Sunday, November 13, 2011

Nassau and St. Thomas

Well, we're back! One day off the cruise and I still feel like the ground is moving beneath my feet. A few words on that - I'm a naturally motion sick kind of person. Always have been - my Uncle Joe can tell you about one particularly vomitous drive we made in his old Peugot up Kern Canyon. So you ask - what the heck was I doing on a cruise ship? Praying for grace, really. This particular trip we got hit with a few nights of 10-15+ foot waves. Awesome. I doped myself with Dramamine and Bonine every day and when it was just too much, assumed the fetal position on the bed in our stateroom with my eyes closed for hours at a time. Our second night, I spent 16 hours in the fetal position. The next morning, I bought the sea-sickness bracelets. The bracelets use accu-pressure on a certain point on your wrist to alleviate the symptoms of motion sickness. They were a god-send. I will never cruise without them again - from that point on, at the worst I felt mild nausea, and mostly felt just fine. Not sure if it was the bracelets, or what I believed they could do that made the difference, I'm just grateful they did!

Not one to let something silly like seasickness ruin my vacation, I made the most of it! Our first port was Nassau, The Bahamas (where we will return for a week's stay and diving on February 14!). It was beautiful, and I was so grateful to be on solid land. We explored Nassau, did some shopping in the straw market and ended up finding a beach to play at for a few hours, complete with a Beach Bar. I had a rum and pineapple made with fresh cut pineapple. Woo-hoo! Can't wait to come back and really see more of what Nassau has to offer!











Two days later we made port in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. We didn't have an opportunity to explore the island from any place but a boat, so this is also on my must return to visit list. As St. Thomas is the most expensive island in the Caribbean, I doubt that return visit will be very soon, but someday! Our day in St. Thomas was my absolute favorite day of our trip. We went out on two dives - the first on the reef, and the second on a shipwreck: the Cartanza Senora. The ship has a really cool local history, and it was my first dive on a wreck - awesome. It's really incredible how the ocean takes the ship in. We saw an incredible amount of sea-life on the wreck. We also saw an incredible amount of divers, too. I've been very spoiled in my dives prior to this one - groups as small as three divers. Not the case in St. Thomas, but well worth the day of diving. Looking forward to my next dives in the Caribbean - Belize and Cozymel in January and Nassau in February!





As always, my husband shot some incredible photos on our trip. Check out his posts from the Bahamas and St. Thomas!

1 comment:

  1. YAY!!!! Glad you had a great time. Thank goodness those bracelets worked, it would have been awful if you felt that sick the whole time :(

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