Our tour boat had a staff of three: Captain Stumpy, his mate Lucky (both Haitian), and our tour photographer, Sean (British). Lucky and Sean were already in wetsuits, as they would be joining us in the water. Sean also strapped on a scuba tank as he would be parking himself under the surface in order to get good shots of us from below. Lucky doled out masks, snorkels and flippers, and Captain Stumpy gave us a quick briefing on our snorkeling boundaries and the need to respect the reef.
The reef, while pretty, was lacking in vibrant color...mostly brown with a few dashes of color here and there. While Whitney was able to scoot around at will, my experience was a little less mobile. My moustache prevented the mask from sealing properly, and so my mask would quickly fill with salt water, making it necessary to surface and clear the mask every 60 seconds or so. Needless to say, this situation took some of the fun out of the experience for me. While I did get to enjoy close passes with an abundance of colorful fishes that called the reef home (including a stingray with a 6 or 7 foot wingspan), when the recovery horn sounded I was ready to move on to the second part of our adventure.
Once we were all aboard, Captain Stumpy pointed our boat toward a shallow beach on the end of the island. Once the boat was anchored to the shore, we all entered the warm, waist-deep water for our second activity, known as the “stingray encounter.” While this sounds a bit dangerous, in actuality it was a tremendous amount of fun. The local stingrays were nearly domesticated, having learned to swim up and accept fish pieces from the people at this beach. Most of the people in our group were happy to stay with Lucky as he handled one stingray for photo poses and petting. I wanted a little more direct experience, so I moved away from the group with my own pieces of fish in hand.
It didn’t take long for another stingray to make his way over to me, and he happily accepted my offered snack. Having a stingray eat out of your hand is interesting. Their mouths are on their bottom side, and they gnaw the food from you using sort of a bony “gumming” motion. Once I fed my stingray, he let me cradle him in my arms, with his face just under my chin, and Sean managed to get a good picture. Stingray bodies are so smooth and slippery, it’s a bit of a balancing act to keep them centered, but I managed to keep him in place for about a minute before he kicked himself free with a strong thrust from his tail and swam off looking for more snacks.
Meanwhile, Whitney stayed near the group that was playing with the first stingray. Lucky was putting the ray in pose positions with each of our tour members that were interested. Whitney took advantage of several chances to stroke the ray, and even kissed the stingray on the nose, which (we were told) results in several years of good luck.
Once our tour was over, we headed back to the cruise dock. Hungry from our adventurous hours in the sun, we wandered over to Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, which is one of a chain of restaurant/bars throughout several island locations. It’s a beautiful facility, with several pools, a small waterslide, and thatch-roofed gazebos. For anyone familiar with Buffett’s music, it’s no surprise that one of the signature menu items is the “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” While it seemed almost an obligation to try this, we decided to split our order: I had the cheeseburger, Whitney ordered the conch stew, and we shared. Here is a shot of me attacking the cheeseburger:
Once Whitney’s massage was complete, it was time to board our ship for the next leg to San Juan. It was only 3:00 in the afternoon, so we had plenty of time for the Wii Bowling contest! Whitney really wanted to to see what all the fuss is over Wii sports. Wii Bowling was hosted by our favorite DJ, DJ Dave. There was a definite generational gap on the Wii teams. We were playing against a sister/brother duo around ages 7 and 9 and against a mother/son team ages adult and 6. We were a little embarrassed to win, but had a lot of fun anyway. Due to this win, we added to our growing pile of HAL merchandise, more HAL T-shirts. Since Whitney already had a T-shirt thanks to my brilliance at music trivia the night before, she got a small shirt and gave it to the 2nd runner-up…the 6 year old. After watching this wonderful, sweet natured, polite, well-mannered young man, she decided that maybe all boys aren’t bad!
Hungry from all that “bowling,” we headed up for a nice dinner on the Lido deck. Having already perused the menu for the formal dinner and deciding we weren’t interested in another 3+ hour dinner, we happily discovered that the Lido restaurant served the same menu in a buffet style atmosphere…shrimp cocktail anyone?
After dinner, we went to view the digital proofs of our B&W photo session, and I have to say I was extremely impressed with Miki’s work. The lighting was extraordinary, and I fell in love with one picture of Whitney that I felt captured her beauty perfectly. We agreed to discuss what we wanted and return Wednesday evening with our choices.
The entertainment for the evening in the Mainstage was the magician, Jeff Ceilen. Much of his magic was pretty standard – pull a bird out of a scarf, magic rings, sword through the assistant in the box. But one part of his act (which wasn’t really “magic”) involved two adorable toy poodles. The dogs were Whitney’s favorite part of the show!
With plenty of leftover energy from my nap yesterday, I wasn’t quite ready for bed. Whitney valiantly tagged along with me to the theater where they were showing “The Invention of Lying,” a cute romantic comedy. She made it through about 35 minutes before leaving and going to bed!
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