I never get tired of the Caribbean, or it's beautiful beaches, but after several days of sun and sand, we all decided that it would be good to take a day off, and this was the perfect location. The town was mere steps from our cruise ship port, and it had plenty of fun to offer.
The six of us cousins decided to visit the Pirates Treasure shipwreck and pirate museum.
Of course Stacey had a drink in her hand! She's really enjoying her vacation! 😂
Pirate Dan!!!
In the gift shop of this museum they had some of the most beautiful local art.
The museum is incredibly informational, with very knowledgeable staff. One of the staff members is actually a treasure hunter who has recovered many of the artifacts found in this museum. UNESCO estimates that there are over 3 million ship wrecks world wide. Some of the artifacts are restored to pristine condition and others a left as they were found with remnants of the sea still visible.
They had a hurricane simulation machine that Steve decided to try. He said the force of the wind is unbelievable.
We also had a chance to try Zeus, the machine that is used for recovering underwater treasures.
Steve also tried a virtual reality treasure recovery.
We learned knot tying.
and tried some rum!
Toward the end of our museum experience, the treasure hunter opened up his bottle cabinet and began showing the contents one at a time, allowing us to hold them and look at them up close. It was an amazing collection of bottles that had been recovered after hundreds of years under water.
When we finished at the ship wreck and pirate museum, we headed to a little marina restaurant called the Fat Turtle. It was in the perfect location near the cruise ship terminal.
Just over the rail from our table was an iguana enjoying an afternoon soak and lots of beautiful reef fish.
Prices at this little place were good for the Caribbean, and they had a nice food menu as well.
Conch fritters and beer. Now that's hard to beat.
The view from our table.
We were all pleasantly surprised by the Pirates Treasure. It was a great way to spend our morning in St. Thomas. I also highly recommend the Fat Turtle. It was a great day with Steve's family!
And then we had a great sail away from this beautiful island!
The cruise ship port in Antigua is another nice port, where you could easily walk into the town of St. Johns if you wanted. We opted for another excursion at this port, this time it was a hop-on, hop-off water taxi that would provide a ride to two different beaches for the day.
As we headed out on the catamaran, we passed the Old Fort James.
This huge ship was anchored off shore. It looked like a big military ship, but we later found out that it was a privately owned yacht.
We all decided that we could handle living here, but unfortunately, it wasn't for sale.
The first stop for our water taxi was this beautiful beach. We could either stay here all day, or head back part way through the day to the other beach.
We got ourselves some front row chairs and umbrellas and made ourselves comfortable.
The local beer of Antigua.
Dan and Stacey enjoying champagne that they brought along.
The "Lady D" was supposed to be back to pick us up at 2:00 for our 4:30 end of boarding time, but as we waited for her return, we started getting a little worried, and then a little more worried, because time was ticking away, and it still hadn't returned. We started trying to call the ship to see if they knew anything about the late return of our excursion boat, but couldn't get through. Finally at 3:30, the "Lady D" showed up to pick us up for our return to the ship. We aren't sure what happened, but were pretty sure they had some sort of issue that caused them to be so late. We made it back to our ship in time to sail away, so it ended up not being a problem.
Someone must have complained about our excursion, because Norweign ended up giving us a partial credit on our account. Either way, we had a great day on our little beach, and re-boarded the ship in time to continue on to our next port. All in all, it was a great day!
