Ahoy, Matey!

I know what you're thinking. "Where has Maggie been? I miss her witty comments regarding the every day minutiae of her life!"

Well, the answer, gentle readers, is that I have been on vacation. Yes, once again I have set sail for lands unknown (at least to me) and went on another cruise. This time I hit the Eastern Caribbean, and I thought I could take you through the trip bit by bit, sharing all the delightful tales of my adventures.

The cruise (aboard the Carnival Victory) left out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. This was my first time in PR, but we really didn't get a chance to do a lot of sight-seeing for a couple reasons. 1) It was really hot there. And it is NOT a dry heat. It's even more humid than it is here in DC, believe it or not. 2) We were all pretty exhausted. First from having traveled down to PR, and after our arrival back in San Juan, from all the fun we had on the ship. So unfortunately my impressions of San Juan are limited to a bit of walking around Old Town San Juan (kind of like Old Town Alexandria but Spanish influenced rather than English) and what I could see out of the hotel window.

Our cruise was a 7 day trip through the "exotic Eastern Caribbean" and included a new island every day, which got to be a bit overwhelming. We didn't actually push off from San Juan until 10pm the first night, so we treated it as a day at sea, running around and getting acquainted with the ship, which not surprisingly, had an identical layout to the ship from my last cruise. Thanks, Carnival, for preventing me from getting hopelessly lost at sea. Get it?

And guess what the very first thing we did on the ship was?

Mai Tais!

Our first stop the very next day was at St. Thomas. We didn't actually spend time on the island though, since we had all signed up for a snorkeling excursion. It was my first time snorkeling and I have to admit, I was a bit nervous. I've never been before, and I was convinced I would somehow screw it up. I mean, I can barely walk across my living room without crashing into something. How was I going to fare in the ocean? Luckily for me, turns out snorkeling is basically idiot-proof. I didn't even have a problem with my mask fogging. And it was fascinating being able to actually see all the life that teems right below the surface of the sea. You can see it in pictures and on television all you want, but actually seeing it, right there only a few feet away, is actually really amazing.

Me and Kent post-snorkel. You can see the mask marks on our faces if you look close.

Up next: the volcanic island of Dominica (pronounced like a girl's name ("Dominique-a")).