Day 39 - 12/27 - Port-of-Spain, Trinidad-Tobago

We woke up this morning with our ship being tied to the container port here in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. Right behind us the Caribbean Princess arrived and tied up in front of us. We took a 3 hour HAL excursion out to the Caroni Bird Sanctuary. There were around 30 or so of us in a large flat bottomed boat powered by a 40-50 horse Yamaha motor. We saw a number of birds including Red Ibis (difficult to photograph), white & blue herons, pink flamingoes, and one mystery black bird. We also saw a sea boa, crabs, a caiman, and unidentified fish. It was a good tour, but I'd rather take it with fewer people in the boat.

Back at the port we shopped at an excellent craft market where my wife bought a steel drum. Could she get into trouble with it? Hmm. . . We reboarded the ship to unload our backpacks for a lighter walking trip into the city.  

The port required us to take a shuttle a ship's length to the terminal building (Princess Cruisers didn't need one). We headed off to town to find some local food, but were unsuccessful in several food courts. Many shops and restaurants were closed on this Saturday. We ended up eating chicken at the Royal Castle which is a long standing local chicken restaurant like KFC. It was tasty! 

We hoped to walk up Frederick Street to Queen's Park Savannah and visit some historical buildings that a Tourist Information person recommended. However, we ran out of time and turned around 4 blocks short of our goal and walked back photographing churches. We got back on the ship at 4pm which was 1/2 hour before today's deadline. Back in our room I was working on downloading pictures while Angela was beating on her new drum. Suddenly there was a soft knock on our door and Chandra, our stateroom attendant, wanted to know where the music was coming from. It seems that the person next door was hearing music through her electrical connection. Chandra figured it out and we got a good laugh out of it together. Angela promised to only play it on the back deck in the future. She's a musical miscrit.  

I watched the sail away from deck 3 and then stayed there while the pilot disembarked and the ship sailed into the sunset past 4 oil or gas drilling rigs and straight towards Venezuela. I enjoyed some nice technical talk with Ed from Canada while sailing past the oil rigs, but let time get away from me. So I the prodigal had to apologize to my wife for being 1/2 hour late for dinner. While at dinner the ship turned to starboard and we passed between a Venezuelan peninsula and a Tobago-Trinidad island.

We both ate salads for dinner after having the chicken earlier. We then enjoyed watching the BBC Planet Earth II which was shown on the World Stage and accompanied by live musicians from Lincoln Center Stage and the Volendam band. We've seen it many times and it's the best of the two main stage BBC Earth films. I especially like the racing scene and the penguin scene.

Afterwards we attended the Billboard Online session featuring One Hit Wonders. It was packed as always. We then watched the Fiesta Bowl between Clemson and Ohio State.

Tomorrow is a sea day with a light schedule including a Mariner luncheon. Stay tuned.

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