Cruise Day 6

Monday February 28

Castries, St. Lucia     -     8 am      -     5 pm

“Explore this lush, beautiful island and its bustling capital. Visit the historic La Toc Battery, see banana plantations, and watch silk screening at Bagshaws. Venture south to Soufriere at the base of the Piton peaks and see the unique gingerbread architecture of the marketplace. Take a bike ride through the rain forest to a lovely waterfall, kayak in the deep blue Caribbean, snorkel or dive to spectacular reefs.”

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No excursion today. The last of the three complimentary excursions will be in the last port. We had liked the excursions (especially since they were free) but it is nice to have relaxing days too. No haste. No real timeframe. 

This time the pier was on the other side. We looked at the industrial part of the harbor. This picture was taken at 7:30am.

Life is tough (ha-ha). Every meal ... you have to walk around all these delicious things behind glass and decide what you want to eat. I like savouri for breakfast but then there was today's special in the bakery department and it was sweet. 

We like to sit outside under the roof on the very rear of the ship. The sky had been blue and suddenly it looked like fog but it was rain. Three minutes later it changed again. We were told it might be like that all day.

In the very first flyer we had received in the beginning of the trip was an article about every one of our ports and what the covid protocoll situation was there at the moment. All just had mask mandates but in St. Lucia you had to go on a guided tour or take one of the assigned taxis which would bring you to a "bubble area" in town. There was plenty of time but this was not one of the tours we had chosen.

After breakfast we decided to play a game somewhere around the pool. Of course as always 'Five Crowns'. I had dashes in every game except the jack-round. I had so hoped for a game with zero points which so far has never happened. But I won 3 to 50. We had fun.

Then we went to the side with the pier and turned our chases around (not looking to the pool) and read in our books. That was very nice too.

That in the front is part of the harbor where we can walk around. Looks like a few shops etc. On the very left is a grassy area and at the edge of the water we can see a 'St Lucia' sign.

Time to do some stepping off the ship.

Display in front of one of the little shops. A pirat in a hammock. That was more interesting then the souveniers. Sorry, we really don't need any of those since 'downsizing' is more of our motto right now.

Well, you do get thirsty though. Local beer? James got a shock though when he paid. And no receipt. We think we got cheated. Oh well, these locals need the money more then us. The beer was good.

The grassy area I had pointed out in a previous photo.

Got to look at the letters one at a time. Really nice painting all around.

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And back on board. James walked the gangway behind me and when I turned around I saw him holding his arm. The gangway is narrow and he scratched his arm on the first corner. It bled. I asked whether we could get a bandaid and that caused a commotion. We were immidiately taken around the corner to the medical department. While the nurse took care of him I had to fill out a form. They were very persuasive for me to write down that we didn't need to see a doctor and that we didn't ask to fill out a report. They were very nice and gave us extra bandaids and antibiotic cream.

Off to lunch. The nice thing about the food on board is that when you break down and splurge most of the time you are not disappointed and decide it was worth it. The cream in the glass was chocolate and passionfruit.  !!!!!    The little cone was chocolate with mango   !!!!!    Yup, worth it!

In the afternoon we sat on our balcony with our books and watched things go by ... party boats, rain, birds. 

Of course every time there is a minute here or there I write a bit on the blogs. Ha-ha, if I get too far behind I can't remember what we did in what harbor.

There were lots of things going on on the ship today. First we went up to Horizons and listened to the Marina Band which played 'Magical Memories' from 5:45pm. They are so good. But please, water to drink only. After that in the same place the Music Station Band played again. The very chabby young singer Christine is so full of energy and has a good voice. 

And then we went straight to dinner. From the 15th floor to the 6th. From the front to the back of the ship. We are slowly finding our way.

James said the whole meal was totally the best one yet. He started with the roasted tomato cheese tart. It happen to have arugula on top which he likes anyway. After that he had the lobster bisque and red curry vegetable stir fry with cashew, fried tofu and brown rice.

I finally had the chilled shrimp (which were huge and almost a meal in itself) since I could not decide on anything else, the oxtail consommé with aged sherry and gruyére sticks and braised black cod with stuffed calamari and green pea purée. Everything was excellent. Even James would have liked the cod. The calamari was basicly just a ring holding the inside but interesting.

Oh yes, dessert. It was so good I forgot to take a picture. I could have taken one of the empty plates. So often I say to myself "why did you eat it?" because it wasn't worth the calories. But by golly, this was.

I had chocolate mousse crème brûlée cake and James the crema catalana. We each tried the other.

The second time the same couple sat at the next table and we talked across. We all decided we could just sit together tomorrow and decided on 7:15pm.

After dinner we were a bit too early for the evening show but when we wandered along we came to the Brainteasers quiz which was very interesting. We came too late to register and just listened. We might have been able to get one of the prizes. They were questions more in our league then usual.

9:15 pm Martin Kaye again. Awsome again.

Strange, even though we did not go on any earth-shaking excursion it had been a really nice day. Time to go to bed.