Last Sea Day - December 18

Day number 10…the last day of the cruise. The subzero temps of Minnesota were just a very distant memory by this time. I almost felt as if we were in a time warp. Back in the “real world” it was winter and only a few days until Christmas. Here on the Emerald Princess it was summertime and warm. The ship was decorated beautifully for the holidays, but yet I was feeling no Christmas spirit. 

The guys were up early and went down to deck 5 to do a test run of their egg drop contraption…before the Piazza became busy. A few minor adjustments and they were confident that their egg would survive the two-story drop intact. (They were entered into a competition where they had to build some sort of protective gizmo that would keep an egg intact when it was dropped from two decks above the Piazza.)

Sea Day - December 17

After five straight port days, I was looking forward to a relaxing sea day. Bob and I started the day with breakfast in the Horizon Court and I was quite surprised to see CHOCOLATE was everywhere! Carnival often does a chocolate buffet at noon on their last sea day…but breakfast? 

Bob was going to meet Kent in the gym so didn’t eat anything…but I never turn down chocolate! 

My mind is fuzzy on how the day was spent, but looking at the daily Patters, I do know that the guys went to the Navigation@Sea lecture in the Princess Theater at 10 am. Although I’m sure it was interesting, Laurel and I chose to attend the “outlet sale” at the same time in the Michelangelo Dining Room. Tons of merchandise are strewn across the tables…much of it leftovers from various cruise routes…the northeast, the Baltics, etc. The prices were reduced…but not to the point that I felt compelled to buy anything.

As we were browsing, the captain came on the intercom and announced that the ship was turning around. Someone had spotted what they thought was a gray life raft floating in the ocean and we were going back to the spot where it had been seen. As the ship turned, it listed to one side…enough that it was a bit hard to even walk. (Found out later that it was only a 2% list…but believe me…it felt more like 20%!)

We knew the guys had planned to go to the ice carving demonstration at 11:00 so we made our way up to the pool area to see if we could find them. By the time we got up there, the carvings were being loaded up and hauled away.

We found the guys…and most of the other passengers…standing along the rail trying to spot this mysterious gray life raft. The captain had announced that if anyone spotted the raft to please call the bridge immediately.

As the ship backtracked, a small vessel came into view on the horizon. At first everyone was sure we had found the life raft, but the captain announced that it was a tiny Venezuelan fishing boat…and they had been able to make contact. Not sure why or how such a small boat would be out on the open seas. The life raft was never found…and we turned around to continue on our way north. But….it did make for an exciting morning!

Can you see the boat? LOL! It took me forever to finally see it...but it is too small to show up on the photo.

Aruba - December 16

Just as we did in Bonaire the day before, the guys and the gals were going separate ways in Aruba. The guys had dives booked with Happy Divers (Aruba’s motto is “One Happy Island”) and headed off the ship around 8 am.

Several months prior I had contacted Sonny Binns about the possibility of booking an island tour. He had responded that he had a 25-passenger bus and would need at least 6 customers before he would book a tour. He promised he would stay in touch and let us know if more people inquired about the tour. It wasn’t until early November that he emailed saying that the tour was on…we were to meet him inside the cruise ship terminal at 8:45 am.

There is a small shopping area in the terminal that Laurel and I walked through to get to where tour groups were meeting. It was a bit of a zoo with lots of ship tours gathering…but Sonny was nowhere to be found. Another tour guide offered to call him, but got no answer.

It was getting close to 9:00 when Sonny arrived…with apologies for being late. Only one other couple was there waiting with us…the additional two people whom he had booked did not show up. It was somewhat awkward because the husband of the couple refused to even shake Sonny’s hand because he was mad that Sonny had been late. It made for an uncomfortable start to our tour.

Although it probably wasn’t necessary for just the four of us, Sonny used a microphone to amplify his voice as he did the tour. I can see where this would have been an advantage had the bus been full. He explained that besides tours, he has a contract with one of the airlines to transport their crew back and forth between a hotel and the airport and that was what had caused him to be late. 

Both Laurel and I enjoyed the day…it almost felt like we had a private tour. I felt bad for Sonny that there was so few of us but he didn’t let it stop him from giving a great tour. We only paid $30 apiece so I can imagine that after filling his bus with gas he made very little profit that day.

The tour visited the primary tourist attractions. Our first stop was at the rock formations.

Aruba is very flat and from the top of the rocks you could see pretty much all of the island. I knew Aruba’s climate was arid…but I was not prepared for a Caribbean island that was covered with cactus! 

If you look closely you can see the Emerald Princess docked in the distance.

Zooming in...

The steep stairs leading to the top of the rock formation were a bit creepy...

Bonaire - December 15

The distance from Grenada to Bonaire was 395 nautical miles so even though we left Grenada at 2 pm the previous day, we didn’t arrive in Bonaire until around noon. 

Rather than eating at the buffet, Bob and I went to the International Cafe for breakfast. The International Cafe is located next to the central Piazza on the ship and has a coffee shop as well as pastries for breakfast. Later in the day you can grab small sandwiches, salads, etc.

The guys had a diving day planned and Laurel and I had booked a snorkeling tour with Woodwind Sail & Snorkel so when the ship docked at Bonaire, we parted ways. Woodwind had a booth right by the pier and Laurel and I checked in with them and then followed directions to walk down the road to the resort where their catamaran was docked. As soon as we arrived, the crew was passing out glasses of juice while we waited for the rest of our group to show up. 

Once on the catamaran, more drinks were offered. We sailed past the Emerald on our way to the snorkeling destination…Klein Bonaire…a small island just off the coast of Bonaire. 

The reef around Klein Bonaire...

Dee (the owner) and her crew made sure everyone was outfitted with snorkel gear and helped get the masks defogged. Although Laurel has her own equipment, Dee offered her a prescription mask to use which she appreciated.

Dee went through very detailed safety instructions and divided us up into three different groups. A professional photographer was also onboard who went into the water with us. 

The water was quite choppy and at one point a small squall came through with a little extra wind and rain. Look closely...can you see the top of the Emerald above the waves?!

The reef around Bonaire is protected and in much better shape than most places we have snorkeled. A professional photographer was with us as we snorkeled and we had the option of purchasing a CD of her photos afterwards (which we did.) Laurel also had her new underwater camera so between the two we have an abundance of snorkeling photos!

For quite some time, we followed a turtle and the professional photograher got some outstanding shots. In fact, I picked this next photo to use on my Visa credit card!

Dee was with our group and would dive down and point out things of interest. In this next photo, she saw the school of fish and swam down and carefully "herded" the fish so the others in the group could see them.

A sea frog!

When we got back onboard we found out that when it had started raining the crew ran around the boat grabbing everyone’s belongings and putting them below deck to stay dry…how nice! As we sailed back to shore, the crew kept bringing out more drinks and all sorts of yummy snacks.

Laurel and Dee:

Once back on shore, Laurel and I walked back to the ship and cleaned up a bit. The guys hadn’t returned from their diving yet so we left them a note and headed back onshore to do a little shopping. 

Across the street from the pier there were some vendors with tables set up selling a variety of souvenir items. We browsed through those and then headed down the street popping in and out of the various shops. 

In the end my only purchase was salt…yes…salt. Bonaire is known for their salt production and one of the sellers had packets of table salt for sale…both coarse and fine ground. A great gift for my adult sons! At the same stand they were selling packets of bath salts. I bought several different fragrances to take home to my daughter-in-laws. Little did I know what trouble this salt would cause me later…

We were back on board before the guys returned from their diving that they had booked with VIP Diving. Bonaire is one of the top diving locations in the world and it did not disappoint! 

Before going to dinner we got a few photos of the island at twilight and also Woodwind's catamaran dropping off the passengers from the afternoon snorkel tour.

The Emerald sailed from Bonaire at 7:00 pm headed for our last port…Aruba. 

Bobby Brooks Wilson, feeling better after having canceled his show a couple of nights ago, entertained us in the Princess Theater. 

Grenada Part 1 - December 14

It was hard to get up to such an early alarm, but the Emerald Princess was scheduled to dock in Grenada at 7:00 am and we needed to go onshore to meet Clement Baptiste, our guide for the day. I was the one that had done the research and booked all of the tours for this cruise and I carefully copied all of the correspondence and placed it in a folder…with plastic protector sheets and everything!

A couple of weeks before we left, I emailed all of the tour guides just to confirm our bookings and for some reason, I didn’t make a copy of my last email with Clement. He had stated that we should meet him inside the welcome center at 8:00 am…not 7:00 am as we had discussed in previous emails. That meant we left the ship an hour early…and could have slept later and had a more leisurely breakfast. :( 

When we couldn’t locate Clement at 7:00 we started asking other guides and they led us outside through the parking lot to a small building with a covered deck…and there he was hanging around with the other guides. Oops…I felt just a little silly when I realized it was my mistake. 

Clement was gracious enough and offered us chairs to wait until others from the tour arrived. Laurel and I decided to wonder back through the welcome center to get some photos and ran into a couple that had shared our tour in Dominica. They were looking for something to do and since our tour was not full, they decided to join us. 

Clement’s tour was billed as a “historical tour.” The following is his description:

Thank you for choosing C.B.Historical tours,serving you will be my pleasure.This will be our North east tour.But recently we have added a section of the North west to it,which means we travel up the west coast and then cut across the island to the North east.
On this tour we visit the nutmeg station,there you will learn the processing of the nutmegs our number one spice on the island,we then cut across the island passing through the spice plantation,where you will see how the spices grow on the trees,on to the rainforest,visiting the
waterfalls,reterning to the ship by (12:45)pm.The highlight of the tour is a comprenshive account of our island history,from our discovery up to the U.S.led invasion of the island in(1983.)

As he drove Clement would point out the sites on the island and also give us a running account of the history of Grenada. He had been an employee of one of the high ranking communist officials during the time Grenada had been under Marxist rule so was able to give a firsthand account of the U.S. invasion in 1983 that lead to their freedom.

Driving through the city of St. George…the local market area was being renovated (according to Clement) so many people had set up shop on the sidewalks, selling all sorts of fruits and vegetables.

Most of our day was just spent driving…with very few stops. It gave us a chance to see a good part of Grenada, but it started to get old after awhile...it would have been nice to stop more often and explore. By the end of the day we were all tired of spending so much time in the van. 

Many of my photos were just shot through the van window. No explanation or story to go with them…it is just what we saw driving by. Hopefully it gives you a little flavor of life in Grenada.

It was interesting to see these fishermen pulling in their nets...

One stop we did make was at a nutmeg factory…fitting because Grenada is known as the “spice island”. yes, I was excited to see this place! There is nothing better than freshly ground nutmeg over homemade rice pudding! I purchased whole nutmeg in Jamaica on our first cruise and have been a nutmeg lover ever since! 

Nutmeg grows in three layers…the outer hull, the shell, and the “nut” that is the actual spice. Here is a nutmeg tree:

What I didn’t know was that the shell is also covered with a thin red layer that is “mace”. Once the mace is removed and dried it becomes orange-yellow. Ground mace has a flavor that is a combination of cinnamon and pepper. Here is what the mace looks like before it is removed from the nutmeg:

Because we were there on a Saturday no production was taking place but we did get to tour the building. The factory seemed very primitive. Large wooden racks were used to dry the nutmeg before it is sorted.

The nutmeg is raked so that it will dry evenly.

To sort the nutmeg, it is placed in water...the good ones sink, the bad floats. In the past, this sorting process was all done by hand. One couple on our tour had been here about 20 years ago and said that women sat on the floor doing the sorting.

The factory was rather dark and dreery...but oh what a view out the window!

As we drove, Clement pointed out many different trees and plants that grow on the island.

A cocoa tree…

Bananas

Papaya

More nutmeg

A wild goat

Palm nuts

An old plantation house

And although we had nice weather all day, it was evident that we were in a rainforest by the heavy mist hanging over the hills.

Clement pulled off on the side of the road at Grand Etang National Park where some monkeys were playing. We got out of the van and watched them for a short time and got some photographs. There were a lot of other vans and people in the area so not sure if there was something to see besides the monkeys or not...we didn't stick around long enough to find out.

We passed by a Rainbow Eucalyptus tree.

To be continued...