Christmas/Anniversary Cruise 2021: Day 6, Day at sea

Robbie and I had been having great Christmas/Anniversary Caribbean cruise! We had an awesome day exploring Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. We had an enjoyable day in San Juan, Puerto Rico, although it was a really hot day. I really had fun taking night photos in Old San Juan. What a great view of the Caribbean from Mountain Top in Charlotte Amalie, U.S. Virgin Islands. On day 6 of our cruise, December 28, 2021, we spent the full day at sea on our way to the Bahamas. I woke up to another beautiful sunrise. I slipped out to our veranda to take some photos.








We had our breakfast in our cabin, enjoying the view from our veranda window. One of the great things about cruising, it could also be argued that it’s one of the bad things about cruising, is the food. There is plenty of delicious food available, as much as you like, pretty much when ever you like. Typically on a cruise I generally gain about 5 lbs! Personally I enjoy eating, so on a cruise, I like eating the tasty food that I would not normally eat at home. Unfortunately, this means that I usually eat more food than I usually do at home. To offset eating more we like to walk as much as we can. On shore we like to do walking tours and on at sea days we like to walk around the promenade deck. Holland America Line has a tradition of doing a walk to raise money for cancer research. For a donation to the cause we get an On Deck for a Cause tee shirt and a walk around the deck. We have done this on several of our past cruises.

After our walk we celebrated our anniversary with some champagne!


On a cruise there are dozens of things to do to keep you occupied. You could do the entire cruise and never leave the ship. There is a small shopping area with lots of expensive jewelry. Eating! There are all types of classes, you can learn about cooking, making towel animals and art. Eating! There are usually some dance classes but for some reason there were none on this cruise. Eating! You can take a tour of the kitchen to see how all of the tasty food is made. We did that on another cruise, it was pretty cool. Eating! There is a library for reading, a casino for gambling. Eating! There is all types of spa treatments and a gym. Eating! Not to mention the pools and hot tubs! Many other things as well and Eating! Here are some photos of just a few of the places around the ship.
































Christmas/Anniversary Cruise 2021: Day 5, St. Thomas U.S. Virgin Islands

Day five of our Christmas/Anniversary cruise, December 27, 2021. Today is the anniversary portion of our cruise, Robbie and my 15th wedding anniversary! We were sailing into St. Thomas U.S.V.I at sunrise. I went up to the upper promenade deck to watch the sunrise as we sailed into the islands. The islands were bathed in the warm golden hour glow as our ship glided past. The pilot boat slipped alongside and our St. Thomas pilot jumped onboard to guide our ship into the port.












The town of Charlotte Amalie was about two miles from the cruise port. We could have just walked into town from the port. We thought that it would be nice to get a birds eye view of the island. We booked a shore excursion that took us to Mountain Top, the highest point on St. Thomas. From Mountain Top there is a great view of the blue water of Magens Bay, the best beach on St Thomas. We met our tour group on the dock by the ship.




The gift shop at Mountain Top claims to be the home of the banana daiquiri. So naturally Robbie and I had to have an anniversary banana daiquiri! Of course the scenic overlook is through the gift shop.









We made a quick photo stop at Drake’s Seat, a scenic overlook where we got a nice view of the port and Charlotte Amalie on our way into town.

We arrived in Charlotte Amalie near Fort Christian, a fort built by Denmark and Norway in the 1600’s. We were on our own to explore the town. Our guide and safari bus driver would be back in 1 hour to take anyone who was ready back to the ship. Then again in another hour for a ride back to the ship, so we had two hours to explore. The historic town of Charlotte Amalie has cobblestone streets, lined by colorful colonial buildings with big wooden doors and iron hardware. It’s not hard to imagine the streets filled with pirates drinking grog and singing Yo-ho-ho! Unfortunately, a lot of these beautiful old buildings are filled with high end, high pressure jewelry stores. I think there were over a dozen jewelry stores in a three block area. That’s great if you are looking for jewelry but we did not need any jewelry today.







We needed to get off of the main street. There are several really pretty stone alleyways with shops and restaurants. In one of the alleyways we found Glady’s Cafe. We were getting hungry so we stopped in for a bite. It was Robbie and my anniversary! We were married 15 years ago in Jamaica. To calibrate I had the jerk chicken and a Red Stripe beer! It was great to be back in the Caribbean with my beautiful Angel on our anniversary! I love you honey!







We had a nice leisurely lunch and we missed our ride back to the ship. We needed to walk off all of the wonderful food that we had been eating on the cruise, so we took a nice long walk back to the ship. When you get back to the ship there is always cold wate and lemon-aid and my favorite the cold damp towel! We had a great day exploring Charlotte Amalie! The next day was a day at sea on our way to the Bahamas and then back to Florida.






Christmas/Anniversary Cruise 2021: Day 3, Part 3, Christmas Day! Fort San Felipe, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

After a great tour of the Isabel de Torres National park, our minibus took the roller coaster ride down the mountain, back to Puerto Plata. As we were walking and driving through Puerto Plata, it was nice to see that most of the people all over Puerto Plata were wearing masks during this time of covid. We stopped along the Malecon de Puerto Plata, a boulevard along the coast. We got out and stretched our legs on the beach for a bit.



We took a short drive down the road to Fort San Felipe. The stone fort was built by King Felipe II of Spain, in the mid 1500s, to protect Puerto Plata from pirates and privateers. This was a quick photo stop, we needed to get back to Amber Cove.





We returned to Amber Cove to board our ship to start our next adventure. We had fun spending Christmas Day in the Dominican Republic. Our next port will be in San Juan, Puerto Rico!








Christmas/Anniversary Cruise 2021: Day 3, Part 2, Christmas Day! Mount Isabela de Torres, Dominican Republic

We had a great time on our walking tour of Puerto Plata. We returned to our minibus to climb the mountain! It was a long steep winding road to the top of Mount Isabel de Torres. We got a good look at the beautiful countryside along the way. The higher we climbed the better the views became. Towards the top, the road was very steep! Our minibus was having a hard time. Rambo told us that we would probably need to get out and push! Luckily the minibus made it to the top without our help. When we arrived at the top we were literally in the clouds. We were there to see the Christ statue on the peak. It was barley visible through the clouds. Puerto Plata below us was totally obscured. The Christ the Redeemer Statue is a smaller replica of the same statue in Rio de Janeiro. The clouds were moving rapidly and we were able to get nice views of the statue and Puerto Plata below. There is a cable car from Puerto Plata to the peak of Isabel de Torres. It was temporarily closed.











The Isabel de Torres National park has a beautiful botanical garden. After we took in the views of the valley below, we took a walk through the garden. The stone pathway wound its way through the beautiful lush garden. We came to a small cave. Rambo said he brought a group of 14 here and only 13 came out! He was kidding, I think….













There was a replica of an early Dominican home complete with its own herb garden. Rambo was very excited to tell us all about how the early Dominicans lived. He plucked herbs from the garden and invited everyone to smell how fresh they were. He was really having fun showing us how they used a device that looked like an old butter churn to grind coffee. He was very funny shaking his booty as he ground the coffee. He was telling us all about the house and how they lived. The roof was made from the base of palm fronds. It was a very interesting place. The path wound its way down the hill and was fairly steep! We were worried that we were going to need to go back up the hill! We were happy to see that Rambo had the driver bring the mini bus down the hill to meet us.








SpaceX Crew 3 launch

The SpaceX Crew 3 launch, transporting 4 astronauts to the International Space Station. Photographed from the Project Gemini Memorial at Space View Park in Titusville Florida. This launch had been postponed several times. I picked this location for the original launch date. Once I pick a location I try to stick with it. I used this location one other time, but there was heavy cloud cover and the rocket disappeared shortly after takeoff. So I wanted to give this location another try. There was light rain falling as I left the house, not a good sign. The rain was supposed to stop by launch time, but what about the clouds? When I arrived, the moon was covered by clouds. It was looking like I may have a repeat of the previous cloud situation. As launch time got closer the moon and a few stars became visible, I was hopeful. The sky was pitch black and it was hard to see if the clouds were going to be an issue or not. As soon as the rocket ignited it lit up a huge cloud bank! Shortly after lifting off the rocket disappeared into the clouds. A collective “awwwww” arose from the crowd. I waited and waited, it peeked out and was gone again, finally the rocked reappeared, although partially covered by clouds. The clouds are not always bad. A good night launch photo looks better with some clouds. You just don’t want too many. If I try this location again and there is another cloud issue, I will begin to think the twins have a cloud curse. The area around the Gemini Monument was recently renovated. They installed some new LED lights. This is a really dark area and needed some light. From a photography standpoint, the lights created a bunch of crazy lens flairs and a shadow from my lens hood. I took the lens hood off for a test photo, this made way more lens flairs. I kept the lens hood on and dealt with the shadow. Over all I was pretty happy with my image and it was a beautiful launch to watch.

Christmas/Anniversary Caribbean Cruise: Day 2, Day at sea.
The first full day of our cruise, Christmas Eve, December 24, 2021. We spent the full day at sea enjoying the ship. We started the day with a nice breakfast in bed! Well not really in bed but we could’ve if we had wanted to. The night before we filled out our breakfast menu and hung it on our stateroom door. In the morning, right at the time we specified, our hot breakfast was delivered to our stateroom. It was very nice watching the world pass by through our veranda window as we ate our breakfast. It was very yummy too! We were far from camera ready so, sorry, no photos.
We wanted to work off that wonderful breakfast and also minimize the weight gain that always happens on a cruise. We took a brisk walk on the windy Promenade deck. We did 6 laps which equals two miles. We had to stop from time to time to watch the Brown Boobies chasing the Flying Fish that were jumping out of the water as the ship cut through the waves. As we were walking, I was seeing lots of photographs. So I took an extra lap to take some photos.












We were on our way to the Dominican Republic. This is the port that was switched at the last minute right before we left. The cruise port at Amber Cove is a fair distance from the places that we wanted to visit, so we booked a shore excursion. A shore excursion can be expensive, but in a port like this, it’s probably the best option. They were giving a talk about the shore excursions in the main showroom. We went to the talk to help us decide which excursion to do. We booked the Mountain Views and city sights shore excursion for the Dominican Republic.
Time to eat again! The reason the we always gain weight on a cruise is all of the wonderful food available pretty much anytime you want. We can’t let it go to waste! We popped up to the Lido deck and ordered a pizza for lunch.

There was another talk in the main showroom about the Caribbean. It turned out to be a sales pitch for rum. So we went back to our stateroom watched the flying fish and relaxed until it was time to get ready to eat again! This evening was gala night, so everyone dressed up for dinner. We had a very nice Christmas Eve dinner in the main dining room. After dinner we went to see the dance show in the main showroom. The Step One Dance Company put on a nice show.





Christmas / Anniversary Caribbean Cruise 2021: Day 1, Sail Away
My wife Robbie and I enjoy taking a cruise for Christmas and our anniversary. Unfortunately the past couple of years the cruise industry has been shut down. We have been unable to take our Christmas cruise. So we were really ready to cruise. Things have been getting better, the covid cases have been dropping. Everyone on the ship needed to be fully vaccinated and have a negative covid test to board the ship. Masks were also required everywhere inside of the ship, except your cabin and while eating or drinking. So this year we thought that we would take our Christmas cruise. We booked a 7 day Caribbean cruise with Holland American Cruise Line. Enter the Omicron variant! Covid cases were rising, ugh! We had committed to going, so we made the decision to continue with the cruise.
Our cruise departed from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on December 23rd. We were going to Grand Turk, San Juan Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and Half Moon Cay Bahamas. A few days before the cruise we were told that the Grand Turk port would be replaced with a stop at Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. Apparently both ports are owned by Carnival Cruise line, Holland America is a Carnival company. The Grand Turk port only had enough personnel to accommodate one ship. Carnival and Holland America were taking turns at the port. It was Carnivals turn, so we got bumped to Puerto Plata. We had been to Grand Turk before on another cruise, so we were good with the switch.

We drove our car to Fort Lauderdale to start our cruise. The great thing about living in Florida is that we are a few hours drive from any Florida cruise port! We parked at the Park N Go parking lot. We took a 5 minute shuttle ride to our ship the Nieuw Amsterdam. Our last cruise in 2019 from Venice, Italy took hours to board the ship. The European ship was delayed by fog but still, after boarding started it took hours! This time in Ft Lauderdale, we boarded the ship in record time! In fairness, the latest ship was about 500 people short of being full. All of the passengers had staggered boarding times, we were in the 1:40pm boarding group. We arrived at the parking lot about 1:30pm. The shuttle dropped us off right at the ship. The cruise line baggage guys grabbed our bags from the curb. We walked into the cruise terminal. We had to wait for one couple in front of us to show our boarding passes, passports, negative Covid tests and Vaccine cards. They scanned our boarding pass and we went right to security. We put our carry on bags through the machine. From there we stopped at a kiosk and had our photos taken for our ship/room key cards. After the photos we walked right onto the ship. I think they scanned our boarding passes one more time, as we boarded the ship. We were in our cabin literally 15 minuets after we got off the parking lot shuttle! Our key cards were waiting for us in our mail slot.
Once on the ship everyone is required to do a mandatory muster drill. This is a practice run for everyone to gather at their assigned lifeboat in case of emergency. Normally the whole entire ship gathers on the promenade deck under their lifeboats. You are all massed together until everyone is there and listen to the safety instructions. It’s a very tedious and long process. Not to mention huge crowds of people and Covid. They changed their process for this cruise. This time we just needed to go visit our lifeboat, so we knew where it was. A crew member scanned our key cards, so they knew we had been there. Then we just needed to watch a safety video in our cabin. A much better process, thank you Holland America! We took in the view of the port on our way to the lifeboat.



When we sail out of a port, I like to go up on deck and watch the sail away. Robbie stayed in the cabin and I went to take some photos of the sail away. I like to watch the people, watching the people, as we sail through the port. People on shore are waving and yelling at the people on the ship and people on the ship are waving and yelling at the people on shore. Everyone is happy, taking photos, and having fun!








click on an image to se larger.
As we were sailing out to sea, we were treated to a nice sunset over the fantail. One of the best things about cruising is watching the sunset from the deck.







After enjoying the beautiful sunset, I took walk around the Lido deck. There is the rear pool and hot tubs with a pool bar. There is also a pizza shop where you can get a made to order pizza. Moving inside we have the Lido Market buffet restaurant. This is where you can go just about anytime and grab a bite to eat, get something sweet, or something to drink, ice tea, water or coffee. Everything is usually pretty good! Moving through the Lido Market there is the second pool and hot tubs with the Lido pool bar. Get a tropical drink and sit by the pool or have a soak in the hot tub. There is also the Dive In restaurant, a walk up diner where you can get a hot dog, burger and fries. Robbie really liked the portabella mushroom sandwich! In case of inclement weather they roll the roof closed. We had great weather and the roof was open every day. They did close it at least one night. I think we passed through some spotty showers.







Back in our cabin, from our veranda, we got to enjoy the last of the setting sun as Fort Lauderdale faded into the distance. Our cruise was off to a great start!


Predawn Atlas V Launch of the Lucy Space Probe
What a beautiful Star-filled night for a predawn Space Coast Rocket Launch! United Launch Alliance launched an Atlas V rocket carrying the Lucy Space Probe. Lucy will be exploring the Trojan Asteroid Belt in Jupiter’s orbit. After the launch the wind blew the rocket’s contrail into a cool smoke-ring in the sky.
Click on photo to see larger. You will miss all of the stars if you don’t.
After photographing the rocket launch, at Space View Park in Titusville Florida, I stuck around with a few other photographers and a few others that were just waiting for the sun to rise. It was a beautiful light show, a pod of dolphins went swimming buy as well. It was worth the wait!
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Road Trip To York PA. A Side Trip to Washington DC Day 2 Part 3 (AKA Hamilton Tour)

06-26-2021
Robbie and I had a great morning on our Washington DC/Hamilton tour. We saw lots of things and walked lots of miles. We were exhausted, but we still had lots more to see. We went back to the hotel to freshen up and rest for a while. We planned to take the car and park either by the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial or the Jefferson Memorial. This would save us quite a bit of walking. First we drove to a Safeway to pick up a few supplies. From there we drove to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. The parking area there was full, so we drove to the Jefferson Memorial. The parking area there is larger and had lots of spaces left. Since it was after hours, we didn’t need pay the kiosk for parking! The Jefferson and MLK memorials are basically on opposite sides of the Tidal Basin. We walked all of the way around the Tidal Basin, we started with the MLK Memorial.
Continuing around the Tidal Basin we came to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. This is a memorial that you don’t hear too much about. I was thinking that it must be fairly new, it’s actually been there since 1997. The memorial is really quite impressive. It covers a 7.5 acre area consisting of four sections, representing each of FDR’s four terms as president. Each area has lots of stone work and water features. There are statues depicting the depression and other prominent points of his presidency. There is a statue of FDR with his faithful companion Fala by his side.













Continuing around the Tidal Basin we arrived at a stop on our Hamilton tour, the Thomas Jefferson memorial. The memorial was undergoing a partial renovation but we were able to enter to see the Jefferson statue. We were able to get a nice sunset view of the Washington Monument from the portico, also on the Hamilton tour.






