Sailing day
Trip Start
Dec 31, 2005
1
8
11
Trip End
Jan 12, 2006
Tobago Cays, Grenadines, Grenadines/St Vincent
Thursday, January 5, 2006
We're just about to head off to a new beach to tire out the kids - more later!
We had toyed with the idea of doing two days at sea, and after our experience on Thursday, we'll be happy with one. If many of the repeat customers are parents with toddlers (as the new owners of the Frienship Rose told us), we would like to meet these super parents.
The kids must have sensed that an exciting day was in store, because they both woke up around 5am, ready and raring to go. We arrived at the jetty, ready to be ferried to our ship at 7am sharp. Once under way, we tucked into our breakfast of fresh fruit, muffins and pains-aux-chocolat (uh, excuse me, what happened to those banana pancakes with nutmeg syrup from the brochure?). Zoya was pretty miserable for the first couple of hours: very sleepy, wanting to nap, but too much going on. Paula took her down to "the hold" and managed to get her to sleep. Daddy would have, but he suffers from "the Arnold glass stomach" and had to be able to see the horizon. Apparently Liam has inherited the same tummy, hurling his breakfast all over Matty and a young German man's napsack. Young German man and girlfriend smiled politely, and moved to the other side of the ship. Nancy asked our mute deck-hand for a glass of water for Liam, which he interpreted as "baby needs a crib", and brought one up from down below. Liam happily napped in the crib, regaining his colour in the process.
We arrived at one of the islands in the uninhabited Tobago Cays and ferried to the beach. The kids had perked up by this time and had a blast running up and down the beach. Zoya pointed out the topless Russian sun-bathers' "boobs", but resisted the temptation to march up and ask for "mulk, peeze". Matty hopped back on the shuttle to do some snorkling, and with the urging and pointing of our mute deck-hand, came very close to seeing a shark.
Back to the ship for lunch. Once again, kiddies were in much better humour. Zoya hoovered half of Mama and Dada's lunch, and then took to circling the deck in search of newly plated victims to be begged from. The kids treated their parents to a workout of "ring around the ship deck" ("Liam, Liam, Liam - SLOW!"). Zoya and Liam were befriended by Emma, a three and a half year-old youngest of four from Cambridge, who amazed us all with her vocabulary and maturity ("Zoya, that isn't the proper way to put the top on (the bottle of sunscreen). If you don't share it, I will take your hat and won't give it back to you forever"). She really was sweet, and the kids enjoyed hugging her. Emma was insistent at the end of the voyage that we needn't say goodbye, since we still had to take the "speedboat" and she was going to sit between the babies.
Sadly, at the ship lay anchor, the tired passengers bustled for position like a scene out of "Titanic", and we were separated from our new friend. As she saw us pulling away, she broke into tears.
Check out pics and two video clips from the cruise!
Comments
That's quite a day you had, gang!
We enjoyed the pictures, video and the newly-expanded (and in retrospect, probably more amusing than right then)text. I have to fess up to it being the Robertson glass stomach and I truly feel for all you horizon-seekers.
Glad that Matty didn't experience close encounters with a shark. Dad points out that some are quite friendly and harmless. Not sure I'd want to test out which is which in snorkel attire. I come from the Peter Pan school of 'Never Smile at a Crocodile'. JR