Stateside

We have spent the last three days aboard the Carnival Destiny but I did not take a single picture. I wish I had better stories to tell as well. I need to get on CruiseCritic.com and post an evaluation of our trip. The idea of the cruise is fun, but it winds up being a lot of walking. The great part of the cruise I think are the excursions you can take, but for us this makes no sense.

Because we embarked on Grand Turk we have both immigration and customs issues to deal with in Miami. In line to walk off the ship, the BUZZER went off when I put in my cruise card and we were escorted out of line to an area wher we had to wait on a ship's officer to come see us.

Lucas says, "Why has everything got to be so hard with this family?"

Then we were escorted down through immigration by one of the ships officers, placed at the front of the line, cleared within seconds, took someones reservation on a private taxi to the airport, then hopped onto the Crown Plaza shuttle which pulled up right beside us. We were express checked into our room by 10:00AM.

We have been sitting here all day, albeit with a hotel room that acesses the outdoor pool, until we leave at 5:ooam for our plane to CMH. The best part of the day was going across the street to the Latin Cafe for coffee con leche and a cuban sandwichs. Lucas, I am not sure what he expects out of life if he thinks it is hard now!

Diving and Leaving

We had a very nice dinner with Martin and Janice and their son Josh on Monday. Where they are living overlooks the western beach and sunsets are dramatic. Ours was not, but dinner was great. And as a bonus, Lucas did not fight anyone.

On Tuesday we did our last dive on Grand Turk. We did an evening dive from 5:00 to 6:00, a sunset dive. This was one of the best dives I have had here. The setting sun makes the quality of light remarkable and we were overwhelmed by large marine life, including an outstanding four foot Nassau Grouper. This was also Josh's discover scuba dive. As your first dive I don't think it could have been better either.

We dove tunnels, which is where we did our last dive last year. I am thinking that this sunset dive will be our tradition of leaving Grand Turk. So, I guess its not all bad.

I would never think us a dive family, not like some of the real dive families that come through here. But between the four of us, we have logged 30 dives in the last nine weeks that the boys have been here. Lucas has 24 dives (21 hours under water) before his 15th birthday. Davis, at 12, is certified.

Lucas is clearly the best diver in the family. He is like a fish in the water. A couple days ago he was just sitting at the bottom of a hundred foot sand bottom canyon. I watched him for a long time. He was just stationary, looking at something. Everyone else was swimming far above him. Amazing. Yesterday he was swimming with a turtle at 90 feet trying to touch it. A few days ago he was scolded for working his hand under the sand until a garden eel popped out of its hole, something I have only seen one other person do. Amazing.

I a couple of hours we will be embarking on the Carnival Destiny. This weekend the family will be back in the states. Though school starts today I think, it was $3000 cheaper to travel back the week after school starts, so though it makes Lucas' first week of high school a little difficult...what are you going to do!

Rum and Cubans

Today we all took a boat trip out to the wall. Mart, Luke, and I went diving. Deneen and Davis snorkeled around.

We came out of the water at 1:45, just in time to get to Alessio and Jackie's house for lunch/dinner. The dinner of grilled sausages was great. The conversation lively. Cuban music resounded thoughout the house.

Dinner lasted for about four hours. The last hour or so Alessio got out the rum and cigars that he brought back from their trip to Cuba several weeks ago. Then we talked politics very loudly. For anyone who has had dinner with Alessio and Jackie you know what I'm talking about.

Like happens at many dinner parties, after the rum and Cubans Lucas got into a fight. Now, I must say that for the most part Alessio was having all the rum and Cubans, and it was not really a fight fight. Though it did end with Lucas (or really the rum I have to add) knocking Alessio over and into the table, where as the serving plate of sausages fell onto the tile floor and broke into several pieces, and where as Alessio cut both his arm and leg on the tiled side table.

Then the fight started. Not only is a nice serving dish impossible to replace on Grand Turk. This was also a special plate given to Jackie before they came to the island several years ago. I could not stop laughing, and I ate another sausage off the floor.

On our way home we discussed how many parties were going to end with Lucas beating someone up and breaking something. This makes three that I have been to. Though I don't think you would guess it, it just seems to happpen.

Two Partied Out

Friday we were scheduled for a Children's Club trip to Gibbs Cay to swim with the stingrays. In the morning, however, the ocean was rough and visibility very poor. This was owing to Hurricane Bill to the North of us. At noon, we cancelled the the trip.

On Thursday we had toured the Carnival Liberty with Children's Club. Everyone on staff was still tired from watching 20 kids on the boat, on the Lido deck cafeteria, in the pool, on the slide, back in the Margarittaville pool. In the end, Friday evening was going to be way too busy anyway.

Friday was the changeover party for the Cruise Center director. Mike Reimers, who has been here since I arrived, is leaving to open the new Carnival cruise center in Roatan, Honduras. I liked Mike and am sorry to see him go. He is one of the people here who I wished I would have had more time to get to know better.

The party was at Margarittaville. Whenever I go to parties like this, I am torn between being a good representative of the museum and selfishly eating great food that we normally don't get.

Last night they had chips and the best salsa I have had in a long time. We got involved in this long conversation with another guest, but all I could think about was how much I wanted to get some more salsa.

Luckily, Deneen has been with me at the last few parties and I am able to excuse myself by saying, "I need to get my wife some more chips, she just loves this salsa!"

After I had three plates of chips...this may seem excessive but I actually found a bowl of guacamole so I thought it was a complement to the kitchen staff...the buffet line was opened and we went up to get chicken fajitas.

We sat with Kelly and Gearheart from the Bohio, though we see them often I don't think I have sat for dinner with them since Dinah and I had them over last January. They are someone else I wish I had time to get to know better.

Anyway, at 9:00 I looked at my watch and said, "Sorry, we have to go."

We were already late for our next party. Just after 9:00 we arrived at the last museum music jam. Everyone was already there. This party had a rather rocky start, as when I got there there was mostly just kids hanging out, my three sons included.

But we started playing, people left, others came. By the time I turned around it was 11:58. Deneen went home. Lucas, Martin, and I went to get Poop Deck chicken.

At 2:30 this morning I awoke on the floor of the living room. Everyone was asleep, every light was on, every television was on. Most places this is typical, but here this is soooo against my conservative use of electricity rules. It drives me crazy.

At 10:30am I awoke, went out to the living room, and kicked Martin and Lucas awake. We have twenty minutes to get toast and coffee and get to our 11:00 dive.

Its Saturday. This is Deneen and the boys' last weekend on Grand Turk. We are tired from the parties, but the reality is that the parties have just started.

Children's Club Tuesday

Yesterday was the third Children's Club day. I think these have been the funnest Children's Club programs that we have done since I have been here.

In the morning, Davis completed his third and fourth open water dives for his PADI scuba certification. We had two dives with Mitch from Blue Water Divers. Short and quick, there is too much to do today.

The Children's Club program was a mangrove study. It turned out to be three hours of kayaking in North Creek. The kayak excursion had to be moved from South Creek to North Creek after the hurricane because of the destruction in South Creek. I have never been in North Creek. Paddling out was no problem, except keeping everyone together. We kayaked to the mangroves. We kayaked to the jellyfish spotting field. Then we tried to return.

I have always heard that the tidal current in North Creek is very strong. This is what makes it dangerous (if you remember the post from a few weeks ago). In fact the current is very strong and tide was coming in. Paddling the hardest you could got you nowhere. Kayaks were spread all over the creek, which looks more like a large lake.

After an hour of vigorous paddling, everyone was able to beach their kayaks onto a dredged jetty that extends into the creek. There is a large dredge barge with a huge crane rusting where it stopped working in mid project years ago at the end of this jetty, but that's a story I have not heard yet. Everyone walked down the jetty back to kayak shack. Only Reuben was able to get his kayak back to the dock. This left 15 kayaks to be carried back portage trail style.

When we finally got back to the museum an hour and fifteen minutes late it was time for the program to be over. But we stayed to have our snack of Poop Deck chicken.

Unlike every other day we have a program everyone sat eating their snack in total silence. Everyone was totally exhausted.

Yes it is!

I did not even get to finish my last blog and here I sit in Grand Turk.

Austin to Dallas, Dallas to Miami, overnight at the Crown Plaza, Miami to Provo, Provo to Grand Turk. I got in Sunday afternoon.

When I left everything was blue skys. Today, we have two named storms in the Caribbean. We also have three ships in port because of the storms south of us. Children's club meets on Tuesday and we are not prepared yet. Also, the Astrolabe is now a week overdue to the editor.

Back to work.

is it Saturday yet?

Austin is crazy.

There are over 1900 musical acts here playing at nearly 200 venues. I had no idea.

In the 1930s Austin developed a unique form of Blues, the East Side Blues. I have actually sat through a symposium on how the archives of this historical musical period is being preserved.

As it exists today, everyone here is an amazing vocalist.

I have heard lots of bands here, but tonight I heard the best one.