A Week of Cruising- Thursday

Freeport, Grand Bahama Island

6 AM is officially too early to get up in the morning!

But a beautiful sunrise is worth getting up for.

We got up and threw on clothes before heading up stairs to see the sunrise. We stayed for about 15 minutes or so on deck 13 watching as the ship pulled into port and the sun began to rise behind the many machines loading a large barge possibly heading for the US.

Sometimes pictures are the only way to describe something.

We ate breakfast before getting ready for the day.

We were going snorkeling!

Neither one of us had ever been snorkeling before and we were both very excited about the prospect of taking pictures under water.

By 8 Laura and I were ready to go. It didn't take as long to gather everyone for a morning of snorkeling and we were off. Of course we found out later that we left two behind and they came with another bus.

After showing us how to put our gear on and the types of fish we might see in the reef we were headed out. It's so much fun trying to figure those stupid masks out. A bunch of us struggled with getting the snorkel to go on right and the mask to not leak. Whatever you do! Don't swallow sea water. It tastes nasty and gives you a big upset stomach. Yuck!

Besides the fact that I swallowed a lot of water before the knowledgeable guy fixed the mask for me, I really enjoyed seeing all the fish. Laura and I both had two cameras a piece and we took lots of pictures of the reef.

We were only out for about half an hour or so before we ran out of Film and became very tired of swimming.

We got to sit on the front of the boat where they unfurled the sail and we floated lazily back to shore while listening to Bahamian music. I have never been on a sail boat which has always been something I have wanted to do and so I was very excited. Laura and I closed our eyes because of the salt we had swallowed. I listened to the people as they talked. I heard some rather fascinating stories.

Just going up and down on the waves was relaxing. The sky had a few clouds in it and the water was once again every shade of blue and green imaginable.

It's amazing how the weather can change within a matter of a few minutes. We had gotten back onto the ship and were eating lunch when it decided to rain. It was big fat rain drops that came down and then were gone. It just made the humidity worse.

That afternoon the almost no sleep on Sunday and continuous activities of the week hit me. I was so tired, I took a nap before Laura and I went up stairs to the Spa. She had a massage while I had a manicure.

That night we sat outside and watched the sun go down as usual. Then we went inside and started making the room neater so that the next day when we packed we wouldn't have as much to do. We had every intention of going to the Chocolate night at 11, but I was so tired I knew I wouldn't be able to keep my eyes opened so we didn't go. I am sure that the little piece of Heaven would have been there if we had gone. Oh well. Maybe someday.

Here is just a cute little observation that I saw while on the ship. There were many families on board and a lot of little children. Every night Laura and I were entertained by different babies. They were so cute. The Fathers really seemed to enjoy the fact that they had time with their kids. One such father made me smile. He was at the kids pool with his two daughters who were around the ages of 1 and 3. They had just gotten out of the pool and there was a girl on either side of him. They were running along when he just stopped. Then he asked the girls if they could hop, so he started to hop and they followed. He did this several times asking them if they could walk a certain way. The little girls would look down at his feet and figure out what he was doing. It was so cute.

We were now officially head north once more. We said goodbye to the Southern waters realizing that when we got back it was going to be a whole lot colder.