Christmas Night

On Christmas night we had a nice dinner for the crew upstairs with wine and plum pudding and everything. The dinner was so great. I sat with some of the crew from shops and our senior assistant cruise director, but he had to go back to work and couldn’t finish the dinner. Later on the Chief Officer (2nd in command of the ship) and a friend of his from Holland came and sat with us. We were about half way through the courses, when the servers came by and cleared a spot and put out a bottle of wine and made everything really nice in the seat right across from me, and I thought what are they doing, the dinner is half finished. Then the Captain came and joined our table. He was so nice and very laid back. We talked all through dinner and then they were all going to the bar for drinks and invited me along. The Captain bought everyone drinks, I warned him that my laugh got louder the more I had to drink, so he got me two. Everyone rolled out the red carpet for us wherever we went. I had so much fun. It was a great evening. Katie

Merry Christmas from Norfolk, VA

I got an underwater digital camera for Christmas. I cannot think of a more perfect present. Be prepared for lots and lots of underwater pictures from now on. I didn’t take it underwater in Norfolk, VA where we were in dry dock. It was freezing most of the time. I had to go buy myself a coat. This dry dock wasn’t nearly as fun as the dry dock I had in San Francisco. I had to work for part of this dry dock, but it wasn’t too bad. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures in the shipyard because there were a lot of military ships there. I did manage to get a night shot of downtown Norfolk and a picture of my cabin on the ship. The coolest part of dry dock came right at the end when we were leaving and we passed part of America’s North Atlantic Fleet. There were lots of aircraft carriers and big ships that I don’t even know what they are called. The neatest part was when we passed a submarine moving on the surface with people standing on it. I'm back in the Caribbean now. It's back to vacation...I mean work. Merry Christmas!

Katie

More snorkeling the Bahamas

I've just gotten back from Dry Dock in Norfolk and I can finally check my email. I'll tell you more about dry dock later. Before we went to Virgina I had a few more adventures. Here are some more cool snorkeling pictures from the Bahamas. There was a small plane wreck at this sight. There were also scuba divers in the water. I was fascinated with their bubbles.

Katie

Snorkeling With Sharks

Okay, snorkeling with sharks. Sounds a little crazy, maybe it is, but I did it. The tour I went on was in the Bahamas again. The way they managed to keep everyone relatively safe was to put a box of food down on the ocean floor and let the sharks swarm around it, then they let us all off the boat in a group and we just sat together on the surface watching the sharks below. So it wasn’t like we were petting them or anything, but still it was a little scary. The sharks were black reef sharks and they were big. It’s hard to get perspective from the picture, but there were some six-foot sharks way down at the bottom. Once we were all out of the water, the guides brought the food up and then fed it to the sharks on the surface. It was defiantly a unique experience, a little more intense than swimming with the stingrays.

Katie

Snorkeling in Nassau

I’ve done a lot of snorkeling in the Bahamas. It’s so awesome there. I never liked Nassau. The town is pretty gross for the most part. It’s smelly and overcrowded and it just looks dingy in places. It’s not the nicest port to visit, but the snorkeling there is amazing. I got a disposable underwater camera and took some pictures of all my underwater adventures and here is the first bit. The fish were all so colorful and the reef was amazing too. The next time I went snorkeling, it was with sharks. More on that, in the next Chronicle.

Katie

Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

Holland America has it’s own private island in the Bahamas called Half Moon Cay (pronounced key.) Some of the other cruise companies have their own islands too. The company actually doesn’t own the island. They are leasing it for 99 years from the Bahamas. So it’s still under Bahamian law and everything. I was able to get off for just a quick walk on the beach and it was amazing! The sand felt like satin and the water was so clear and beautiful. And yes those are my big footprints in the sand.

Katie