my socks no longer smell like beer!

we survived yet another trip during hurricane season! here are some highlights from the hamilton-dekker cruise 2007 aboard the carnival valor:

• day 1: depart miami- we'd arrived in miami the day before and stayed at the radisson downtown for uber cheap (thanks to hotwire.com), enjoyed a long walk and leisurely breakfast and then headed to the ship. onboard, we lined up for the muster drill (to inform us where to go in case of emergency. see lifejacket photos- these canadians were melting in all that tropical heat!)


• day 2: at sea


• day 3: grand cayman- after a short stop in hell (name of the town), we went to the turtle farm (uber exciting for jamie) and swimming with sting rays in the wild! it was the most amazing thing and i hope i never forget it.


• day 4: isla roatan, honduras: i was up early and saw dolphins swimming next to the ship! we ventured out on our own. it was very obvious we were in a 3rd world country and the cruise lines hadn't commercialized the port yet. it was a little rough, but very naturally beautiful. it was kinda nice seeing how people really live- kids were getting out of school, playing in the water, and laughing at us tourists sloppin through the downpouring rain.


• day 5: belize- we took a crowded boat ride down the river wallace where we searched for manatees, saw oodles of iguanas, monkeys, bats, and vegetation. it was cool to see these animals really in the wild- not in a tourist zoo type place. then we took a bus ride to altun ha mayan ruins.


• day 6: cozumel, mexico (we were originally scheduled to go to costa maya but the hurricane destroyed most of it) - we snorkled and walked 5 miles to the shopping district. and we found the exact same mexican vanilla we'd purchased on our honeymoon- it's so yummy!


• day 7: at sea headed back to miami- took a tour of one galley (kitchen- the ship has four!), saw my beloved warm chocolate melting cake being prepared (i had it 6 out of 7 nights for dessert!). just before dinner, the ship got a call from the us coastguard about a situation we had to stop and check out. we picked up 10 cuban refugees in their "chug" (homemade boat)- it was kinda sad and i sorta hoped they'd refuse to get onboard but a storm hit that night so it was probably a good thing they did get on the ship. the whole "wet foot" policy is summed up like this: if cubans can make it to us soil, then they can be legally processed. if they are picked up or helped at sea, they get shipped back to cuba... unless they can prove that they'll be persecuted upon their return. it's all sorta sketchy but that's my understanding of it. later at night, during a fairly heavy rainstorm, the cubans were transferred to a us coastguard ship. here's an extremely brief newstory on the cuban refugees we picked up: http://www.wftv.com/news/14188056/detail.html and some interesting reading on the topic of policy re: cuban refugees if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_feet,_dry_feet_policy-.


• day 8: flights back home were loooong. we waited five hours in the airport for our "short" 45min flight from ft. lauderdale to orlando which ended up being delayed because of a storm in orlando, resulting in us waiting for over an hour on the runway. they held our connecting flight for us but two of our suitcases didn't make it onboard. (the ones with the alcohol- suspicious no?) our luggage came on the next flight and was delivered to us at home on monday intact except for one bottle of beer. i'd packed socks (clean ones!) around them to help prevent breakage but... i had some pretty wet and smelly socks!

it was a fantastic trip thanks to God, thanks to the cruise line and thanks to the dekkers for being such great travel companions. it's good to be home and finally caught up on the laundry!