Tag Archives: honeymoon

Honeymoon day 17 – The last day

Our last day of our honeymoon, sad 🙁 and we had a 7 hour stopover in Los Angeles. We looked up on the net where is close to LAX airport to spend a few hours. We found Manhattan beach just 15 mins drive south of the airport.

It’s not a touristy beach like Santa Monica we visited before and had a real local feel. We got dropped off by the taxi and walked out to the pier end. Quite a few surfers and body boarders. Look at how many houses there are going off into the distance.

image

Manhattan beach turns out to be the home of beach volleyball. There were about 50 beach volleyball courts on the beach.

image

Hope the surfers don’t find a shark this big with them.

image

There are some lovely designed houses along the beach front and all are unique in their designs.

image

image

A lovely sunset to finish our last day on our honeymoon

image

So many countries we have been to. For me the highlight was the islands in the Caribbean. The waters were blue and warm, the people were friendly.

Where it was nicer over the amazon was it was less humid and people weren’t trying to sell things to you a lot of the time. Oh yeah no yellow fever mosquitoes either. It was a experience to say you’ve been to and seen the amazon though.

Honeymoon day 16 – Florida Keys

It’s our last full day of our honeymoon and we docked early at 7am at Fort Lauderdale. Welcome to the USA, the world of copy and paste, fast food and brands at every turn.

We got off the ship (it was sad to leave it behind) and picked up our hire car quickly. We planned to drive the length of Florida keys. From the beginning at the north east to Keys West down in the south west.

image

Sanna organised a Ford Mustang convertible for the drive which wasn’t expensive at all apparently. A white muscle car so I’m showing my muscles.

image

Mustangs are relatively cheap for a sports car in the USA so we saw a lot of them.

image

Driving on Florida keys, the roads are straight and over light blue water.

image

The water is shallow all around.

image

Some of the old bridges connecting the keys have fallen into a bad way so they replace with new bridges.

image

image

Lots of shipwrecks in the keys and lots of diving history about also.

image

We got to west key at the end of Florida keys and first thing was to find a car park. This is another monster of a car!

image

European convertible versus American  convertible.

image

How about this for a parking solution. You put $15 in a envelope and put it in the post box and call a phone number to tell them your plate number.

image

Some of the houses in Keys West were quite old looking and quaint.

image

The main street in Keys West.

image

Sloppy Joe’s is a long time famous bar in Keys West. Live music all day, the warm smell of beer in the air

image

image

image

image

and sloppy food, didn’t think much of the food but it wasn’t expensive at all.

image

image

Look Ernest Hemingway’s house! I can’t remember what he was famous for? A poet? Answers on a post card please.

image

image

The Southernmost point of mainland USA!

image

image

This is the Southernmost beach of the USA. What a beautiful place to be married, shame we’ve done that now, this place would be beautiful!

image

image

image

Next stop a quick stopover in LA.

Honeymoon day 15 – last day on ship

I woke up early to try and make the most of my final day on ship and to watch the sunrise

image

For lunchtime there was the ‘galley market’ where they open up the gallery to give you every gourmet food you could think of. It was a FEAST.

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

Sanna laying by the pool after the massive lunch, we both felt so full

image

That evening was a final dance party and Sanna danced off the lunch

image

Honeymoon day 14

A small post today as we have today and tomorrow our last days of the cruise at sea cruising to Fort Lauderdale in Florida USA. Its amazing when you look at the map just how far we’ve gone

image

Its been 3331 nautical miles covered when we reach Fort Lauderdale. The ships gallery has calculated 34,000 bread sticks have been eaten on the cruise.

Tonight we went to a short show where the captain and the staff paraded with flags from there country to say goodbye and we all clapped and cheered to say our thanks.

image

image

Then we had dinner with the captain and I got to ask some questions that have been on my mind like “what do you do if the anchor gets caught on a rock in the sea?” He’s been a captain of cruise ships for 25 years so of course he knew all the answers.

After dinner we went to the observation bar which is at the top at the front. This is our favourite evening bar on the ship as Claudio the bar man there is the fastest cocktail maker on the ship and he always gives us gossip of what’s happening on the ship.

image

image

We watched the ‘Hangover Part 2’ late at night then fell asleep.

Honeymoon day 14 – Jost van Dyke, British virgin islands

image

Today is our last stop in the Caribbean and our last stop on our cruise which is sad. We are stopping on the tiny island of Jost van Dyke in the British virgin islands.

Here we are climbing onto the modern tender boat for the last time

image

It was nice to be on a beautiful Caribbean island again but this time everyone and everything was in English.

image

We went on a snorkeling trip to the island that was in the book ‘Treasure island’.

image

image

We did some snorkeling which had no turtles this time but lots of tropical fish to see. There were 3 caves you could snorkel into but they got a bit dark and scary inside so we didn’t go too far in.

I don’t have any photos of the snorkeling but here I am trying another of the local rums. Each island has at least one local rum and its not much more to buy than the cost of bottled water. This local rum was called ‘Paradise rum’.

image

After snorkeling we visited Pirates bight, Norman island for a rest.

image

image

image

image

After that stopover we returned by 45 minutes boat back to Jost van Dyke to explore the beach front. It was like paradise.

image

image

image

image

image

image

Now this is what you called beached

image

image

The famous Foxy’s bar who was a local musician who opened this bar and by the looks of some photos he was knighted.

image

image

image

image

This is a lucky monkey 🙂

image

Ah its paradise in a hammock

image

image

Honeymoon day 13 – St Barts

image

We are at our 2nd to last stop on our cruise now and it is the very beautiful and very rich island of St Barts.

This is again a small island 7km by 4km in size and is the most expensive island in the Caribbean. Hotel rooms here start at several hundred Euro’s a night (as this is a French owned island) up to 20,000 a night for the top end.

image

It is the favourite short holiday destination for all the rich and famous with designer brands of clothes and other luxury items at every corner.

The cheapest smallest house on the island is about 2 million euros to buy. Even a coffee in a hotel is around 8 euros!

Everything is priced so high to keep it exclusive you cannot even stay 1 night on the island without a fair amount of money.

image

The water is so blue and the bays are so beautiful.

image

We took a minibus tour of the island. The air con broke down and there was no windows, we all felt so uncomfortable and I felt sick from the heat.

image

We had a free tour and lunch included. This is where we had lunch and the views from the pool were good.

image

image

How about this for a big bottle of rose wine.

image

We were hot!

image

I didn’t take any photos of the big name designer shops but there were every brand you could thing of. Nothing as low as Nike or sports brands allowed and not 1 fast food place on the island just restaurants only.

image

Honeymoon day 12 – Terre-de-Haut Guadeloupe

It was a beautiful stop today, a small island named Terre-de-Haut with lots of french culture, a small piece of France in the Caribbean.

As soon as you step ashore it is a real colourful place, it looks Caribbean but all the language and signs are french. Caribbean foods mixed with French things like crepes.

image

The main bay is particularly pretty with its different coloured houses.

image

image

Funny little car from the locals.

image

It started to rain very heavy so we looked into a couple of shops. These black babies made me laugh, made me think of the Little Britain sketch when the young council estate mum said “I wanna Black baby like the other mums” 🙂

image

I also found this food ‘Rape grated’ that can’t be good!

image

The houses are very pretty and looked after.

image

image

image

We explored the quieter side of the small island with a walk to a beach on the far side, which was deserted.

image

image

After the walk to the beach we stopped at a small beach front restaurant for lunch. The style of food was more Caribbean than French which was good.

image

They made a coconut rum punch and it was so laced with rum Sanna couldn’t drink it at all (she made the funniest dace when she drank it). It was even too strong for me. They said the locals run is 50% and is a bit strong for off islanders. I watered it down and then it was nice.

image

For lunch this is coconut chicken with a banana I think mild curry sauce and rice.

image

Sanna had Caribbean salad which had prawns and fish in it. They both tasted great.

image

On the way back we walked past the recycling plant, these crushed bottles and cans looked cool I though, the photos sent very sharp though.

image

image

Tonight just as we were leaving port I spotted this big traditional clipper boat sailing out to sea.

image

Honeymoon day 11 – Barbados

Today we arrived in the Caribbean at Barbados. There were 3 cruise oships visiting that day, our ship was the smallest this was huge 3000 passengers I heard. It had a massive TV screen on the top deck and even a water slide!

image

This was just outside the harbour it looks like a wreck to me but a local told me its not, I don’t think I believed him.

image

Here’s a colourful local bar which was at the marina hence all the maritime flags.

image

Banks is the main beer in Barbados, the only beer that’s made on the island. I tried it ans it was a light larger with a slight  sort of German pills taste.

image

We were booked to do a snorkeling tour with the turtles from a sailing catarmaran

image

All aboard and set sail!

image

Here are the 3 cruise ships in port. Ours is the small one on the right and the huge mega ship is the one with the weird T shape funnel on the top.

image

Sitting on the mesh on the front when going over the water was fun.

image

Snorkeling with the giant turtles was fun. The guides fed them with fish to lure them within touching distance. I’ve not snorkeled in a while, I swallowed 2 mouthfuls of sea water, yuk.

image

As you can see the water is so blue and the water temperature was 27 degrees.

image

image

This is a good photo, Sanna spraying the guy working on the boat 🙂

image

image

Blue warm water.

image

Mount Gay rum is made in Barbados and it is really cheap. After the snorkeling I tried a local Banks beer and then they kept making me Mount Gay fruit rum punches.

image

They kept making doubles and after the 45 minute sail back listening to chilled out music that really suited being on a sail boat in the Caribbean, I was quite drunk.

This is Thomas the captain who is also Barbadian but is white, he said only 4% of Barbadians are white. He was interesting to talk to, to ask about life on the island and sailing this boat for 14 years now, taking out tourists each day.

image

After the snorkeling we went to the Mount Gay rum distillery. The tours were now closed but I bought a huge 1.75 extra old rum for only $38. The rum is so cheap here.

image

One more look at that massive ship in the harbour, it was huge!

image

Honeymoon day 9 – Devils island

Today we put down anchor just a few hundred metres off of Devils island at 7am. It was a tender launch, the sea is still very choppy, it was hard for the older people to get on and off the tender boat.

image

As soon as you get ashore to this hell of an old prison it first seems like tropical paradise with palm trees everywhere.

image

You get ashore and the tiny island which is a few hundred metres across has lots of convict made paths. This one the first leading up to the governors house.

image

This is the only pretty house on the island, it was a 2 floor house built for the governor of this prison island. It has a small garden and some nice views.

image

A couple of views from the governors house.

image

image

This is a view over to the famous Devils island. There are 3 islands that make up the Devils island but one of the smallest ones is actually the one called Devils island. So this one below is the true Devils island that in the film Papillion he ends up on at the end of the film.

image

This water storage pool by the prison has caymans living in amongst the water lilies as the sign says.
image

We are now exploring the jails and these are the solitary confinement cells. If you’ve seem the film you should recognise these cells.
image

image

image

These are the prison officers houses which now some people live in it looked like.

image

We went for a walk in the rainforest around the perimeter of the island. Lots of wildlife we found and very friendly.

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

This is the graveyard for the prisonofficers. All the convicts that died were rowed out to sea then a bell was rung and the body dumped in the sea. It wasn’t long before the sharks learnt that a ringing bell meant feeding time, and they would gather in anticipation.
image

So this is the real Devils island just a couple of 100 meters across massive waves and rips.
image

How’s this for a big leaf!
image

Some More Beautiful Photos
image

image

We both have to say Devils island had been the nicest, peaceful and most beautiful place we have visited so far this trip. It used to be hell when it was a prison island but now its a beautiful place to visit.