Day 44 - 01/02 - Ocho Rios, Jamaica

For those following my blog, the lemon tree is not dead on this cruise!

Our wake up call was the sounds of thrusters and the reversing of direction as the Captain backed the Volendam into its berth at the cargo pier. The Carnival Sensation got the passenger berth pier.

We took a HAL shore excursion to raft down the Martha Brea River. We heard good reports about it from passengers who did it when we docked in Falmouth a couple weeks ago. It's about an hour drive to the river launch location where we donned life jackets and boarded bamboo rafts with a raft captain. All of the rafts are under 6 months old and are built by their Captain. We saw lots of bamboo components awaiting their use in rafts. We were last to board and our Captain was Delroy. He was funny, sang to us, and had been doing this for 30 years. The Martha Brea River historically was used for floating bananas, coconut, sugar cane, and other products downriver in colonial days. The route was about 3 miles long and quite peaceful.

We saw the remains of a sugar plantation, a few birds, lots of bamboo, decaying ruins, and the rusted remains of a large steam roller. At the end of the ride, there was a shallow dam, but the rafts were hoisted out with a specialty crane and trailered back up to the start of the route for the next set of guests.  

After all guests were back on the excursion bus, we headed back towards the ship. A few miles down the highway, there was a sudden loud "BANG" which signaled a blowout to me. The driver got out and checked it; drove a mile further to a safe place to pull over, and proceeded to change the tire. A couple fellows in a dump truck pulled over and helped the driver change the tire (left rear inside dual tire). It only took about 1/2 hour to change the tire, and we were off again. We passed by the bay where Christopher Columbus visited Jamaica in the the late 1490's. A few participants got off the bus at the ship, while 14 of us continued on to the TAJMAHAL shopping area. Angela and I elected to walk back to the ship, shopped a bit, ate some jerk chicken, and took in the sights of Ocho Rios. 

It was about a 1/2 mile walk back to the ship and we reboarded where I showered and checked pictures and did some internet activity. With a late lunch, we ate a very light LIDO dinner before attending the nightly entertainment who was Patrick Keane, a very flat American comedian. It was painful to watch him.  

Our cruise only has one more stop tomorrow in Grand Cayman. Our snorkeling trip was cancelled due to lack of participation. We're doing another similar excursion involving sting rays and a catamaran. Stay tuned.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 18 - 12/07 - Belem

There are a number of directions today's post could take. But my chosen path is to set the stage with a familiar expression which is repeating itself on this cruise. It's simply, when life gives you lemons, it's time to make lemonade. And today's post will be longer than most. Our day started with a leisurely breakfast as we weren't meeting with our Cruise Critic group until 8:45am near the Main Stage where Dan V had prearranged tender tickets for our group of 27. Just after nine we were ushered down to the tender deck where we boarded a local large tender, Jubilee which was later pulled from service. It was about a 15 minute ride to the dock and just as we arrived, a local boat cut us off from our docking position. So we bobbed in the water until an official waved off the offending captain, a HAL tender departed, and we tied up and disembarked our passengers. Later we learned that local traffic has priority over cruise ship tenders regardless of wh...
Read more

Day 01 - 11/20 - Fort Lauderdale Departure

Image
I believe in Fairies We started our day with a breakfast in the hotel and watched more of the impeachment hearings until just before our 11am checkout time. After checking out we were scheduled on an 11:30am shuttle to the cruise terminal. However there were 7 ships in port with some 16-18k passenger transitioning off the system and a similar amount boarding and many guests were waiting for shuttles so ours left an hour late at 12:30pm. At the cruise terminal, we elected to keep our one roll on piece of luggage with us which turned out to be a good move. The 4-5 star check-in line was pretty long but we began to see fellow cruisers we have sailed with previously. The check-in went smooth with no health forms or yellow fever vaccine documentation required but we had To surrender our passports. We headed for the gangway and at the security desk on ty g we ship our cards wouldn't work and we were directed to the alternate security desk where the guard indicated our room had been...
Read more

Day 14 - 12/03 - Parintins, Brazil

Today's blog has four distinct themes. And they all made for a very memorable day. I love the smell of Diesel in the Morning The Volendam sailed overnight down river and pivoted 180° and assumed a position in the middle of the river facing upstream where the thrusters and drive screws aided by GPS kept it in position all day off the little town on Parintins. The river is a muddy brown color with lots of vegetation debris floating down the river at about 7 knots to unknown destinations. We didn't have specific plans other than to walk around the town. So we took our time to get ready and have a good breakfast. We made our way up to the Ocean Bar on deck 5 to get released to a tender. Just as we arrived, the 4 & 5 Star group was released and we made our way down to the tender platform where we saw that our tender vessel would be one of the local double deck river boats. We boarded it and climbed the steep stairs to the upper deck.  One could walk right up to the wheelhou...
Read more