.barbados .12.09.16.

My alarm went off around 8:30 so we could still make it to "fancy breakfast", which turned out to not be as tasty as we thought it would be. The highlight was having eggs Benedict, at least for Dad, Mom and T. M and I had French toast, it was absolutely delicious! It was thick but still crispy on the outside and lightly sugared, we topped it with with thick  whipped cream and strawberry syrup. The whipped cream is more like "solid milk with sugar”.

After breakfast we tossed on our swimming gear and headed off the boat. Someone had told me that there was a beach beside the port in Barbados so instead of taking a taxi we decided to walk to the beach. Unfortunately his opinion of the port being "right beside the beach" actually meant it was a 30 minute walk, or short taxi ride to the beach... We’d already walked about a kilometer to get out of the port, what’s a few more right? The side walk to the beach was beautiful, it trailed along the ocean with large trees to provide shade from the piercing sun. When the pathway ended we walked along the street until coming to the boat harbour where we quickly turned to the boardwalk to get away from the busy streets. After what seemed forever I saw it. Through a little crack between the buildings I saw sand and water glistening through. I yelled down the road to the family who had gotten ahead of me, I  waved them over to follow me.

When we walked through  the small entrance was we were immediately greeted by a vendor trying to sell us a "shipwreck/sea turtle" excursion package. We declined repeatedly and walked straight to the water, the beach was almost empty so we got the water to ourselves for most of the morning. We all immediately dropped our stuff and ran into the water, it was a long walk and we were all overheating from the burning hot sun. So far this trip this beach has been my favorite, it has  perfect waves for body surfing/wave riding and the sun. The only drawback is the sand is so fine it gets into every nook and cranny you can imagine! When we would ride the waves up the beach the crashing water would fill our bathing suits with sand. All of us girls were sporting very sexy “Sand Diapers”

The sun was so incredibly hot today, luckily there as some clouds in the sky to give us a little break; but as soon as the sun came out from behind the clouds it immediately started burning our skin. Poor T, she must have put on sunscreen a million times today and she still burnt to a crisp.

Since this has been a very go-go-go trip I tried to take a nap on the beach while the sun was behind the clouds, but as soon as it came out I felt it was biting my skin it was so hot.

 Later in the day my bathing suit was so full of sand that I couldn’t take it anymore. I swam out far where no one could see me and slipped my bathing suit off to clean the sand out. Word to the wise, don't take your bathing suit off completely when you’re swimming in the ocean; salt water is extremely buoyant... Mom saw me swimming out and was starting to swim towards me to see what I was doing. I tried to quickly put my bathing suit back on when a wave came and pushed me over while I was just getting my bathing suit around my ankles. Since I was in the ocean I got knocked off balance by the waves, my butt floated to the surface… mooning the beach, and a party boat that happened to be passing by!

 I don't think anyone on the boat saw, but Mom sure did! When I finally got my bathing suit on I swam over to here, she was laughing so hard I was sure she was going to suck in some sea water! She asked me what on earth I as doing  and we had a good laugh about it. I learned a very important lesson that day, do not to take your one piece bathing suit completely off in the ocean.

Mom was swimming along looking at the sand below when a tiny fish swam straight into her goggles, it shocked her and she jumped back surprised that such a tiny fish would swim right up to her. That little fish spent the rest of the day with us. It would follow us around no matter where we went, its favorite spot was right between dads legs. If dad would move it would quickly swim so it was right between his legs again. It was so cute, I'm sad we had to leave it haha we all gained a small bond with the little guy! 

We snorkeled and played in the waves while soaking up the extremely hot Caribbean sun,  until it was finally time to go. We had soaked up as much sun as we could handle and Taylor's skin was starting to look like 2rd degree burns. With slight hesitation we began our long walk back to the boat, I walked barefoot most of the way because my feet were still covered in sand. 

We stopped in the main market to see what souvenirs we could find. I bought a "Barbados" wrap for the beach, and a Jamaican colored bracelet.

As we were shopping around for gifts for the girls boyfriends, T called my name to get my attention. She lip-pointed over to the Norwegian guys that had been hanging around us off and on the whole trip. I turned my head and said "oh yeah I already know". Apparently he had heard and seen the whole thing and started lightly chuckling. M made eye contact and gave him a raised eyebrow look, aren’t family hilariously embarrassing? When it was time to go back to the boat we ended up sitting right in front of the Norwegian men on the shuttle bus back to the boat. Thank goodness for that shuttle bus because we were all exhausted. When we got back on the boat we changed into dry clothes and we went up for lunch.  Today was the "Tshirt" sale on the boat so we went and got some cruise Tshirts to commemorate our cruise. These T-shirts were more involved with the cruise line instead of the individual ports, making them more meaningful because that's where we spent the most time!

T was sore from her sunburn so she stayed in the room to rest while the rest of the family dressed up and went to our final formal dinner. 

I fell down the stairs twice because of the heels I was wearing luckily J was there to catch me each time, then relentlessly tease me about not being able to walk in heels. After supper we went to "the show" off the night. It was called “The west end to Broadway” it was a bunch of singing and dancing with no story line again.

 After the show we came back to the room to shower and write in our journals. T and I watched a few videos on my laptop before we all passed out.  

.st kitts .12.06.16.

T's tan lines from the previous day. Her spray on sunscreen apparently has a concentrated spray and didn't spread very well

This morning was our "relaxed morning" we didn't set an alarm and slept in till 9:30!! (6:30 home time) The original plan was to get a fancy breakfast in the restaurant but we slept too long and the restaurant had closed. Oh well, off to the buffet line instead! First item on display, doughnuts!! Cruising has just become my favorite way of traveling, it's socially acceptable to eat doughnuts for breakfast!! After stuffing our self's to the brim we headed off the ship for the day. 

I forgot the SD card for my GoPro at home so the first item on the agenda was to find a store that sold them. As we walked into the market square a guy walked up and tossed a monkey at me!! Followed by two more, one of which was on top of my head!! 

Since I was focusing on juggling the monkeys I didn't hear the guy chanting "5 for kid, 5 for kid".  Mom and dad being experienced Caribbean-er's quickly walked away and left us kids to fend for ourselves! The guy took the monkeys away from me and immediately threw them at M.

 By this point I had realized that Mom and Dad had completely disappeared! M got her pictures and the monkeys quickly moved on to J.. 

I was left to negotiate with the gentlemen while he told me how much I owed him for the pictures. Being the dishonest person that I am, I lied and told him my parents had the money. I gave him my biggest sad eyes and promised to come back to pay him when I found them. We quickly walked away and found Mom and Dad a few stores down. Dad laughed at our experience and explained that everything offered by people in the market usually will cost money; that's why they chose to walk away and leave us alone to negotiate with the hustler. 

While my sisters searched for wi-fi to send messages to their boyfriends and download study guides for school, I searched for a camera store to get an SD card. There was a staggering amount of taxi drivers carrying maps around beckoning you to come with them. We kept declining saying "we're shopping first" and quickly walking away. Dad wasn't as skilled, "No sorry we aren't going to the beach" he told them. One of the taxi drivers quickly called his bluff, "then why are you carrying towels"... busted!! 

One taxi driver approached me, thinking I was cleaver, I told him that I wasn't going to the beach until I got a SD card. He lead me over to some random jewelry store that had one stand of camera accessories. I got the largest one available and walked outside expecting my family to be ready to go. They had just found wi-fi and were standing around sending messages and waiting for the responses. Dad assumed I made a deal with the taxi driver to take us to the beach for the day since he helped me find a camera store. He arranged for a van to come pick us up and take us to ----- cockleshell beach. Mom was not impressed, she wanted to go to reggae beach. Thinking that Dad panicked and picked a taxi driver, Mom wasn't to pleased with him. She'd wanted to get one of the Taxi's with the open roof so you could enjoy the warm island air, unfortunately when the van pulled up it was not what she expected. Mom had researched the best beach in St. Kitts to go to and Cockleshell beach wasn't it. Reggae beach was rumored to be the diamond in the rough. The taxi driver assured Mom that there was no Reggae beach, and in fact there was just a restaurant on cockleshell beach called Reggae; people referred to the beach in front of it as Reggae beach. Mom wasn't buying it but we were itching to get to the ocean so we went with him anyways. During the ride the driver gave us a "mini tour talk" about the different oceans around St. Kitts, the local real estate and the mischievous monkeys! We had to drive over a mountain to get to the beach, just before we made it to the top the driver pointed out one of St. Kitts newest attractions... a monkey sitting on a donkey... It was interesting to see but also pretty sad that the poor monkey and donkey had to sit in the sun all day getting their pictures taken with the tourists. We stopped to take pictures of the part of the island that divides the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Ocean.

 The road then quickly turned into a steep downhill slope, with a huge tunnel ahead! It was a long culvert style tunnel through the mountain, and the driver honked the whole way through! Dad was so excited that the Caribbean had the same traditions as him. He nudged my arm and gave me a big goofy smile, then quickly turned away so I wouldn't snap a picture of him! 

All of a sudden the van took a sharp left turn down a dirt road, we pulled up to a very lack luster beach. Don't get me wrong we were still in the Caribbean, but this was the "French bay" of St. Kitts. The beach was lined with tin roof shacks, weathered beach chairs and ripped umbrellas. Once again we were surrounded by vendors trying to sell you their "prime beach chairs". We picked a spot on the beach with no chairs and set up for the day. 

We lathered ourselves with sunscreen, put on the snorkels and flippers and went straight into the ocean! Poor T had to apply sunscreen a million times throughout the day, despite all of her efforts not to get a sunburn she was starting to turn fairly pink. Luckily she had brought a swim shirt which helped protect her from the piercing sun.

Mom, J and I played in the waves while the others snorkeled around the sea-weed. They found a few starfish and sea-urchins, one of the starfish even had 4 fins instead of 5!

  

M and I took some pictures "vogue style" (according to Dad)

I'm clearly not very coordinated when walking in the waves, so my pictures didn't turn out as good as hers.

Mom joined in on our photo shoot by goofing off in the background.

Since Dad was mocking us for taking pictures I snapped a few of him so he could be part of the photo shoot. 

Dad quickly plopped down in the sand next to J, and T who were resting after playing in the ocean. Can you tell T sunburns easy?

 I kicked some sand at dad trying to get his reaction and possible a genuine smile, he didn't disappoint.

I was also able to summon the family out of the water to take a family photo, unfortunately it was again like pulling teeth to get everyone to pose for the picture. I'm not going to sugar coat it for you, I get extremely frustrated when taking pictures of the family, one day I hope it will get easier. 

 Before you knew it, we had to go back to the ship! On the way home we got no tour and the taxi driver was far less friendly then he was on the way to the beach. When we pulled into the Harbor we were immediately bombarded by more vendors, they dragged us over to a jewelry store where they gave us a plastic pearl pendent for "browsing". While mom and I browsed the jewelry my "Norwegian friend" came around. There was a group of three single (fairly good looking men) on our cruise. Mom, my sisters and I all had different opinions on what country they were traveling from. Mom nudged me to chat him up but I was more interested in getting back to the boat to have some strawberry ice cream! Mom, M and I headed back to the boat while the rest of the family stayed back to use some free wi-fi. 

Since we were walking through the same market place as we arrived in we were worried we may run into the monkey man whom we owed money to. We spotted the man and quickly darted down a back alley to avoid being seen. I put my hat down by my stomach so he wouldn't recognize me and we casually walked up to the ship platform without being noticed! 

We ate lunch on the front deck overlooking the port, we took one last look at the beautiful buildings and watched all the people walking in the market place below.

 Amazingly Dad and J found us and sat to have lunch together. We chatted about how they evaded the monkey man and how dad's taxi driver totally took us to the wrong beach. After eating M and I went to the pool to soak up the last bit of the sun. The water felt super cold after being in the hot sun all day, so we spent the afternoon in the hot tub instead. Eventually the water in the hot tub felt cold as well, so we hopped out and laid on the sun-chairs to watch the ship cast off and see the sun set. 

The sun went behind some clouds and the wind picked up as we cast off from shore, since we were wet, we got cold quickly. We wrapped ourselves in our towels and watched the sun set. People were strolling by trying to take pictures of themselves with the sunset, M kindly offered to take pictures for them.

Mom and T walked up and sat with us for a while before we went downstairs to get ready for supper! 

Supper was delicious as per usual. My challenge for my sisters was to not talk about their boyfriends for one day, for the rest of the family not to compare cruises to the cruise they went on without me. T started feeling sick from the waves so she went to lay down for a while. Mom, M and I went and relaxed on the sun-chairs to stargaze. We chatted about our day and made fun of Dad while him and J played ping pong. T started to feel better after some rest she met us downstairs in the theater for the show! It was supposed to be a story about two star-crossed lovers and their journey through time and space to be together... except it was just multiple singing acts with no character development whatsoever. It was so confusing but the performers were very talented so I just enjoyed their singing and dancing. Afterwards we all got changed into our bathing suits to go up to the hot tub one last time before bed. We watched the trivia on the big screen, boggling Dad's mind with our extensive trivia knowledge. Little did he know we had watched the trivia 3 times through already. 

I was exhausted from sitting in the sun all day so I went back to our room to get ready for bed. I put my curlformers in and had a mediocre sleep!