everglades...

so the cruise had an excursion\airport transfer to the everglades... it was only partially a tourist trap, but still, it was fun to get on an airboat and go through what seemed to be some tame parts of the everglades to me... (tame cause you still could see some of the taller buildings in fort lauderdale) so, the only gator we saw was a little one sunning himself right next to the boat dock... then we got on our air boat, and went off into the 'glades for a little look, which was cool. and then, we came back and had to listen to a talk about how the seminoles were so smart and blah blah, never beaten by the us... blah blah blah... but, it was amusing. good way to kill a morning... get out in the country and see some everglades stuff... my mom did that when she was a girl growing up in florida... and yet, they never took us kids down to that part of florida... but mom took me this time, so, it was nice... and then we went to the airport and flew home, and spring break was over.

nassau, bahamas

nassau was the first and last stop on the cruise where our aquatic excursions actually took place... by this time, i had written 33 pages of my thesis... so, it was high time i got wet. i'd spent almost a week in the caribbean, and had yet to get in the water! which is pretty crazy... especially for me... we didnt have a ton of time in nassau, only an afternoon, so i only got to do my snorkeling excursion.... no roaming over the town looking at old buildings, which was kind of sad, cause it looked liked a good place for that... snorkeling was cool, got to see a ton of fish, and chase them all around... that said, the bahamas probably would not be my first choice for a destination... i'm not sure why... probably because i would prefer antigua or barbados...

Tortola, BVI

the british virgin islands are to sailing what st andrews is to golf... well, sort of... its like the place to sail... tortola is the big island in the archipelago... and my mom and i were excited to come to tortola, we were going to spend the day on a sailboat sailing the BVI... unfortunately, the bloody weather wasnt cooperative... despite the fact that the waters around tortola were filled with sailboats... and the water looked pretty calm to me, the excursion got canceled. so, i set out on foot to see road town... let me tell you, unless youre provisioning a boat for sailing... or an offshore banker... theres not much to do in road town... in fact, road town is so boring, there are signs all over town, where they are proudly announcing the future site of a traffic light... this is also the prettiest building in all of road town... and, compared to other caribbean architecture, its somewhat lacking... road town, in general gives the impression that it was cheaply built during the 1960s and 70s... terribly boring, low slung modernist concrete sadness mostly. which is sad really, because the scenic and natural beauty of the archipelago is unmatched.

Sint Maarten

divided into french and dutch zones: sint maarten is the dutch side of the island... saint martin the french the past few years, the waterfront of philipsburg, sint maarten has undergone dramatic changes, and it has affected the island in a multiple of ways. the picture to the left is sint maarten in december 2003, the picture to the right is the same beach in march of 2008. the water is cloudier today, because the port is being expanded to boardwalk, with restaurants, bars, and all that... the high winds and heavy seas canceled every water related excursion from our cruise ship... in sint maarten it seemed justified, but it later got to the point, house more cruise ships. its hard to tell in these two pictures, but, what once was just a beach with a shack for a restaurant under some palms, is now, a drove the where it seemed the 'tallys would cancel excursions if there was any sort of wind... so i rented a car to see the island, i coast road all the way around... the seas were exceedingly rough.. they made this tranquil caribbean island look like a place full of awesome surf... much like the north shore of puerto rico looked that way the day before... the first place i stopped after renting the car was a nature park somewhere on the northeast side of the island... there was a rooster and a hen hanging out in the parking lot, so i took the big difference between philippsburg and marigot is that while they both cater to tourists... philippsburg has expanded drastically in the past five years. marigot seems to have retained alot of its provincial charms, once you get behind front street, or rue du frontage , if you parle vous frances... high above the town of marigot sits fort louis... according to the sign next to the old broken down gate, the fort's most notable engagement was in 1808, when the fort beat back an assault by several royal navy ships that were short of coffee. they attacked the fort, and several of the officers and men were captured, and the ships, a frigate , a sloop , and a brig were beaten off... they neglected to mention that in 1808, the british had controlled the seas for 3 years and siezed every island worth anything already... marigot and phillipsburg are not terribly far from each other, and when i got back to phillipsburg, i had a bit of an embarrassing fiasco. i had used the last bits of cash i had to tip a dude in marigot for helping me find a parking spot... which, was actually really hard, everything was full, but i found a spot next to the police station... only in a french colony would the police station be closed on a tuesday... i used the last bits of cash i had, for that, and then to buy a post card and to mail it... something like 3 dollars to send a postcard from marigot to america! because of the euro... so i had to fill up the rental car with gas... but, i didnt have cash, i figured a shell station would take my credit or shell card... WRONG. nope, so i had to go borrow five dollars more from the dude at the rental car place... so i could pay the gas station dude... so yeah, that was frustrating... after that, i walked around phillipsburg. a major change is that the water taxis that were free in 2003 now cost like 5 bucks each way... so, i had to walk from the dock to the town... which was a decent little hike. but, i was rewarded with a pretty nice view of some fishing boats overturned next to some palm trees... i'm skeptical as to whether the boat is actually used or if its just a display from the tourist association... the pretty old building landmark in phillipsburg is the old dutch courthouse... as the sun set, i sat on my deck aboard the fortuna and watched two old america's cup boats, one of whom was stars and stripes race in the distance... which was a nice way to end the day...

san juan

about 230 on tuesday march 18th we caught sight of san juan... a city, i'll forever have fond memories of... as soon as i got off the ship and turned on my cell phone, i got an email from Lieutenant Caldwell saying that i'd gotten accepted for officer candidate school and that by the end of this year, i'll be at sea aboard a us navy ship... san juan was spanish until the spanish american war, when we took puerto rico along with cuba, the philippines, and guam... so, san juan is an old spanish colonial city, and it has some of the best preserved fortifications in the Caribbean. the morro castle at the mouth of the entrance to the harbour is imposing, situated on a bluff overlooking the entrance to the bay... with a shore battery on the other side of the entrance. the british never captured san juan. they took havanna during the 7 years war, but never conquered san juan. there is a cemetery near el morro that has all the tombs above ground like at new orleans, it over looks the water. i was pretty ambitious with my time in san juan, or ship's port visit was only 6 hours, we arrived about 3, and left about 9... it was good though, i walked all the way around the city, by the city walls and then explored inside the city looking for a mailbox to mail some postcards i had written... and taken pictures... including a few cool ones at night... alot of the buildings have been renovated and are brightly coloured. the city is charming at night lots of narrow alleyways lit up... this particular alleyway reminded me of lisbon, and then, on my way back to the ship, thoroughly exhausted from walking around the town for 5 hours i snapped this picture of the costa fortuna moored alongside the quayside.

first day at sea: st patricks day

fort lauderdale is a good ways off from the caribbean... more than 800 miles, and probably over 1000 from san juan. that gave us roughly a day and a half at sea before we got to san juan... i spent most of my time enjoying our rather large deck on the stern, or trying to work on my writing in the cabin... i also did a large amount of reading for my class on european empires in asia, and a book on the portuguese royal family during their time in rio de janeiro... the seas were heavy, and the winds were strong, so i spent most of my time on our own deck instead of by one of the pools or dealing with crowds... i didnt see a need to. the ship is certainly decorated interstingly... the main bar area looks like it is something from off a felini movie set. picture below left, and to the right of that picture is a picture of the main lobby, with costa cruise liners in paper hanging from the ceiling... and an italian ensign... which whilst in port fluttered over our private deck.

to san juan...

so, for springbreak, i went on a cruise out of fort lauderdale with my mom... but, before i started the cruise i spent two days in fort lauderdale enjoying it... well, the plan was to spend two days there... but with the vagaries of air travel during spring break... lets just say after a day in houston, i wound up in orlando at 10pm... that was highly stressful and frustrating, but, nathalie drove up to orlando to get me. so yeah, then we spent saturday on the beach... i'm not quite sure that in the future, i'd go to south florida during spring break... not because of the crowds, but because leaving on a friday, all the flights were overbooked... and it just was crazy, when i missed my flight because of a delay out of tulsa because of mandatory crew rest... that was a bit ridiculous... but, nathalie was a sport and drove to orlando to get me. we spent saturday hanging out, watched the cruise ships all sortie out of port everglades, and then got ready for dinner... nathalie lost her cell phone somewhere on the beach that day too... then, sunday, my mom flew down, and her and i got on the cruise ship to go to san juan... and nathalie flew back to tulsa. we boarded the cruise ship, and went to our huge deck and watched the ship leave port everglades... the first few hours at sea headin directly away from land due west, gave us a chance to watch the sun set at sea... after dinner. it was nice to watch the high rise hotels and condominiums of fort lauderdale disappear into the distance.

jacksonville, florida

on dec. 30th, my friend keith imed me, and was like, want to go to the gatorbowl to watch texas tech play uva. i was like, yeah, lets go. i'd been to the jacksonville area once, when i was young, we went to see the castillo de san marcos in san augustine, and i think fort clinch in fernandina beach. we stayed at amelia island plantation, which was nice. jacksonville has a nice little downtown, it reminded me a bit like norfolk... only with a significantly smaller naval presence. in norfolk the naval presence is omnipresent and heavily visible. in jacksonville, the presence is more difficult to spot. both downtowns are sort of run down, and developers are attepting to build places to go along the river... in jacksonville, jacksonville landings is the place, from what i was told, the only business that has stayed there for a long time is hooters. in norfolk, they have a similar place, with little boats that cross the river to let you park on the far side, or to just ride to see the skyline. the problem really lies in the collapse of downtown urban areas in the 60s-80s... and now, it is a bit of a struggle to bring people back. it's a struggle, but its going on in every city in america. jacksonville, reminded me of norfolk, but, it also seemed like a kind of poor man's miami. with the st marks river filling in for biscayne bay and the bridges showing you the nice skyline... miami's is larger, but, jacksonville has some attractively designed buildings. one cool thing jacksonville had is a large number of attractive steel girder bridges over the river... which was cool. i wonder if they do a boat tour of the bridges of jacksonville... like they do in porto.