Day 4: St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
The 2005 Caribbean Cruise
Day 4: St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
Wednesday,
21 Sept 05: First and foremost, today was the 3rd anniversary of
the day my beloved wife gave me her hand in marriage. It was a great day
back in 2002 and it was a great day in 2005 also. Heather and I got up
about 0745 and got ready. We had booked an excursion to go parasailing at
1100, so we had a few hours to kill before we did that. We went to
breakfast at the Windjammer on the ship and then went out on the St. Thomas pier
around 0930. While we were out on the pier, we took some pictures of the
water, the ship at the pier, and each other. We watched boats, the
parasail folks, and sea planes all going about their business. It was a
beautiful day. It was dang hot, but the breeze was blowing off the sea and
keeping it bearable. As we sat on the pier watching, 2 HUGE manta rays
swam by where we were sitting. I'm not kidding when I say they were huge..
They had to be at least 6-7 feet tip to tip. They passed right by us and then
dove deeper in the water. I snapped a couple of pictures of them, but you can't
really tell anything about them. After they left, we saw some jelly fish
swim (float) by. It was kind of amazing to me to see real, wild, aquatic
life swimming by where we sat. I've never seen anything like that prior, except
in aquariums.
At 1045, we met our "guide" for the parasail. He took our tickets and
told us where to go to meet the boat. We went down, met the folks and
boarded the boat. They gave us our briefing and we went out to the bay
where they did their thing. This was the type of parasail where you get
hooked on the parasail at the back of the boat. They speed up a bit to
inflate the sail and then reel you out. They have 600 foot of cable, which
puts you about 400 feet in the air. After your 5 or 6 minutes at the top,
they start to reel you back in. When you have about 100 feet left to go, they
slow the boat and gently drop your feet in the water. If they do it
right, you only get your feet wet, if they misjudge it some, you could get wet
all over. After they dip your feet, they speed back up to get you back up
to altitude and then reel you in the rest of the way. You land back on the rear
of the boat and then you unhook. Oh yeah, you also do this tandem..
Meaning you have someone beside you this whole time. Which was cool as far
as I was concerned. It was much more fun being up there with Heather than it
would have been all by myself. We were the last of the 4 couples to go up.
We had a flawless trip and only got our feet wet. We took plenty of
pictures while in the air including the obligatory "self portrait" of holding
the camera out from us and snapping ourselves. We had a great time and the
guys that ran the parasail operation were great.
Around 1200, we back on the ship to get some water, drop off our bag and
grab a bite to eat before heading down town. As we were on the ship, it
started raining. So, we hung out on the ship during the rain delay.
It finally slowed raining enough for us to brave getting kinda wet around 2:45
pm. So, we disembarked again and headed to
Havensight Mall. We shopped until about 4:30 pm and then headed back
to the ship. All aboard was at 5:30 and we left port at 6:00 pm. We headed
to dinner after cleaning up and the Heather wanted to walk around the "Pommer
Thing." Known to all other passengers on the ship as the "Royal
Promenade," the shopping "mall" aboard the ship. We also watched the "Love
and Marriage Game" aboard the ship. A question and answer game they play with
three married couples. Along the same lines as the old Newlywed Game of
the 70's. It's probably one of the funniest things to watch aboard the
ship all week. After that was done, there was a midnight Pool Party.
Heather and I were kinda wound up, so we went.. They were having a bartender
competition. Doing the fancy mixing and juggling of glasses and bottles.
You know, the old Tom Cruise "Cocktails" thing. Very interesting.
They started doing something else after that, but my sunburn was hurting, so we
went back to the stateroom and crashed. I slept, but not great. Everything
was tightening up and really hurting. Again, my own stupid fault, so I
just had slather up with lotion and hope I didn't get sun poisoned.
Next stop: St. Maarten, NA
Pictures from St Thomas,
USVI and the Parasail Excursion