asked. She nodded yes and said she would go and tell the others. We took off in the direction she indicated. And that is when I thought I was going to die.

The three of us got hit by a humongous wave. I am talking one that expert surfers would have been ecstatic to ride. We barely recover from that, and I turned around and thought, "Holy crap!" Here comes another one, just like the other one. I have never been in that situation before. Do you ride it out? Dive into it? Pray? I saw Paul dive into it, so I followed suit. Then a third one came, and I was growing tired from fighting the waves. When I could finally stick my mask back into the water, I about had a heart attack. I was inches above some coral, and I could only image cutting myself on it.  I swam as hard as I could to the left, not knowing if it was any better over that direction. Thankfully, there were no more huge waves, and I took some time to just float for a bit and rest. I honestly did not know if I had enough strength and energy left to swim all the way back to the boat. I had been sent pretty far away from it. Eventually I made it back, as did Kathy and Paul. I don't think I have been so scared in my life. And we still had one more snorkeling stop to make. The female guide spoke softly in Spanish to the driver when she got back in the boat. She never said a word to the three of us, but Jim said she seemed pretty shaken up by what had happened. As well she should.

I wasn't sure if I was going to even get out of the boat at the next stop, but we ended up in a pretty quiet cove. So I decided to get back in the water, which was thankfully warmer than the last stop. I am so glad I made that decision, because the coral was prettier here, and there were so many fish! It truly seemed like we were swimming in an aquarium.

fish and a whale

On the way back to Cabo we saw a whale. Although this was the migration season, this is the only one that I saw on the trip. I am not going to lie though. The best thing I saw was the cruise ship. After my ordeal, I was happy to get out of the water. Back on ship we showered, played some trivia and had a low key dinner at the grill so we could eat outside. Besides, it was another formal dinner night, and none of us felt like dressing up. Then we watched the movie, "The Martian" outdoors on the big screen, and followed that by seeing the comedy/music show by Steve Moris, who used to play with the Beach Boys. It was a nice ending to the day.

Crown Princess

Cruisin' Part 2

Puerto Vallarta

Our first port of call was Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. This was a sleepy little fishing village until John Huston filmed "The Night of the Iguana" there in 1964. The film starred Richard Burton, and his then-lover Liz Taylor flew down to keep an eye on Burton and his co-star, Ava Gardner. The resulting media buzz put the locale on the map as a tourist destination. Resorts and cruise lines followed the buzz. We arrived at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday the 23rd, and because the port is located north of the city there is not much to see once you are docked.

Marietta Island

The four of us booked an excursion through Princess for this port of call. The benefit of using the cruise line is that they make sure you get off the ship in a timely fashion and also, more importantly, back on the ship before it sets sail. If their excursion screws up the timing and you miss the ship, they fly you to the next destination. We grabbed breakfast at the buffet before leaving the ship to meet up with our tour group. We had selected a sailing/snorkeling adventure to Marietta Island, which is a national park and bird sanctuary. As it was breeding season, we saw many of the 72 varieties of birds who make the island their home.

Many on the excursion took the opportunity to swim through a cave to get to a private beach. As they mentioned you needed to be a very strong swimmer due to currents, and that they wouldn't know what the head clearance in the cave was until they got in there, Kathy and I chose not to do that portion. After everyone was back on board, we motored to a new location to go snorkeling.

snorkeling

Once we were all back on board, the crew served us some amazing tropical cocktails and a buffet lunch. Then we were offered the opportunity to kayak or try their paddle boards. As I did not want my first time trying to get up on a board to be in front of 40 of my new friends, I took pictures instead. Kathy and Paul both tried it, and Jim and Paul took a kayak for a spin.

Jim and Paul kayaking

As we headed back to the port, the crew of the boat put on quite a show for us. What a fun group of guys! We have been on many excursions in the past, but overall I would have to say this five-hour cruise was the best in terms of friendliness of the employees, food, drink and boating activities.

the crew

our ship

We all took a nap when we got back to the ship, and then showered before going to dinner. It was lovely to see the full moon as we cruised that night on our way to the second port of call in Mazatlan.

full moon