Dolphins and twins

You're probably wondering what this picture is about, or of. Well, read on . . . We were snorkeling between our boat and a beach in St. John when two dolphins - a mother and her baby - came swimming between the boat and the beach - that's the dark spot/line in the water that you see between the two people on the boat. It was really a thrill to see this. The dolphins were only about 20-25 feet away from our boat. The baby dolphin stayed right alongside the mother as they swam. What a sight and thrill for us. Just wanted to share it with you. My wife had the presence of mind to grab her camera and catch this shot. ■ And congratulations to one of our best friends Vicki and her daughter Sarah and son-in-law Chris on the birth of twins - Ben and Will. Congratulations! ■ It's supposed to be in the 40's today and the next couple of days, so maybe we can get rid of some of this snow. Heck, maybe all of it! ■

Time changes . . . and . . . .

5:30 am - We went through time changes this weekend. The Caribbean is 2 hours ahead of us and we had to change our clocks at home to an hour ahead ("spring forward, fall behind"). For us the transition was probably smoother as we only had to adjust for 1 hour rather than 2. However, we still had to set all of our clocks here at home an hour ahead. All, of course, except that I forgot to change the alarm setting on our clock radio in our bedroom. We had to be up very early the Friday we left so I set the alarm to 3:00 am --- and you guessed it! - it went off at 3:00 am this morning. Not so bad. I simply turned the alarm off and went back to sleep - but with a nagging "something in my mind" that something wasn't right. My sleep induced, bad cold, slow-as-molasses-in-March thoughts finally got around to the fact that I needed to get up and reset the alarm for 5:00 am, or we'd sleep way past the time for us to get up and get to work. Talk about crawling up from the abyss! At any rate I finally did it and reset the alarm. I ended getting up around 4:30 am. Now my back is kind of out. Oh joy. ■

Home and Cold . . . brrrrrr . . . and sniffle . . . .

We got home last night. It was a long day traveling. We finally got off the ship around 10:45 am and then checked our bags in a bag checking facility so that we could wander old San Juan. Took a free trolley and walked to El Morro - the large fort at the entrance to the harbor in Old San Juan. After El Morro we started walking back and stopped for lunch along the way. After lunch we collected our bags and took a taxi to the airport. It turned out that our flight was delayed getting in from Chicago due to snow and cold weather, but finally took off about an hour and a half late. ■ I picked up a cold late Friday and it kept getting worse Saturday. I froze on the flight back simply because I had a fever. I'm pretty miserable today too. Holly had this cold at the start of the cruise and she passed it on to me. ■ You would think that the above picture was taken at night, but it was actually taken during the day. The bright sunlight caused everything else to look dark.

11:10pm - We're home!

Finally home sweet home after 8 glorious, warm, sunny days. I think
it's about 20 cold degrees here. Where are those warm March days?
The photo is of a portionof El Morro in San Juan. Goodnight!

7:40am - San Juan

Getting ready to exit our stateroom and gather for departure from the
ship. Our flight doesn't leave until later this afternoon, so we may
walk around Old San Juan, or perhaps visit the Barcardi factory.

10:46pm - Off the north coast of PR

I've got cell service again. The ship in the picture is a Celebrity
ship that was behind us when we pulled out of Bonaire. Will be home
tomorrow night.

Tuesday - Granada

Tried sending a blog posting with a photo attached, but it was taking
forever to try and send it. We're here in Granada. Bought some
spices - got to when you're on the spice island! We've had a boat
drink and a little lunch. The ship will be pulling out in a few
minutes bound for our next port - Bonaire. We haven't been there
before, so we're looking forward to that!

Sent from my iPhone

1:50pm - St. Kitts

Went to a beach today and bobbed with beers. It's one of our favorite
activities and we intend to do more of it on the other islands.

3:55pm - St. Thomas

We've been to a beach on St. John's; snorkeled; had some drinks; had
some lunch; some more drinks; and are back on our balcony for a few
more drinks before we go to dinner in 4 hours. It's beautiful here -
we'd like to live here, but reality calls......at least
sometimes......jeeze, reality.......

May be last post until we get back to Puerto Rico. Don't know about
cell phone connections elsewhere.

Almost ready to pull out

San Juan at night.

6:30 pm - Sunset in San Juan

The sun is setting. We'll pull out at 11:00 pm tonight. Right now
we're sitting on our balcony having drinks.

View from the back pool bar

2:30pm - my 3 berry boat drink

1:00 pm - Checking in

It was a breeze checking. We're now inboard and in our stateroom.
All of our balconies connect. It's gonna be a fun cruise.

9:30 am & Blue skies

I can't get a great picture out of our hotel room window, but I think
I captured a little of the blue sky down here. In just a few short
hours we'll be boarding the Crown Princess. I can hardly wait!