Cardoe wrote this late at night:
As some people might have noticed (i.e. Steve’s e-mail asking me if I was still alive), I went on vacation last week. My girlfriend, Rachel and I took a vacation aboard the MS Westerdam to the Caribbean. We visited Grand Turk, Tortola, St. Maarten, and Half Moon Cay during our trip.
Grand Turk was nothing more then a glorified dock with some basic shopping on it. However since it is sparsely populated and only really a tourist destination for the last year or so, it is still very clean and new. Rachel and I did some power snorkeling (they give you a little motorized machine that does the swimming for you) and explored several reefs, where we saw many amazing fish and sea creatures. Some of which I’ve only seen in expensive fish store show aquariums and museums while others I had never seen before. We then went out to the edge of the continental shelf and looked at the 7,000 ft drop off. You could see about 50 ft down before it was nothing but black, however the part of the sea wall you could see was amazing with sea life.
Tortola was a bit larger and much more mountainous then Grand Turk, however it didn’t compare to it’s near by relative St. Thomas, which we sailed by and got some good pictures of surrounding islands as we passed. It’s also interesting to note that St. Thomas clearly has AT&T (Cingular) and T-Mobile cell service available and we were able to get signal on our ship as it passed. The dock in Tortola was in Road Town which is the capital of the British Virgin Islands. Road Town was very busy town that had some tourist interest but was clearly not just geared towards tourism. It was an interesting town to walk around but did not offer too much to do after a few short hours of wandering. We found ourselves returning back to the ship early for some R&R.
Next we came to Sint Maarten, as the Dutch spelling goes. The reason I chose the Dutch spelling is that we docked in Philipsburg. Philipsburg is very geared towards tourist shopping and it was here I was able to buy Rachel a present and get a new lens for my Rebel XTi. I have previously visited St. Maarten however my memory of the island is very vague. Initially we took a choppy water taxi ride to downtown and grabbed a cab with friends we met on the ship to the French side. The cab ride was pretty crappy since the cab was really beat up, lacked A/C and the cab driver insisted once we reached the French side that we needed to do his island tour for 4 times the price he agreed to just take us to the French side for various reasons he kept repeating. He did manage to stop at one very nice scenic overlook and we stopped and took pictures. I vaguely remembered the view and upon returning home I found I had a picture taken in the very same spot from almost the same angle from 10 years prior. Upon arriving to Margot, the French side capital, we had finally had enough of the cabby and decided to trek it on our own. Margot appeared to be much cleaner and newer then Philipsburg. The roads were very well kept and freshly paved. There also wasn’t the random run down building with shady looking characters sitting in front in the downtown area. We ended up getting out right in front of an open air market where we immediately found out everything was priced in euros and US dollars, contrary to what our cabby told us. However, no merchant was willing to negotiate in dollars, only in euros. Guess that’s what happens when the dollar is weak and the euro is strong. After browsing this market we found a taxi stand and all the taxis were brand new US cars. We got into a 2007 Ford Explorer for the ride back to Philipsburg for the same price it cost us to get to Margot and as an added kicker, the driver said he’ll take us on the scenic route on the other side of the island that we came, so all in all we got the island tour and a nice ride back for the same price. Upon returning to Philipsburg we unloaded our purchases on the ship and Rachel and I set out to buy her present and once more took a ride in the water taxi. By now the weather was turning for the worse as Tropical Storm Noel was approaching. The waves in the bay were all white-capping and varying up to 6 ft. As we rode out we watched another water taxi get swamped by a wave and our pilot announced that the downtown pier was closed and he’d have to let us off early. Soon as he pulled into a marina, it began to rain so Rachel and I trekked downtown in the rain and began to shop for her present. We found exactly what she was looking for and after a bit of haggling, I managed to settle on a decent price and we returned to the ship.
Now we had a day at sea which ended in the final formal evening of the trip. It was on this day that I was going to give Rachel her present, which was a diamond necklace. The significance was that I was going to ask her to marry me. Now most people would say, “But shouldn’t it be a ring?” and I would answer yes, however, there was an old family ring waiting for us when we returned to the US so the necklace was my present to her. Since she kind of new it was coming since I explained to her that I was buying her the necklace but not giving it to her right away, that it was a symbolic gift, I had to still figure out how to make it a surprise. I had stored the necklace inside the safe in the room but couldn’t find a single moment to break free to retrieve it (if you ask her about this now she will giggle and nod that she didn’t let me get out of arms reach the whole trip). So when went to play Bingo, I managed to convince her to wait in line with our friends from the ship while I returned to our room to get some cash for the Bingo cards. I retrieved the necklace and hid it in my pocket. After Bingo I tried to convince her to come out onto a secluded part of the outside deck that viewed the ocean but she wanted to get ready for diner. Immediately after getting back to the room she inquired about the necklace and I had told her that I had been trying to give it to her for over a day and couldn’t break free and showed her that I had it in my pocket. So in an attempt to regain the element of surprise I clearly opened the safe in front of her and appeared to place it inside, however I slipped it into my pocket. Once we were ready for dinner I detoured us out onto the outside deck, much to her complaints about her hair being messed up by the wind, and pointed out at the water and said, “Look!”. While she looked, I got down on one knee and proposed. She accepted and so now we’re engaged! As a hint to anyone out there reading this, remember to get the box out of your pocket before kneeing, I made the mistake and was asked, “What are you doing?” Before I managed to get the necklace out of my pocket.
Lastly, we came to Half Moon Cay, which is also known as Little San Salvador Island and is privately owned by the cruise line. It had a beautiful artificial beach, which had some decent snorkeling and amenities. It was here that Rachel got me on my first horse ever. The experience was a bit scary since my horse decided to trot almost immediately and when we went up hill he decided to rear up and leap up the hill, all this while riding English. I was clutching on white knuckled. Once we finished that ride they removed the saddle and put bare back pads on, and actually switched out my horse for a much smaller horse. We were going to go swimming with the horses, that’s all I knew. Almost immediately as I swung myself on the horse one of the handlers smacked my horse in the ass and it took off for the water with the rest of the crowd of people following. Later I found out that the horse I was on was much too small and on top of that I was sitting to far back. I knew I was on a small horse when the water came up to about everyone’s knees while the water came up to almost my mid-chest. To add to this problem, I had no clue where to sit and when they told me to bring my feet back, the horse’s hindquarters connected with the bottoms of my feet and nearly kicked me off the horse. At this point I clutched on for dear life until we got back to the finishing area.
All in all it was a great trip and we met two people that sat across from us, Paul and Christy, and spent a major of our time with them and became great friends. Paul and Christy were actually on their honeymoon, so obviously Rachel and I will have to take our honeymoon on a cruise and invite Paul and Christy.
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