Cruise Day 7

Tuesday March 1

St. John's, Antigua     -     7 am     -     3 pm

“Take a scenic drive, enjoy panoramic island views and visit famed Nelson’s Dockyard. Go deep-sea fishing or off road to interesting seaside villages and see the fragile mangrove ecosystem. Play golf, enjoy snorkeling and sea kayaking, or just spend the day relaxing on a fabulous white sand beach.”

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No booked excursion today. Why did I wake up so early? It's 6:47 right now and I am already sitting here typing and getting up every other minute to see how the captain is doing. We are docking right now and the pier is on 'our side' today. It's interesting to see the ropes being thrown and then pulled by workers on the pier. The rope thrown looks thin compared to the real rope to which it is attached. The workers have to pull hard because that rope looks very heavy, especially when wet.

Pictures from the deck where we have breakfast. 

The church there on the horizon looks interesting. Don't know much about this town.

10:15am - We are going for a walk around. This photo is for my nephew Tobias and his wife Manu. The AIDA is next to us. Germans are roaming the town. 

We were trying to find a walking map for the town, one of those tourist things. Not that easy. We seem to finally have found a source. Somebody from the taxi stand is going to get one. James is waiting. 

Yes, the map was helpful. We found the way to the cathedral. 

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is quite impressive. The first Anglican church was built on this site in 1683-84. The brochure says 'a simple wooden building said to be devoid of beauty or comfort. The second church, completed in 1789 was made of brick but reduced to rubble by a severe earthquake in 1843. The present Cathedral was completed in 1847. 

The exterior is built of stone and covered with a grey cement wash. The interior is encased in pitch pine - a method of construction intended to secure the building from ruin either by hurricane or earthquake which is described as a church within a church.

This gentleman must have been a volunteer. He made sure that those entering would use the sanitation spray. He told us about the church and gave us a flyer with the history etc. I asked to take his photo because his shirt said 1847 (I think that is actually the year that Grace Church in Paducah KY was built). 

We walked around the building but all we saw was a lot of rubble from the earthquake in 1974. We could see the cruise ships and a bit of ocean on the horizon. The foreground was not so pretty.

The walkway from the church to the street. Lots of graves. I bet there are some interesting historic things to read on the stones.

Ever since we are off the ship we are aware of the fact that we have to be very careful when walking. Incredible hazards every few steps. Here just one of the more harmless examples. Really.

And just then a bird dropped "something" down and it hit my hand. Yuck. I scraped it off a fence as best as I could. And just there was the "Hemingways Caribbean Cafe" and James was very thirsty.

We always kept on walking because for a while we could not find where it actually was. We found a staircase because it was upstairs. I could clean the gift from the bird off with a napkin and sanitizer. All good. So was the local beer.

A neet place. Look at those stairs - reminding of social distancing and masks.

Back on the ship.

Upstairs I zoomed to the church and took a better photo.

At 2 pm was the second session for my art group. Can't really show what we did. We put the back grounds onto our pieces. All will revealed in good time. I actually enjoyed this a bit more because it was more relaxed and I had a good talk with the artist Andre Allen.

He had a computer connected to a TV screen and photos of previous pieces were running. I took a lot of photos of that until Andre told me that all pieces which had ever been made on these cruises could be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/oceaniacruiselineartistloft/photos

Well, I have to look at that at home. But here are just two samples.

James and I enjoyed our balcony for a while. For the longest time we tried to figure out what THAT on the horizon could be. Must be a small island with a mountain.

I was a bit too late for the sun going down but it was so beautiful to watch.

Yesterday we had agreed with another couple to meet at the dining room at 7:15pm. And so we did. Linda and John were fun to talk with. 

The whole day James and I had to think about today's date. March 1 was the wonderful day 1975 when James and I met. We were blind dates. What a story. So of course today we ordered wine with our dinner and clinked the glasses.

There were some interesting things on the menu today. Can't quite remember what this was called but it was "a bag" with a mixture of chicken and things. James injoyed it very much. 

I had to try the sweet potato soup which I liked very much.

Ha-ha, all 4 of us wanted to order the Wiener Schnitzel but the waiter whispered that other guests had already had it and said it was way too dry and not nice. So 3 of us ordered the beef and it was an awsome dish.

As dessert I had to try the lemon tart and it didn't disappoint.

After dinner off to the show room. It was the comedian's second turn. After that we went to Horizons but were disappointed because it was karaoke night and nobody was there. We don't care for karaoke much so listened to a different piano player lower down. 

The days go so fast. Not many days left on this ship.