March 26 — “A Bit of a Wiggle”

March 26, 2022

“A bit of a wiggle,” said the Commodore of our arrival at a “rinky-dink dock” in Antigua. The channel markers showed us that the channel was not much wider than the ship.

On the way in to Saint John’s, Antigua

We were over three hours late, due to the rescue last night. The rescue may have saved a life, so being late is really not anything.

Antigua has 365 beaches.

One of Antigua’s perfect beaches

We love Dickenson Beach. It has soft white sand, impossibly bright turquoise water, and shallow, warm water. There is nothing but smooth sand on the bottom. You can rent chairs and umbrellas when you get there. However, we had already decided to try Ffrye’s Beach today (not a typo) — in the other direction. It meant a longer taxi ride, and since it was an area we were not familiar with, we didn’t want to go later in the day, not knowing how hard it would be to get a taxi back to the port. 

Another Antiguan Beach

We elected to stay on the ship and visit the pool while most everybody else was on the island. Much easier logistics, maybe not as nice as the beach.

The color  of the water today was: peacock feather.

For the evening show, there was a comedian named Kevin Jordan. We have seen him before, but it’s been at least two or three years. His material has not changed at all, but he was okay.

March 25 — Heroes

 March 25, 2022

Saint Loo-shuh

Good morning from Saint Lucia, again. This time we were told we couldn’t get off the ship unless we were on an organized ship’s tour, etc., etc. Last time we were here (March 13) it was a Sunday, and things were pretty quiet. (Sorry, I haven’t finished that post yet.) There are more signs of life today, but Castries is basically a very small capital city in a very small country. It doesn’t have much tourism infrastructure. We will stay on board.

I got a manicure and just took things slowly. It was pleasant sitting on our balcony, which overlooked the town market.

Several buildings adopted the blue and yellow of the Saint Lucian flag. You can see an image of the flag on the seawall at the lower left, below.

As small as this city is, there certainly were a lot of sirens and ambulances throughout the day. Puzzling.

Speaking of sirens, we heard a medical emergency call for one of the cabins on our deck around lunchtime. It was noisy where we were and we didn’t hear exactly where the problem was. 

We had lunch at the outdoor grill. I had forgotten that Princess does not do a good job on hamburgers. The meat seems to have some kind of seasoning in it that tastes terrible. I asked for medium rare (MR) and I got rarer than rare. Let’s call it “medium uncooked.”

Evening at Sea

Shabbat services were early. It was a small, unfriendly group. Enough said. We then tried three times to find a welcoming place to eat dinner. First we were seated at a table where two other couples had already been seated. We said hello but they ignored us and continued talking to each other. They kept talking to each other and did not look at us. I felt invisible. They kept ignoring us. It got more and more awkward. One couple told the other they were from Orange County and the other couple said they were also from Orange County. Still no acknowledgment of our presence. So we just got up and left. All I can think is that they saw we had masks on when we approached the table (though we removed them once we were seated), and they had very strong feelings about that. Everybody else we have met has been friendly and has carefully avoided any hint of politics. 

We ended up with two very pleasant couples at a different table. Glad we left, rather than staying to endure a tortured dinner.

After dinner things really started to get interesting, though I have no photos from that part of the day.

Rock Opera Reprise

We got to see Rock Opera. The problem with the stage was fixed, and the schedule was juggled to make two evening shows possible. The theater filled up for the late show, and the air was full of anticipation for the final Final Show for the “original” cast. 

(I may not have mentioned that two sign language interpreters have been present at all of the evening shows to assist a few passengers who use sign language. I have never seen this on a cruise before. I love watching them interpret sounds as well as speech. It was going to be interesting to see what they do during Rock Opera. I’m also curious who pays for them. Do they work for Princess, or for the passengers? Are they given the words to songs, etc., in advance?)

The show started at 9:30 with the full cast on stage, not to mention a band and a small string section. The costumes were slightly futuristic. The opening song came from The Greatest Showman. The dancing was great. There was a strong drumbeat. During this number I realized that some of the singers and dancers were signing during the song. Note: signing, not singing. It was so well done that it just seemed like a natural part of the performance.

The show proceeded through several familiar rock songs, as well as a couple of opera renditions, including the famous O Fortuna from Carmina Burana. I felt that there was probably a story, but it was not easy to figure out what it was. However, the singing and choreography were terrific. Some of the singers performed solos with great flair.

Everything flowed seamlessly from one song to the next until, suddenly, around 10:00 the chimes that precede an announcement could be heard and the house lights came up. The cast froze, the audience gasped, there were groans of “Not again.” The Commodore came on the PA and asked if there might be a cardiologist onboard who could help the ship’s doctor with a very sick patient. The cast had been frozen in position for 4 or 5 minutes. But then the show went on.

The final number was a very high-energy rendition of This Is Me from The Greatest Showman. The entire cast sang, danced and signed. The sign language interpreters stopped signing and just turned around and watched.

The audience loved the show, and there were many curtain calls.

Shabbat Shalom.

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The Rest of the Story

Around 12:45 am I became aware of a man’s voice in the hallway. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but I was annoyed at him for standing outside our door and talking so loudly. Then I realized it was an announcement from the bridge. 

I jumped up and ran to open the door so I could hear what he was saying, but he finished about the time I got there. Then I saw a couple of stewards running down the hall. I asked one of them what happened. He told me a helicopter was coming and we should stay in our cabin and should not go out on our balcony. I realized they were going to be evacuating the cardiac patient.

We were going to go back to sleep, but within 5 minutes I could hear the distant thump, thump of a chopper. The ship had slowed down considerably. The chopper grew louder. We both jumped up and ran to the door of our balcony. We opened the curtains, but stayed inside our cabin. (Our neighbors, of course, ran out on their balconies, turned on lights, took flash photos, and shouted to each other.) 

Soon we could see the red, white, and green lights of the approaching helicopter. To me, with my cataracts, it looked like a flying Christmas tree, with many tiny lights. It hovered off the aft briefly, then it moved over the ship and out of our sight, but not out of our hearing. 

Many people don’t realize that helicopters can’t land on cruise ships. Now you know. We imagined the unseen chopper lowering down a basket and crew members from the ship taking the basket off the line.

The helicopter moved away from the ship and hovered off the aft for a while, where we had a good view of it. We watched it and imagined the ship’s medical staff loading the desperately ill patient into the basket.

The helicopter again flew right over the ship, where we could not see it. We imagined the basket being connected to the helicopter’s line and being pulled up. The helicopter moved toward the aft of the ship and flew off into the distance.

About 5 minutes later, the helicopter returned and hovered where we could see it, then hovered over the ship where we couldn’t se it, then left. Our imagination did not supply us with an explanation for this set of maneuvers.

This dramatic series of events stirred up a lot of thoughts, which I will discuss in the next section.

The next morning, the Commodore made another announcement from the bridge. The patient was now in an ICU on Martinique. The ship had actually turned around at some point and headed back toward Martinique to get as close to the island as possible for the rescue. We will be about 3 hours late getting in to Antigua due to the rescue. Thanks were extended to the MRCC (Martinique Search and Rescue Corps), and to those passengers who had to vacate their cabins during the helicopter operations last night. I presume those would be the passengers on the highest cabin deck, who might be in danger if the helicopter had an accident.

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On Privilege and Security

The extraordinary efforts taken by many individuals to save a life made me think about how privileged we are, in so many ways. If we need help, on land or at sea, we can usually expect an ambulance or helicopter will come and get us. If we need it, there will be a hospital for us, with an ICU, whether or not we are a citizen of the country that rescues us. 

Those of us who are privileged know this, have always known it, without thinking about it. We take it for granted. That’s one reason why the past two years have been so difficult. My sense of security was undermined. My basic assumptions about help were no longer reliable. Our local hospitals were full. The ICUs were full. I might be turned away. I might not be able to get help if I needed it.

When we lose this sense of security, it eats at us. Even if we don’t actually need the hospital, the hospital has always been there. So, when it’s not there, there is a subtle shift. Whether or not you think about it much, on some level the awareness of being less safe is a constant, if minor, source of stress. It’s disconcerting to lose a safety net. 

Yet, it’s reassuring to see that a ship carrying 3,000 passengers and 1,700 crew members will not hesitate to inconvenience itself to save a life. It’s reassuring to be reminded that there are people who make Search and Rescue their life’s work. Maybe knowing this restores the balance to some small extent. But it also shows us (briefly) what it feels like to walk in the shoes of a Ukrainian, or a subsistence farmer threatened by drought, or a refugee. How do we trust that the world is a safe place?

March 24 — Skyfall

“Skyfall” is the name of Ken’s favorite Princess martini from the before-times.There is a new (and shorter) martini menu now, but you can order other martinis if you remember them.

Lemon-tini and Skyfall

Now let’s go back and take this “not much” day in chronological order. 

We arrived in Bridgetown, Barbados, where we were not allowed get off unless we were part of an organized tour or we took a “government-approved taxi.” No wandering around on your own. We spoke to someone who took one of those approved taxi tours and they didn’t see much and didn’t like it at all. 

We didn’t want to take an organized tour because 1) we have been here several times and have seen many of the attractions and 2) we don’t want to be packed into a bus or van with a bunch of unmasked folks. Thus, we stayed on board.

Did you know it’s illegal to wear a camouflage pattern in Barbados? Apparently they take it very seriously. The law even applies to children, and to things you might carry such as purses and backpacks.

We succumbed to the tropical torpor and took naps. Oh, the decadence of a “not much” day.

The color of the water today: it looked like pieces of the sky had fallen into the green ocean and gotten stirred up by a gentle breeze. You might call the color “Skyfall.”

We went for drinks before dinner and had the martinis pictured at the top of this post. Whoever thought of the martini glass was a genius. It makes any drink look so wonderful.

After dinner Alfreda, from the Aretha Franklin tribute show, performed a show called “Divas through the Ages.” She was great.

The ship stayed in port late, and we were treated to a light show.

March 23 — It’s Kitts Again

We revisited St. Kitts today. It was hot.  We went ashore to the area near the port. I wanted to find a cheap beach cover-up and we both wanted a bar of soap. The liquid soap in the shower is horrible, and the soap dispenser doesn’t work well.

Mission accomplished, plus a cultural experience. These street dancers were really good. 

Each dancer had a wooden stick that looked a little like a hatchet. I don’t know what the significance of the sticks was. 

To get the soap we had to go to a local grocery store. We entered through the produce section. I wanted to stop and stare at all the unfamiliar fruits and vegetables. I wanted to take photos, but I felt it would be rude. But it was very interesting.

The color of the water today is: a very transparent aqua.

We had dinner at Sabatini’s, the Italian specialty restaurant on Princess. It was EXCELLENT. They have really upped their game. The menu is better than ever, and the food was awesome. So was the service. We can’t wait to go back. We both liked it much better than we liked Toscana on Oceania.

First course: a lamb skewer. Very tender.

Pasta course: spaghetti with home-made sausage; trio of lasagna, chicken parmesan, and baked pasta

Soup: Cheesy and full of flavors

Main course: Chicken scallopine with lemon sauce on mashed potatoes; pork tenderloin

Dessert: Tiramisu, and a sampler of 4 indulgent desserts

I know most of the phots are upside-down. I will fix them when I get home. 😣

We went to the Vista Lounge to hear Daniel Oliver, the pianist from Crooner’s. We liked his show and think we have seen him before.

Next, we went to see “Brent and Sarah, Comedy Magicians.” We have seen a lot of magicians on cruises and we had low expectations, but they surprised us. They were funny and original and we were entertained.

Princess, I think I am in love with you again. More or less.

March 22 — The Phantom Opera

 I’m sitting in the café, blogging and drinking coffee, and people-watching. I am right next to the bar. It’s around 10 am. 

The Homesteaders have already been here for hours. These are the people who occupy the tables by the windows and sit there all morning working on their computers, reading, or holding court with their friends.

The Jimmy Buffetts are starting to show up at the bar. They are easy to spot because they are dressed like Jimmy Buffett (and they are around his age): sandals, shorts, t-shirt with a surfing logo or a Hawaiian shirt, baseball cap, sunglasses and a croakie. They often order tropical drinks. Hey, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere, right?

The Chatty Cathys come in and suddenly the quiet mood of the café changes to a controlled hubbub. They lean over and start a conversation with people at the next table. Everybody shouts a little bit, because they are talking to another table, so we all get to hear the conversation. 

The Mimosos drift in and out in pairs. These are couples who walk up to the bar and order mimosas or Bloody Marys. Fun times.

It’s possible to get a couple of credits’ worth of medical school just by sitting here and listening for a few days.

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We were fortunate to be invited to the Most Traveled Passenger lunch. Traditionally, the 40 passengers who have sailed the most days on Princess get invited to an elegant lunch with the captain and other officers. Due to COVID, the officers did not attend the lunch today. We sat with two very nice couples, one from Seattle and one from Florida. The food was delicious and beautiful.

Pumpkin and spinach gnocchi

Pan-fried halibut fillet

Apple and Crumble

Petit Fours

On our way into the luncheon, one of the ship’s photographers took a photo of each of us. It was printed and gifted to us before the end of the lunch. I took a photo of the photo.

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We like going to the Captain’s Circle Cocktail Party because you always get interesting pieces of information. This evening we learned that there are 599 Elite level passengers aboard, and  8xx Platinum level. This means almost 50% of the passengers are are repeat passengers belonging to the highest two loyalty tiers. These are the folks who love cruising and are thrilled to be back again. Like us. I may complain a lot about Princess, but there really are a lot of things they do very well. (That’s why it’s so frustrating and irritating when they do something that is really stupid.)

We also heard a little bit about the show we are going to tonight. It’s called Rock Opera, and it’s a new show Princess developed during the pandemic. It’s had great reviews. I’m not sure whether it’s on all the Princess ships, or only this one, or only a specific class of ships with a certain kind of stage. Something tells me it is only on this ship at this time.

The show premiered 6 months ago when this ship was launched. The same cast has been performing the show for 6 months and tonight they will give their last two performances. Only the lead performer will continue with the show. A new cast will take over on the next cruise. We are excited that we will see the late show tonight. Knowing it is the last show for this cast, we expect to see an exceptional performance.

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Rock Not-pera

The theater is packed for Rock Opera, and the excitement is palpable. Everybody has heard how good this show is. Maybe some members of the audience have already seen it.

Finally the curtain goes up. We get through the opening number and one more number and then the house lights come on and the curtain closes. An announcement is made that there will be a short break while a piece of equipment is being reset. The cruise director comes down to the front of the house and tells a few silly jokes. He explains that the stage lift is not functioning properly and they need a few minutes to work on it. After about 15 minutes we are told that the show has been cancelled. They are going to try to reschedule it for later in the cruise if they can resolve the problem, and if they can find a time to show it.

These things happen, especially on a new ship. But, color me disappointed.

The color of the water is: slate blue, with an undercurrent of frustration.

March 21 — It Didn’t Have to Be So Hard

March 21, 2022

At Sea

I like to participate in the Knitters and Natters get-togethers on days when we are at sea. It’s fun to see what others are making, and fun to chat with friendly women. I will even wake up early, just so I don’t miss out.

Today I got there early because I wanted to make sure I had good light for my sashiko project. Pretty soon, another woman showed up. She was from NC and she was a non-stop talker. She told me she and her husband owned 10 houses. Some of them were rentals and some of them were purchased in order to flip. She then told me that they had some under contract and they did private financing because a lot of their buyers couldn’t get mortgages. She then said she and her husband were getting 12% on the private financing. Gasp. 

Ms. Usury said several other things that really put me off, and the fact that she totally dominated the conversation didn’t help. And some of the other ladies were almost as bad. I left early, and I won’t be going back. 

Ken and I went up to the top of the ship, where there is a little jogging track. Seven times around = 1 mile. It was a busy place. There was a pickleball court in the center, and a couple of young men were practicing TaeBo. It was interesting to watch. Ninety-five percent of the walkers walked counterclockwise and five percent walked clockwise. Why is that?

We decided to order lunch from room service. That turned into another one of those things that turned ought to be much harder than it needed to be. You were supposed to be able to order it using the interactive TV, which is part of the whole Medallion thing. It was very difficult and very slow to navigate through all the layers of menus.There is no paper menu, so it takes forever to look at all the options on the TV using only 4 arrows to navigate. When we finally finished putting together our whole order we tried to check out. I found out I had accidentally ordered 2 sandwiches, but I couldn’t figure out how to edit the order. I tried several things. We finally decided to submit the erroneous order and we would call room service and tell them to cancel one of the sandwiches. This had already taken at least 30 minutes.

I called Room Service and cancelled the extra sandwich. However, it soon became apparent that they had never received our order from the TV/Medallion system, so I had to give them the whole order over the phone. Then he said it would take 30 to 45 minutes. Of course we didn’t get credit for the 30 minutes we had already spent trying to order. 

Ken tried to use the Medallion app on his phone to look at our account. The app claimed he wasn’t registered for this voyage. 

I decided to go down to the customer service desk to see if I could get directions for the TV. I also mentioned that we weren’t able to view our account on the Medallion app. I got kind of a circular argument from them. I was told to order food on my phone. If I brought my phone they would show me how. I said I didn’t want to order on my phone - it is too small. They said they wanted to see my phone. I said I didn’t bring it - I wanted help with my TV. Finally, another person came out from the back and told me the TV ordering system doesn’t work. I didn’t say it, but I thought: Why are you always telling us we can do all these things on the TV if it doesn’t work? I asked again for directions for the TV and they looked at me like I was speaking in Athabascan. I looked at them like they were incompetent.

When I got back to the room, the room service food still hadn’t come. Yeah. And I still didn’t know how to order food on the TV. 

All the cruise lines have recently developed the capability to let passengers reserve dinners, tours, and more, online, before the cruise. We made dinner reservations for each night of the cruise back in January, thinking , rather naively, that it would allow us to avoid a long line outside the dining room. (You will recall that it turned out that the dining room reservations are irrelevant.) We made reservations for some of the specialty restaurants, also, because they tend to book up very quickly. To pre-book one of the specialty restaurants, you have to pay when you book. And you can only book on the Medallion app on your phone. Easy peasy. What could possibly go wrong?

There is a brand new specialty restaurant on this ship. It’s called  Sur la Mer. The restaurant is “open  concept” in the atrium. The idea is that you feel like you are in a French bistro, sitting at a sidewalk table. I guess. 

People walk by on their way here or there. They walk through the tables to look out the windows. They stand next to tables where people are eating, to talk to their friends. There aren’t too many sidewalk cafés where I come from, so I don’t really know how it’s supposed to feel.

Our travel agency gave us a gift of a dinner at a specialty restaurant. Much appreciated. We didn’t know about it until we arrived in our cabin. We elected to use the voucher at Sur la Mer. The hostess collected our voucher when we arrived. I asked about how to get a refund for our pre-payment. She said we would have to go to customer service. I asked whether it would be automatic and she said it would not.

The Dinner

Fried polenta and olives stuffed with goat cheese and cream cheese (excellent!)

Lobster bisque en croûte (good)

Our waiter sharpens his knife before cutting off the crust

Grilled scallops in a lemony butter sauce (with orzo, not shown) and veggies (Excellent)

Baba au rhum (sad)

After dinner we had time before the show so we went to customer service to follow up on getting our refund. We were told they had no record of our pre-payments. Of course, we had nothing to prove it. When you book a tour in advance, you always find a voucher in your room as soon as you board. We had never been given anything.

Here we go again. Round and round. Hasn’t this ever happened before? Finally we were told we would have to prove it by showing them our credit card statement. Oh, gee. I forgot to pack it. 

We went back to our cabin to regroup. We went online to look at our credit card statements. We didn’t know what month it would be in, but we found it. We took my iPad down to customer service and showed the agent. She got a phone out of her purse and took a picture of it. She said she would talk to her manager about it the following day. (The next day, after Ken’s phone was fixed to allow us to look at our statement, we were able to see that the pre-payments we had made were now reflected in our account.) Hell of a system they have. 

Princess, you’re breaking my heart

You’re shaking my confidence daily 

The Medallion has me down on my knees

I’m begging you, please, make it work . . .

The evening show was fantastic. It was an Aretha Franklin tribute show called “Queen of the Night.” So much energy!

The color of the water today was: Medallion blue

March 20 — Leaving the Shore

 March 20, 2022

We woke up several times last night because there were loud voices in the hall. I woke up again about 6 a.m. because I could hear a man talking to someone in the hallway right outside our hotel room. It was not someone leaving a room and going away, but someone staying outside our room and talking. I asked Ken to look out in the hall to see who it was. Turns out, it was a cop. Over the next hour or so we went saw a couple of cops come and go to the room across the hall from us, knocking on the door, and either going into the room or getting no answer and eventually going downstairs. This happened at least 4 times. Eventually we were able to find out there was a domestic disturbance during the night. It was unsettling to be in the middle of it.

Despite the above incident, we made it! Post-pandemic cruise #2! We drove to the Ft. Lauderdale airport (22 miles), returned our car, schlepped over to the shared ride pick-up area, and got a Lyft to Port Everglades (4 miles). Almost every part of this process was harder than it was supposed to be. We had built an extra hour into our schedule to allow for contingencies. We used up that hour plus another half hour. 

When we finally arrived at the cruise terminal, the driver stopped and I thought we were at the drop-off point. There were porters approaching our vehicle, ready to take our bags, and people getting out of cars, and people and cars everywhere. It was chaotic.

I opened the car door and started to get out. Someone was yelling “Get back in that car!” In a voice full of fury and disgust. Surely he couldn’t be yelling at me. I got out, Ken got out, our lovely Haitian driver got out to help us. It took maybe 60 seconds. Suddenly, a police officer or traffic officer or whatever goes up to our driver and yells right in his face in a very threatening manner, that he can’t stop here and let people out, that he better get going. My impression was that he was starting to yell at me when I opened the car door, but once he saw two older white people get out of the vehicle, he singled out the black man instead. The officer’s face was all red and he looked like a vein in his neck was about to burst. Awful behavior.

There were no unexpected delays boarding the Enchanted Princess. The new Medallion system seemed to work as advertised. We had already pre-registered and ordered our medallions and lanyards. After we showed our passports, vaccination cards, and proof of negative COVID test within the last 48 hours, we were given our medallions and directed to the boarding line.

The Medallion

Upon boarding, we were met by crew members who clapped and cheered and said “Welcome back.” 

On the way to our aft cabin, we were impressed by the calming, contemporary appearance of the ship. The color palette is very light and neutral. The art is very peaceful. The ship is only 6-months old, and everything looked clean and new.

We went to our cabin and the Medallion unlocked our door when we got there. No more key cards.

This is practically the entire cabin. The light is a little weird, The actual colors are whiter and bluer.

This is the closet. (Tilt your head to the left.) We got some extra hangers from the cabin steward, so we were able to hang most things up and avoid filling up the shelves in the small cabinet.

Here is a sidewise view of the bathroom sink. Lots of storage space.

And . . . Ta da! . . . Our balcony!

Because we are on the aft, we have a terrific view from our balcony.  While tied up at the dock we got to see a draw-bridge open and close several times and we saw all kinds of marine trafic heading to and from the Intracoastal Waterway. There was a tug and fuel barge tied up right behind our ship. The tug and barge were spotless.

Dinner in the Amalfi dining room was chaotic. We arrived 5 minutes before our reservation to find a very long line. There was no one from the dining staff there to explain whether there was a different line for people with reservations. Apparently there wasn’t. Having a reservation was completely irrelevant. We waited 35 minutes to get to the front of the line. We asked for a “sharing table” and were told there were none. We were told nobody else had asked for a sharing table. That is probably true because the computer reservation system offered the option of a sharing table, but it wouldn’t let you select the option. We thought that was a temporary thing because of COVID.

They finally agreed to give us a table for 8 with a warning that it would take time for them to find other people interested in sharing. Within 10 minutes our table was filled up. It was a pleasant enough group, though the woman next to me had a long and boring story about cats.

Princess still hasn’t figured the dining rooms out, even with an online reservation system.

After dinner we went to hear a comedian. He was ok until he started talking about how spoiled kids are today because their parents don’t smack them when they misbehave. Not funny.

The color of the water today was: Evergreen

Sweet dreams!

March 19 — Shore Leave

We got an early start in order to beat the heat and the crowds. Our first stop was Delray Beach, where we did a 5 km volkswalk. Our entire walk was on a barrier island which is separated from the mainland by the Intracoastal Waterway.

This was one of the most enjoyable volkswalks I have taken. We walked mostly on quiet residential streets or along the oceanfront. A lot of people were out for a morning walk, and most of them said “Good morning.”

It appears that the local zoning code is very strict, which has resulted in a very pleasant neighborhood, but has probably driven the prices up quite a bit. The homes are mostly single-family houses or duplexes. Most are no more than two stories tall. Virtually all of the properties are well-maintained, with nicely-landscaped yards. There are many mid-century bungalows and many Spanish Colonial houses. Most of the rest are “Old Florida” style, with a small number of modern houses thrown in.

It was fun to walk up and down the lanes and take in all of the charming homes. I wanted to take pictures of all of them. Here’s a Howard-Johnson themed house, followed by a house with a perfect “beachy” vibe.

U

And did I mention the beautiful landscaping?

This guy was feeling very pleased with himself.

After a while we came to a park with a public parking lot. Cars were circling around like vultures, trying to find parking spaces so the people could go to the beach. The park was across the street from the beach. 

We couldn’t see that much of the beach because of the sand dunes, covered with sea grapes, protecting the island. What we saw looked so inviting.

After the walk, we drove back to Boca Raton to have lunch with my cousins at the Boca West country club. We had a delightful time with my first cousin, Judy a/k/a Sheila, and my second cousin, Harris and his wife, Elaine. Harris is actually closer than a second cousin because he is related to me through both my grandfather and my grandmother. I don’t get to see my East Coast cousins very often, so it really was a treat.

After lunch we went to the Town Center Mall. It was quite a nice mall. I was surprised to see so many people walking their dogs inside the mall and bringing their pets into the stores.

After we got back to our motel we had some crazy scrambling to get our e-mail ballots for the municipal election properly printed out, filled out, witnessed and mailed in. Then we were done for the day, except for re-packing all of our belongings for our next cruise. The heat and humidity here must have caused our stuff to expand. It was hard to fit it all into the same suitcases it was in before. :)

I know I have skipped a few days. I’ll try to get caught up.

Have a peaceful night!