Cruise Life Finally Begins

Holy cow!  As we are finally getting into the normal rhythm of our life as performers on a cruise ship, I'm realizing I have to get into a normal rhythm of blogging.  We are getting to explore and have so much fun lately, so there is much to tell!  This cruise started off with us saying goodbye to our lovely team from Belinda King in Ft. Lauderdale.  We had achieved a great deal with them on board and it was time for us to take our first steps on our own.  In Ft. Lauderdale I was excited to see friends Betsy and Lance Thomas.  Betsy and I grew up in church together and I've loved remaining in touch with her and her husband, Lance.  They have a great spirit of fun and adventure that is infectious.  They picked me up and took me down the coast a bit to a fun restaurant called Le Tub.  It sits on one of the inter coastal waterways and we had a blast catching up over fish dip, their signature burgers, and sailboats passing by.  It was a great escape from the ship.

The next couple of seas days brought with them some heavy winds, which means the ship was really rocking!  Tonyia still doesn't have the best sea legs, so our first show of the cruise, Timeless, was a little interesting.  She wasn't feeling well, but was a trooper and pushed through.  We eventually made it to San Juan, Puerto Rico and I broke off on my own for the day.  I really fell in love with wandering the colorful streets on this island.  The colorful buildings and intricate iron balconies remind me of New Orleans.  On this particular visit, though, I headed toward a large fort on the Northeast corner of the island called El Morro.  The weather was pretty awesome and climbing through tunnels and towers at the first provided with some awesome views, as the fort drops straight into the ocean.  Adjacent to the fort was a cemetery called the Mary Magdalene Cemetery that was really beautiful, but almost haunting.  It was a sea of crisp, white monuments that balanced right on the edge of a wall, where below was the bright blue sea.  Since I have phone service in San Juan I really took advantage of that as I meandered around town.  I ended up finding a GREAT lunch spot.  The chicken and shrimp pita was fresh and delicious and I was so happy to have had a day to myself with time to just explore and breathe a little.  Too many sea days on the ship can really start getting to you.

The next day was a nice long day in port at St. Bart's.  I haven't had much experience traveling islands, really, so I've been excited to get to those idyllic beaches you see on postcards and find crystal clear water to swim, but so far I haven't really had time to find that or the weather hasn't been nice, etc.  Today we had great plans, though to get to a real tropical beach.  We walked through the town of Gustavia before hiking up a hill to cross the island.  We heard that the best beach was on the opposite side of the island, so we headed up, up, up past a lighthouse and toward the airport.  After a 20 minute hike we spotted our beach sitting at the end up the runway.  We made our way down to St. Jean's beach and I was not disappointed.  The sand was nice and the water was absolutely turquoise and crystal clear.  I couldn't believe it.  I ran as fast as I could to jump in the water and as I did I screamed, "I'm getting PAID!!!!"  Ha ha!  It was a great little spot and we had fun even with strong winds.  I am still digging sand out of my hair 4 days later.  We eventually hiked back into town and stopped for a delicious lunch before going to another spot called Shell Beach. 

As you may have guessed, instead of sand, this beach is covered in shells.  One side of the beach climbed up to form some large rock formations and before long we decided it would be a good idea to swim out and go cliff jumping.  Thankfully I'm a good swimmer, because it was pretty far to swim in an open ocean, but it was so pretty I didn't mind.  We eventually got to a spot we figured we could climb and we rode the waves as they crashed in on the fairly sharp rocks.  Climbing up was somewhat difficult, but it provided a great spot about 15 feet high to jump into that gorgeous blue water.  After a successful first jump, we went for a second and while I was climbing up the rocks I had an unfortunate run-in with a sea urchin.  There was some shouting, some pulling large pieces of urchin out of my toe, and some moving on to reach a higher spot (about 20 feet up) for one more jump before swimming back to the beach.  I still have 4 small piece of sea urchin in my toe that I think may be with me forever.  Ha ha!  Oops.

That night I was able to be at a restaurant for a nice drink and some time on the internet, catching up with friends and family before heading back on board for Rock the Boat, a fun night of dancing and singing on the pool deck.  It's a great event and we have so much fun dancing under the stars as the ship sails away.  I'll have to write about the remainder of the cruise soon.  These blogs will have to start being more frequent as the adventures become more frequent!  Hope you are well.  It's always good to get updates from you, too, or to know you are reading by leaving a comment or shooting me an email, etc.  All the best, my friends, 

Tripp