Friday in Lovely Barbados, Day 6

A nice view of the Queen Mary 2 from our balcony as it enters the harbor in Barbados. The dark clouds brought heavy rain which dampened our plans for today.

All the islands were extremely dry recently. Water rationing was common, even where rain is usually abundant. The vegetation was beginning to show signs of thirst.

Unfortunately for us, the quenching rain began yesterday. Although it was much needed and much appreciated by the residents, it does not enhance our Caribbean experience. We stayed on board most of the day with the exception of a couple of rides on the free city bus that shuttles passengers to and from the terminal. There is a mall there that sells all the usual tourist essentials, and a couple of duty free liquor stores. I bought 3 pocket sized 'mickeys' of famous Appleby's Select (1 cent per ml.) and headed back to the ship.

Oh oh! I just saw Curtis! He just drove by with his bus driver's hat on. There are 3 ships in port today. The Queen Mary 2, beside us, (at the dock we have usually tied up to) and the Caribbean Princess behind us. Click Here to go way back to 2006 when Curtis drove us around.

Curtis was driving the Queen Mary 2 shuttle. I waited unril it returned. I walked over to the bus. "Hey Curtis, do you remember me?" He said "You look familiar."  "We rented a bus a few years ago. You took us to the surfing championships." "Yes, I remember. How is your wife? Were are the others?" "Only six of us this time." "Tell the others you saw me and say hello. When are you all coming back?" "I don't know, but if we do, we'll look you up. Let me take your picture."
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Up in the Lido restaurant, entertainer Mark Eddie spent a half an hour with our six. He seemed to really relate to John and Cheryl as he talked about his home town in Ohio and his wife and 2 daughters back in California. He explained how he accepted this gig at the last minute and although he had only one show he is "trapped" on board for the whole 10 days. He said he'd like to meet up with us again, bring his guitar and do some songs. All right!

The page boy was away from his post, so John took over the job of doling out the mints.

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St. Lucia, Day 5

We love St. Lucia! We have always before, hired Guy James's taxi (nicknamed 'Short Man') and headed north up to Pigeon Island. I have Mr. James' cell phone number so maybe we'll get him to take us somewhere else this time.

Here's Guy's card

I'm not driving. The steering wheel is on the right in St. Lucia.

We arrived at around 7am and after our ‘room service’ breakfast, met the others in the Vista Lounge. For the first time in 4 visits, we had to tender in to shore because there was no dock space for us here. Because we tendered in, we were let off at the Careenage terminal which is right in town. We were looking for our friend and cabbie Guy James. What a coincidence, we ran into his brother. Since I had a cell phone number, this man phoned Guy, who always waits over at the Serraphine terminal across the harbour. "Der are six white guys askin' for you ober he at da Careenage"

Guy was happy to see us and since it was raining, suggested that he take us on a drive down the coast to a fishing village called L'anse De La Raye and back via Marigot Bay where they filmed the 1967 Rex Harrison movie Dr. Dolittle.

Looking down at Marigot Bay in the center of the picture. Click picture to enlarge.

Guy took us to several historic and scenic sites, as well as the college. Here, there was a monument to one of two Nobel Peace lariates. On the way out of the college grounds, Guy recognized one of the students. It was his grand-daughter who was studying to be an accountant. She came to the window of the taxi. I expounded to her that she had made a wise career decision because an accountant gets to see everybody's business and she can then know which one is most profitable. She gave us a big smile and said "Bye bye papa" Guy says he has 10 children including a daughter living in Quebec. He couldn't remember how many grandchildren.

We thanked Guy, and gave him $90 ($15 ea) for the three hour ride. That's a bargain as I spoke with other people on the ship who paid over $120 for a similar ride. Guy says he watches for us whenever a Holland America boat comes in. It was a nice way to spend a rainy day.

The captain cruised the ship down the coast to Soufriere to pick up some passengers so we had a great view of the Pitons from our veranda.

Dinner in the dining room was formal and I had the lamb shanks. Of course, as usual, I had my mint sauce that I brought from home. I know from past experience, there is only mint jelly on HAL ships.

The entertainer tonight was Mark Eddie, a most talented singer, musician, comedian. His hilarious impersonations of TV theme songs brought the house down and he received standing ovations.
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Sint Maarten, Day 4

 The view from our veranda is the brand new Oasis of the Seas refuelling. Oasis is the largest cruise ship ever built.

Click any picture to enlarge.

Crew members are constantly painting something.

The weather has become increasingly hot as we are now in the Caribbean and safely tied up in Sint Maarten. We all agreed last night to meet on the dock at 9:30am. A short ferry ride in the water taxi takes us across the bay to Philipsburg. The fare is $4 one way or $6 unlimited. As we walked along the beach promenade there were numerous vendors selling the usual baubles to the tourists. We found that the price of lounge chairs and umbrellas were tied in with a ‘bucket of beer’ and the going price was not consistent. We settled on a nice spot in front of a beach hotel. Fifteen bucks bought 2 thickly padded lounge chairs, an umbrella and a bucket of 5 cold beers on ice. Since there are six of us, we are entitled to 3 buckets. Our tidy and polite attendant Vernon brought our first pail and we enjoyed a few hours relaxing on the white sandy beach and wading in the turquoise water. There was a constant parade of hawkers selling jewelry, garments and services like jet skis, parasailing and massages. They were; however, all very polite and were not persistent or loud.

A couple of beers mixed with fresh air and sunshine tend to tire one out, so everyone had a little snooze back on the ship before going down to a fine dinner at 8pm. I had the ‘rock fish’, Wendy ate lasagna.
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Still At Sea - See? Day 3

The glass staircase in the Atrium of our ship the Noordam

Tomorrow we will be in St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles. We've been here 2 times before but always enjoy this beautiful island with its mix of people and cultures. The diversity is owing to the fact that there are two countries co-existing on the same island French St. Martin and Dutch St. Maarten. I guess when you think of it, how is that much different than Canada?

For the first 48 hours of our trip, the ship was on a ‘health alert’. There was a report of illness back at the cruise terminal related to another ship. In such cases it is necessary to enact a few items of ‘security theatre’, that includes among other things, reduced pubic access to the buffet, increase use of hand sanitizers, condemn handshaking and generally make it look like we are all able to do something about a possible outbreak of Norwalk disease. 

This meant that the Lido buffet was restricted to service by the wait staff. No one was allowed to help themselves even to the most simple of items like cutlery, water, ketchup etc. For instance, the gloved wait staffer making your ice cream cone had to hand said ice cream cone to an intermediary staff member behind a roped off area. This staff member would then finally hand the ice cream cone to the (by now quite frustrated) requester. All of this was causing longer lineups and I'm sure, costing the cruise line less due to reduced food consumption.

Ironically, the 'food alert' didn't stop the kitchen tour scheduled for 10 am.  I hadn't been on one of these for a long time. No answer at John and Cheryl’s room 8122 and Wendy was off to a movie, so I decided to go by myself. A hundred or so people were lined up when I arrived. Behind me was a young couple dragging along a little child that smelled slightly of vomit and ahead of me a few yards, a fat man that was emitting an disgusting odour somewhat like that of parmesan cheese. The line was dispatched in smaller groups of 20 or so and I dilly-dallied long enough to fall behind to a less odourous group. How could the line up in the Lido buffet be so scrupulously detailed with exaggerated ‘clean’ measures, while down in the food factory 7 floors below, our motley group of gawkers straggled their way through the bright, stainless steel walled labyrinth of food in various stages of preparation. I watched as an older English accented dear plucked a pecan from a prepared desert destined for some unsuspecting diner.

Extra thick and juicy steaks for the Pinnacle Restaurant.

We must have got a clean bill of health because today the ‘food alert’ seems to be over. We can now revert to touching all the handles on the serving utensils and reach for an ice cream cone without the services of a middle-man.

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At Sea to See the Sea. Day 2

Two days to relax and do nothing. We have a beautiful veranda cabin way up on the Navigation Deck near the stern of the ship, on the port (left) side.  Chris and Deb are next door and John and Cheryl are right across the hall. It's nice just to sit out on the balcony and watch the ocean go by.

I slept in until after nine but Wendy enjoyed the morning sun on the verandah. The weather is sunny with clouds and with a stiff breeze, slightly chilly mid seventies yesterday and five or ten degrees warmer today.

At 1:30 on the Sky Deck, Junior, from the house band the Hal Cats, was setting up to teach us how to play the steel drums.

We’ve traveled 500 miles or so and since we are on a south east course, the temperature is gradually rising as we pass one hundred and twenty nautical miles north of Haiti and Dominican Republic. We got some sun today up on the top deck with John and Cheryl. As usual, John won at shuffleboard. 

Tonight is the first  formal night. Here's pictures of our 'group of six'. Not yet too badly sunburned.

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Shuffle Off To Buffalo - And Beyond. Day 1

Can you believe that it's warmer in Buffalo than in Florida? Go figure.

Around 5pm we checked in at the Millenium Hotel. They have such a good deal with their Stay n Park at $109.  I remembered how good the chicken wings were in the lobby bar and I wasn’t disappointed.  Instead of getting up at 4am, we could sleep in until 6:30 and catch the 8am shuttle to BUF.

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Today is John and Cheryl's Wedding Anniversary, so we celebrated in the dining room tonight.

Here's John's card:

 Click on it to enlarge.

Decided to Go Early

Read the wording on the scale. Fortunately we were underweight (our luggage that is!)

We decided to drive to Buffalo on Saturday to reduce the stress level as well as the length of time spent on the travel day. I had to take a picture of our instrument panel to prove how warm it is here in Canada. It is warmer here than it is in Florida!

Day Oh. D-a-a-a-y Oh. Turn Up The Belafonte Music.

Click the picture to enlarge
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Wow! What a difference a day or two makes. Last week was dingy and cold and our introduction to Spring looked more like a poor extension of Winter. With temperatures of 26C (79F) it makes you wonder why we would head off to the Caribbean but you know, it is only April and this weather is not going to last.

Yesterday I drained all the gas out of the snowblower, (and got it ready for next year) took the winter tires off Wendy's car, and put my sandals on to make sure they were the right ones to take south. A little reggae music, a glass of rum and lemon with a spritz of soda and a breeze blowing through the house, made me feel like I was already down south.
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Amazing New Ball To Change Football Forever!

I'm not a football fan but this new ball is so amazing, I felt I had to write about it here.

Google Australia announced it had partnered with the Australian rules football league to develop the gBall:

The gBall contains inbuilt GPS and motion sensor systems to monitor the location, force and torque of each kick. The data is interpreted by a new curvilenear parabolic approximation algorithm developed in Google's Sydney office, known as DENNIS ("Dimensional, Elastic, Non-Linear, Network-Neutral, Inertial Sequencing"), which plots the ball's trajectory, accuracy and distance.

Using artificial intelligence technology, Google can provide users - from amateurs to professional players - with detailed online kicking tips, style suggestions and tutorials based on their gBall kicking data.

Kicking data is also sent to national talent scouts and player agents. The gBall will vibrate if talent scouts or player agents want to make contact with the user. Users can log in to their gBall account to make contact.

CLICK HERE to read more about the Google gBall.
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