Day 2-7: Caribbean Adventure

 

We board the Windstar Star Pride today that carries 312 passengers and 150 crew. It is a smaller cruise line but with all the same amenities, just not as big and plentiful as a large Princess type cruise that holds 4000 people. We have 28 in total in our group, we dine, hit the pool, and do numerous. beach excursions from ATV to snorkeling. Our itinerary was St. Johns, St. Barth, St. Martin, St. Kitts, Jost Van Dyke, and our final day in Virgin Gorda at Prickly Pear. We all had too much fun, food, and sun for sure. All had a great time celebrating Nan Starr's 70th Birthday.

Our Balcony Suite

The guys with their Shark suits, Capt'n Hats, and birthday girls Nan, and Kathleen

The Girls on the Beach

The boys and Bday girls

Official Shark Suit

The Soggy Dollar Bar/Beach

Tender Ride to Beach

St. Kitts

Pool Time

Birthday Party Night at Candles Resturant

Bday party gang at dinner

Super Yacht parked next to us in the bay

Sunset Tender ride

View from Yacht Club at bow of ship

ATV riders AlanYoli

ATV riders Nan & Tom

Beach excursion

Hot tub on bow of ship

Day 1: Cruise Day

 

Today we headed off to San Juan Puerto Rico to join 26 of our friends for a birthday celebration cruise for Nan Starr. Most of us were on the 8:30am flight from DFW to SJU and it was a hoot having so many people we love on this adventure. We arrived in SJU, grabbed a cab to our hotel, and then went out for a nice dinner and meetup with everyone.

Hotel Balcony View of San Juan PR

Dinner Group

Captains Yoli & Alan

Boys Weekend

 

Tom and Frank came out on Friday and we made a weekend out of going to Pensacola and back. Friday evening before we left, Glenn & Barbara Rudolph came by to visit. They are old cycling friends from Allen Texas that moved to Orange Beach when they retired several years back. 

I bought some fishing gear,  but fishing off the coast was a bust. The water was pretty rolly so we pulled in the fishing poles, put her on plane, and headed into the Pensacola Bay inlet. We cruised the bay and then pulled into Fort McRee anchorage, explored the old fort, made some dinner and called it a night. The next morning, we pulled anchor and slow cruised the ICW back to the Wharf. We arrived around 1pm, dumped the black tank, and docked up in time for the Cowboys game. 

The game started off really bad, but the last half was worth it as the cowboys came back from 21-0 first half to a 21-24 win. Great game. We had several Bushwhackers, some coconut shrimp for appy's then after the game we headed to Louisiana Langappie's for an awesome seafood dinner and drinks. Ed, a friend of Tom's joined us at the bar for the game and also joined us for dinner. Sunday Funday for sure.

Tom, Frank, Barb, Glenn, Alan

Day 16-19: AGLCA at The Wharf

Meeting Hall at Rendezvous

Nov. 17-20 is the annual Rendezvous for the AGLCA our boat club. Yoli actually went home on the 16th for some PT on her foot for the 17th. I attended the event by myself and really enjoyed meeting so many other loopers. Many were planning to do the loop and many were in progress with quite a few that have already gone around the loop at least once, some twice or more. It was a great group of people with several vendors and sessions on doing the great loop. The best part was the Looper Crawl where 50 or so boats opened their boats for attendees to visit many different looper boats. I really enjoyed talking boats with planning loopers. It was a lot of fun. We also met up with John and Pamela Brown on their Prestige 500 which happened to dock up right next to us. Good times with good friends, a Gooder week for sure.

Our Tennesse River Looper Mentor Group