Caribbean Adventure, Part One

We've been away.

Pretty far away.

For nearly two weeks!

We flew into Montego Bay, mon, on Monday, the 23rd of March, and spent a night at Hilton Rose Hall. It was our first time at an "all inclusive," and while I don't believe this will become a habit for us, we found HRH to be a terrific place, partly because of the water park that was included! The lazy river was enormous fun, and we spent considerable time in the hot tub. Beverages of all sorts were included, and I sampled more of them in our twenty-four hours than I care to admit! They were all sweet and went down very easily . . . .

The place had four or five places to eat and we made a poor choice for dinner (the buffet) but had breakfast and lunch at a lovely spot by the sea. We had been cautioned not to wander around Montego Bay alone at night, so we didn't; hence, I can't report a whole lot about the area. And we didn't make it to Margaritaville, so my long lost shaker of salt is still missing.

On Tuesday afternoon we boarded Star Flyer (and above you can see my favorite travel companion in one of his usual spots, sketching the passing scenery), where we moved into the same cabin we've occupied on our previous two SF voyages. The ship had initially sailed from Cuba, and there were about 50 passengers already aboard, most of them German. We spent the next nine days sailing and stopping at ports, finally docking at Phillipsburg, St. Maarten, where we stayed for another night before returning.

This trip was our 70th birthday present to each other. I expect to write a few more blog posts in the next few days to share some of our experiences, some of the ports, and to tell about the lovely people who were aboard.

This photo was taken at Port Antonio, Jamaica, where we docked on Wednesday. The beach, unfortunately, is not representative of the town, which was shabby, congested, and unfriendly.
The last was understandable; we felt a bit like Ugly Americans, invading the space of people of very limited means. Most of them just looked right through us, unsmiling. I was intrigued to notice within the small area we walked that there were about a dozen different school uniforms, as we'd arrived a dismissal time. The kids were accompanied by less-well-dressed moms. We trekked to the church, climbed up to visit and take a few photos, and then returned to Star Flyer where we spent the next two days at sea.