Travelin' Fullers Blog: Welcome to St Marteen or St Martin!

We arrived on a beautiful morning to the island of St Martin or St Marteen. ( the island is half Dutch and half French!). They actually use different currencies on the different island halves! We all had different excursions today. All the guys did an America's Cup Yacht race ( Regatta)! There were two yachts competing and our guys came in 2nd.... There was a problem with one of their crew members who just couldn't get the ropes right, or so we heard.... They started out ahead, but lost by about 10 feet!

Annette, Gaby and I headed out on the Golden Eagle Catamaran for our snorkeling experience. Duffy held down the fort on board ship until we collected her after lunch for the afternoon Beach Bash! We had a very nice snorkeling experience from our catamaran. Gaby, though , seemed to prefer to ride on Annette's back for most of the time! She did actually snorkel on her own, but the water was a little cloudy and it was a little difficult to see. We anchored very close to a lovely beach. Once you had seen the fish, it was an easy swim to the beach to relax at the water's edge. We were late leaving for our excursion (small problem with our Captain and the Coast Guard). All was resolved, but we left late. This resulted in returning late. Thank goodness for our "runner", Annette, who was first off the catamaran and racing back to our ship to collect Duffy for the Beach Bash excursion! We only had 15 minutes before our bus left for the 2nd excursion! THEY MADE IT! --- by less then a minute! It was a $40.00 cab ride if Annette hadn't been the champion sprinter that we know she is!

We had a lovely lunch at the beach and a wondrous time playing in the big surf! There were all the rum punches or fruit punches you could drink and a lot of "sand castle" building time!

You will see Gaby's face paint in today's photos. We checked her in last night at kids camp as Gaby Fuller, but we picked up Tiger Gaby at the end of the night! ( note to kids camp! Find paint that can be more easily removed! She was still a tiger late into the day after a lot of ocean time!)

Tonight's dinner was AWESOME ! We had an hibachi dinner at the Japanese restaurant and our Chef was OUTSTANDING! The food was delicious and the presentation hilarious! He even made Mickey Mouse out of our mound of fried rice! Gaby practiced with the chop sticks and actually did great ! There are fireworks off the ship tonight , but I think only Trey and Grant are going to make it since it goes off at 11 pm. Tomorrow is a 6:00am reveille since we have an excursion that departs at 7:30 am.

I forgot to mention that NCL has a free APP for smart phones that works just on board ship! You can (for a one time charge of $7.95), have unlimited texting and phone calls between people on board the ship. You can also check out the daily schedule, entertainment, restaurants and menus. It's a wonderful feature , but you will NEVER hear an incoming call or message. You just have to be trained to check your phone constantly to see if someone has sent you a text or left a voice mail!

All remains excellent. The service by the staff is attentive and caring! The ladies in the Haven dining room were on the look out all day to assist Duffy if needed. This is such an intimate part of the ship that they can actually do that for us!

St. Thomas is our next port of call and we have a fun excursion lined up-- the Boss underwater adventure! ( think underwater ATV)! Report tomorrow night!