Gustavia, St. Barts

Photos

Let me start with last night. This ship, Riviera, holds 1250 passengers. At last night's first O Club party for repeat cruisers they announced over 700 people on this cruise were past passengers. They could only invite half of us at a time and are having the second O Club party tonight. We have over 135 nights and the top night's winner at our party had close to 800. This is the first time in years that we have been aboard a cruise ship that had a hand shaking greeting. We can't remember the last time we saw the Captain of a cruise ship actually shaking hands for reasons of health and sanitation. Crystal definitely replaced hand shakes with elbow bumps.

We had another rough night of sailing. We were in sight of St. Barts when we woke up about 6:30 am. The schedule had us anchoring here at 8 am. Since our last tender port was scrubbed due to big swells, we weren't too sure they'd stay here today. I guess they decided one scrubbed port was the limit per cruise. They kept moving the ship around until after 8 am before they announced tendering had begun. Clay & I decided that I didn't need to return to Gustavia. Clay went ashore briefly and came back to tell me I'd made a good choice. It looks to me like the only difference is all the 2005 sailboats have been replaced by big yachts. Riviera didn't open tendering without a ticket issued until afternoon. By that time, I thought the seas were calmer but that was when after all the rough tendering condition warnings they announced that they were not taking wheelchairs or their passengers ashore due to safety concerns. So I guess it hadn't calmed down.

I took a quiet morning alone to go ahead and do a load of laundry. I have timed it well twice now and avoided any drama. Clay came back for lunch and to remain aboard Riviera. We watched a movie in the afternoon.

All aboard is in about 30 minutes and we should set sail by 4 pm. We have 2 sea days to get back to Miami. Friday is Valentine's Day (which I hadn't previously realized) and turnaround day between cruise segments. The next segment is the longest at 12 days. Fingers crossed for 2 new countries,
St. Vincent and Grenada. Oh, we'll be back for another chance at St. Barts. Next time we have a longer day scheduled here but still no plans here.

Photos