I am back. Ok fine, I’ve been back for a few days, but I had to raid two of the last three nights and didn’t get my pics from vacation uploaded until last night, so you just had to wait.
Yes, this is pretty much off-topic. Deal with it. 
So I went on a cruise with my parents and my brother and his girl. We left from Ft. Lauderdale…
on this huge ship, Ruby Princess.
Our first stop was at Princess Cays, on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas. There is no dock there large enough for a cruise ship, so we were transported ashore using the lifeboats, which they call tenders.
We spent Christmas Day at sea, then docked at St. Maarten/St. Martin. It is half Dutch, and half French. Well, not quite half … the Dutch side is 16 sq. mi. and the French side is 21 sq. mi. We docked on the Dutch side, along with 5 other cruise ships! It was a very busy day for Philipsburg. The rest of the family went shopping while I went horseback riding!
We even got to ride in the sea.
The next day was St. Thomas, in the Virgin Islands. I went to Magen’s Bay to the beach with my parents.
I found a nature trail there and got to see a few interesting things.
We caught up to my brother before getting back on the ship.
Time to move on. All aboard!
The final day was Grand Turk, in the Turks & Caicos. This one was my favorite, partly because the island is home to all of these wild donkeys.
They were once used to help harvest salt from the sea, but once the salt trade dried up (har har) they were all set free and allowed to roam the island freely.
They are rounded up in early January and kept all together at a sanctuary for part of the year, because there is not enough food and water to sustain them naturally. The island gets very little rainfall and has sparse vegetation.
Dinner on the ship every night was one of the highlights of the trip. We had a four course meal at the same table every night, same time, same waiters. Here I am surrounded by hot Filipinos … hey, it’s just like being in SR!
So now I’m back to 30 degrees, snow, and wind. But I did kinda miss my internets. And my pet battles … I got a scourged whelpling last night! ^.^
Ok next post will be back to WoW stuffs.
