The saddest possible photo aboard a cruise ship….we fly back to Miami tomorrow, and I commence my week or so of post-travel blues.

One of the best shore excursions we’ve ever done:

in Sint Maarten, we boarded the “Stars and Stripes 87”, the yacht which Dennis Conner steered to the America’s Cup victory in 1987, over the Aussie’s Kookaburra.  Everyone on board was given an assignment (mine was “to assure victory”, of course).  Anyway, we did race a Canadian 12-meter yacht, and as was foretold in the stars, we won. (“USA, USA, USA”)  It was thoroughly exhilarating, that first moment when we counted down the seconds to the moment the race actually began, then turned into an astonishing moment of appreciation of sea and wind power - we all had to hang onto ropes for dear life, as the sails filled with the wind and we found ourselves flying across the sea, at essentially a 45-degree angle to horizontal. Wowie kapowie, was THAT fun!

Sint Maarten. Iguanas on the dock. A fun story to follow, but right now it’s time to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Help! We’re surrounded!

We’re in Sint Maarten this morning. Along with the Allure of the Seas, the AIDAluna, the AIDAdiva, the Explorer of the Seas, and the Harmony of the Seas.  That’s well over 18,000 passengers (the Harmony and Allure carry over 5,000 each), although certainly none of the ships are sailing at capacity.  Perfectly happy with our little dinky 450-passenger rowboat.

Sailing out of the tiny bay, we see that a previous (presumably British) sailor was not as successful as we were.

Another celebrity-owned property, that commands over $50,000/week, this one owned by fashion mogul Giorgio Armani. And second pic, we’re told this yacht is available for charter, at a mere $450,000 per week.

Today, another catamaran cruise, this time around Antigua. We stopped at a beach that was virtually deserted, except for us. Unfortunately it was virtually all sand and no reef, so the hoped-for snorkeling would have been pretty boring. And I think I know what they’ll serve us for lunch.

On the catamaran cruise we sailed by Necker island, owned by Richard Branson. The villas are rentable for a paltry $60k per week.

Virgin Gorda, in the British Virgin Islands, certainly has a couple of the most dramatic vistas from its peaks. We did a catamaran cruise around the island, then an open-air bus up and down the hills:

I just thought this was funny….

One pic from Dominica I forgot to post:

During a particularly nasty hurricane (I’ve forgotten which one, which year) a Baobab tree fell and crushed an empty bus. They’ve just left it there as a reminder.

Our call to St Barts was canceled, so we’re having a second consecutive sea day, thus the lack of new destination photos…