Barbados!

So we boarded the cruise ship The Adventure of the Seas on Sunday, but before we did Nathan and I quickly walked around the Fort, or the Castillo San Cristobal at San Juan.  What a neat place!  

 
 Nathan in a guerita, a sentry box

 The fort in San Juan, and a big pile of cannonballs!

 Nathan by a door used in WWII at the fort

So we boarded the cruise ship on Sunday, then on Monday we had a day at sea.  We went to the pool, sat on the deck and read our books, tried out the climbing wall, and had a formal dinner night.

 A few of the towel animals :)

The next day we were one of the first to leave the ship, and took specific directions to meet up with Charles with Cliff Sharker, a sea turtle and shipwreck tour.  He was awesome.  He had put out squid (a favorite of sea turtles), then came and got our small tour (about 10 people), and then took us back. What an amazing experience.  I could have grabbed a turtle and gone for a ride they were so close.  Charles was the best. 

 There were so many turtles around us.  Charles' goal was to have every turtle in the bay around his tour...and I'm pretty sure he succeeded.  He quickly got us in the water so we could have as much time before there were other larger tours.  If you could swim he didn't mind at all you getting into the water without a life jacket.  Because the tour was small then he could keep a close eye on everyone. Look at this curious guy who came to say hi!

 

 

 This turtle looks like he is reaching into Nathan's pocket :)

Then we swam to some ship wrecks.  They were neat, but I was about done by then.  Nathan though is a wonderful free diver, and so Charles was teaching him how to go down to the ships and even through it a little.  I was happy to get only 5' below the surface, I'm not great at equalizing my ears.

After the turtles and the ships, we were in his boat and he was pours rum and punch for everyone.  We politely declined, but said we'd take the punch.  He then said "wait, you don't drink, are you Mormons?"  "Yes we are".  "I LOVE Mormons, I don't know why but I always get all the Mormons on my tours.  You guys are so nice, and don't ever need alcohol for a good time".  I'm glad we lived up to the reputation :)  He kept calling us "my Mormons!" Such a cool guy. Anyway, we asked him where a good place to go surf would be, and he said, "oh, I know a place".  He took back the others from the cruise ship close to where he had picked us up with recommendations for food. There were the Parks' and two brothers not from the cruise ship still left on the boat with Nathan and I.  He then took us up the coast a ways and told us a good place where we could rent surfboards.  If we ever go back to Barbados I'd love to go on a Cliff Sharker tour again!

Well, we started walking, but also started to get hungry, so we stopped at a place and I had fried flying fish.  Yum yum!!   

 We finally made it to the Surf Shack, got the biggest boards there were , and tried it out.  I've never even tried to boogie board, so this actually turned out to be really hard for me.  Matt was great, and Nathan got up on the board too.

 Big boards huh?

 Paddling out 

Hit a wave

 Then went over

 Then hit another

Barbados was fantastic.  We made it back to the cruise ship with just a few minutes to spare, that's even after having to go back because I had left my sunglasses at the surf shop where we used an outdoor shower to try to get the sand off.  We'd heard stories (more like horror stories to me) of people missing getting back on the boat!  But we made it:)  On to the next island (well, really onto dinner that night!)