Day 4 -- St. Barthelemy

Theresa saw a bird first thing when she looked out and
chased it for a picture!  (Island is St. Martin)

Another slightly lazy morning, we should have arrived about 9AM with a snorkeling tour about 9:30.  But things were running a bit behind and we had two tours.  Since it was a “tender” port, there was a lag in time to get to and from the ship.  We were a little concerned we would not have enough time between our tours and get to sit in our wet swimsuits for the whole day.  Besides, we had a super snorkeling trip for tomorrow, so we scrubbed the snorkel today and took the morning off, having a leisurely breakfast and a quick lunch before heading to the shore.

Wow....look at the super yachts!!

St. Barts is a rich person’s playground, as evidenced by the very large number of super yachts anchored near Gustavia, the Capital and main port of the island.  It is part of France, so not ‘technically’ a new country.

One of over 3500 islands in the Caribbean?

Lots of sailboats...people having fun?

The main street by the port.  Lots of really expensive shopping.

We all tour in a yellow submarine...a yellow submarine...

The afternoon tour was a semi-submersible boat with glass bottom windows for sightseeing.  It was supposed to go over the same area where the snorkeling was this morning and, since Bill doesn't like being wet, we thought -- win/win!

It was…not all that we had hoped.  We were the first people downstairs and Theresa was not going to the front of the sub, feeling a little seasick just looking at the view.  The windows were triple paned, but they were delaminated, so they had various areas that changed in refraction, making them hard to see through in some places.  Well, Bill was in the very front where the delam was worst, and really made it hard to see.  Since Theresa stayed near the back, in case of a need of early exit, her view was actually much better!  Still, we saw lots of little fish, barracuda, lots of star fish, some coral, a ship wreck, and actually saw 4 sea turtles. 

The face that says, "Yeah...No!!"

The front/bottom of the boat and lots of bubbles and foam!

One of many "coral" starter packs.

School of fish.

The underside of the "semi-submarine".

One is ours, and the other...is not.

Dude!!  Nice helicopter!!

The big rectangle window is ours.

After the tour we hastened back to the ship (since we had already walked around prior to our tour) and took a little down time for 15-20 minutes, before heading to our trivia team.  There were some tough questions, but we managed 11 points (out of 18) and that was enough for 1^st place!!

We met a couple for dinner at 6:30 and had a really nice dinner and visit.  (But no pictures, as that seemed gauche.)  A little night cap and we called it a night (well, sort of early).

St. Barthelemy Island.