Thu. Dec 25th, Bridgetown, Barbados

There are three other ships in port.

Our first shore excursion: Turtle encounter. A small bus takes us to a catamaran which takes us out to sea for 20 min. The water is not so clear, Li has difficulties with the snorkeling gear and Bianca had earlier scratched her knees and they now burn in the salt water. She is back on the boat in short order and quite sad. I am the only one who sees a turtle of the three of us under water. Not very impressive. We then go onto a nice beach where we are treated to banana and tube rides – a speed boat pulls tube-like inflatable’s on which you sit or rather hang onto for deal life. Both quite wild. On the way back we are offered rum punch and banana cake. It still turned out to be a fun.

In the afternoon we go with Jenny’s family to the Boatyard beach (visible from the ship). The taxi driver is out to make money. $20 US per person(!) for a quick 5 min ride. We bargain it down to $25 for the seven of us. The beach was crowded and had a party atmosphere. I did a little snorkeling under the dock and saw a couple of squid. The kids had a great time and mostly stayed in the water. The white sand has some pink particles mixed in, Li takes a sample back to the ship and Bianca collects some coral fragments. We walk back through the city, which was nice but all was closed. We got back to the ship pretty late.

Bianca bought nail polish at DelSol which changes color when exposed to sun light.