While I had initially felt bad about not snorkeling (no, I haven't yet had enough), I felt better once we were on the island. It was really windy, and the waves were very strong. Even more surprising was the 6" high clean edge of sand against the boardwalk by the feeding pier, as if the sidewalk had been shoveled, like with snow. We found out that Princess Cays had been closed to ships for two days (Sunday and Monday) because the surf had washed right up over the sea wall and a foot of sand had been deposited on the boardwalk. We saw several beach chairs partially buried in the sand too. They had had one heck of a storm, the same front that had so dramatically dropped the temperatures.
The sun accompanied by a cool breeze was so inviting that we skipped sitting in the shade and both sat in loungers in the sun. It was deceptive...we were never hot, but I did get a bit cooked, and for the first time tonight am using some aloe that I had packed this winter.
We ate lunch on the island, and then the wind seemed to pick up even more. It seemed prudent to start to head back toward the tenders, but first G dropped off a bag with all of our soda sticker tumblers and the soaps from Seafarers with the family of a local boy, Sean, who had led us back to Princess Cays once last winter when we were on a wandering walk around the area.
As a result, G and I returned to the ship on different tenders, and I was lucky (?) enough to be on one where we hit the waves so hard that water came in through the opening in the roof above the tender pilot and the engine died. Without power, we were totally at the mercy of those large waves...but only for a couple of minutes before he got the engine started again. Such an adventure!
We spent some time in a hot tub -a last hurrah- before showering and heading up to Skywalkers for sailaway with Jenny and Bill. It was so fun to share our last cruise with them, and Jenny is trying to talk us into taking a Caribbean cruise on the new ship, the Royal Princess, with them next November. We'll see...
Finally it was time for our last dinner with Sutti and Somphong, something I'd been dreading all cruise. We took our final big bottle of champagne and shared it with Steve and Kathy from the next table, and Sutti surprised us all with gifting them and us with handcrafted metal art depicting the Thai dance that we never got to see them perform this year (don't get me started on that!). He used scissors to cut apart soda cans and a pencil to press designs into the metal. He is incredibly talented. We are really touched. Incredibly touched.
Honestly, dinners with Sutti and Somphong were the highlight of every day on the Emerald Princess this winter.
Then it was time to go back to the cabin to finish packing. It's 9:30pm and G is still at it; I'm mostly done, and just have to pack the items I'll need tomorrow morning. We are spending tomorrow night at a hotel in Fort Lauderdale before we fly out Friday morning, so we're able to be a little lax with our liquids until then. We hope to head out again tonight to say some more goodbyes, but while G is packing I'm stuck on the bed and so decided to use the time wisely to compose this post.
It seems like just a month since we first embarked on the Emerald Princess, and just a couple of months since the last night of last winter's cruises, me tucked on one side of a bed typing a post while G packed.
Life is so good. I just wish it wasn't so fast too.
:-)
Photo 1: the shrubbery on Princess Cays has almost recovered from Hurricane Sandy
Photo 2: the sand where it was shoveled from the boardwalk near the feeding pier
Photo 3: look how far from shore the ship had to anchor today!
Photo 4: it was definitely low tide!
Photo 5: a sailor braves the waves