Day 2 St. Croix

I awoke to Kelly’s alarm clock at 06:30... that in itself is just wrong while on holidays! Anyway we wanted an early start as or excursion to Buck Island was set to depart at 08:30. This provided lots of time to get our coffee, check emails and then head up to the Windjammer Buffet for breakfast.  It featured a huge assortment of items that catered to everyones needs.

We headed down and hopped on our excursion bus with little difficulty. Unfortunately 3 people had no-showed and, as we were the last bus, delayed us until finally leaving them behind... see this in our aviation business from time to time.

Off we went and our driver Reese gave us the oral highlights as we past important land marks along the way... like the huge Captain Morgan Rum distillery!  (Why did we not know this on our last trip when we had a car?) Oh well! The trip wound it’s way across St Croix via HWY 70 and into Christiansted.

They quickly loaded our boat and away we went. We exited Christiansted Harbor around Protestant Island and got a great view of Fort Christiansvaem.

The trip took about 30 minutes and as we cruised the crew had us all outfitted with snorkel gear & fins. On arrival at Buck Island they gave us a brief safety run down on where to and where not to go, stay in pairs etc. all common sense stuff.   The water was a fabulous turquoise!  Albeit very choppy.

I stayed with Kelly (as she is not a confident swimmer ) even though the safety vest was securely attached to her... or maybe she had a death grip on it... not sure which actually :-)  She did great and we explored the reef down below together. Great views of numerous fish with brilliant colors and I even spotted a small shark at one point. I had my son’s GoPro camera with me and I took lots of shots.

We returned to the boat and after taking off the gear, enjoyed a great rum punch on the trip back to Christiansted. This brought back both old and new memories:-) One of the folks on the boat yelled..”Look there’s a turtle!” and Moose our deck hand replied “That’s a buoy sir”...”Oh!”

Back to the ship and we took a stroll around the shops and kiosks near the dock. Standard stuff when traveling with Kelly but I am used to it. Once on board we headed to the official Cruise Critic “Meet & Greet” up in the Blue Moon Lounge. Everyone had a good visit although we had already met most folks the day before. Appetizers and prizes were given away and we then watched the ship depart Frederikstad.
Off to dinner next and once again we were not disappointed. Tonight was “Formal Night” and most everyone was dressed very nicely.There was the odd outfit that made us ponder a bit:-)

We have decided to give up gambling and spend the money on ourselves as losing does not seem optional. No luck this trip.

Tomorrow is St. Maarten and the famous Sunset Beach where we plan to watch silly people get exfoliated :-)