Rather than sit at home looking out the window at a growing accumulation of snow, we opted to sail to the Caribbean seas on the Cayamo cruise. This came about last February when we had a horrible few weeks of bone-chilling temperatures and I saw a post from Molly Tuttle that she was going to be on this cruise. Right then and there we put our name on the waiting list and waited. About May 2019 we were able to book our spot and start paying on a relatively painless monthly plan.
The cruise left Monday, February 2nd. We had a concert to organize with David Francey on Jan 31st so we didn't give ourselves much wiggle room. It was a great concert with about 100 people attending at the United Church. Rich and David had to leave early to catch their own flight.
We booked a BnB in Abbotsford for the night before our 6 am flight. Getting to Abbotsford should have been the easiest part of the trip, but Hwy 1 was closed in not one, but three places from rock slides. The day of Feb 1st was snowy and the roads miserable. We went by way of Hwy 24, across to Little Fort and then down to Kamloops. From there we had to take the Coquihalla highway which we try to avoid. It was white knuckles all the way. There was pooled water, slush, then a blizzard and then icy roads. To top it off, someone lost a complete canopy mechanism off their motorhome and it was blocking one lane of traffic. Luckily there was room to scoot around it!
We were relieved to arrive in one piece and got settled into our accommodations and went right to bed as we had to get up at 4 am to get to the airport. Luckily Abbotsford airport is easy to access, easy to get through security, and at 5 am is pretty quiet. We got to Calgary in time to watch plows attack the snow which was falling and blowing.
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| Somewhere over Saskatchewan |
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| Calgary airport plows |
However, due to weather, some of the passengers on our flight to Atlanta were late, so we left late and we missed our connections in Atlanta. A happy meeting happened as we waited in Atlanta and a fellow Canadian treated us to a meal while we waited. Then off to Miami two hours late. Our host there, Monty, came and picked us up and we took our weary bones to bed.
Monday, Feb 2nd we headed down to the pier. Parked ahead of our Norwegian Pearl was the world's largest cruise ship, the Crystal Seas. Ours held 2,000 people, the Crystal Seas between 6 and 7,000. We had an inside cabin, small but adequate for the two of us with lots of storage and nicely done up. We decorated our cabin door with Canada flags, etc. which made it easy to find our place down a very long hallway.
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| Our first Uber ride to the Cruise boat terminal |
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| Boarding was well-organized and it didn't take long. We met a Pie Man who gave us this yummy pie. |
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| The long hallway on deck 10 |
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| Our room |
The Sail-away concert was put on by Mavis Staples, who is still quite the force of nature! The wind was blowing but nothing could blow away the enthusiasm of a boat full of music lovers.
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| Lots of people on the pool deck to see Mavis |
From that point on it was wall to wall music, with 5 venues and groups to choose from. It was hard to find time to sit down for a full meal, so we ended up doing several snack runs through out the day.
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| Quebe Sisters - triple fiddles and great harmonies |
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| The Soggy Bottom Boys - Bluegrass deluxe! |
From the first night, through the second day, we listened to a whole whack of music. On day three we arrived at our first port of call, St. Croix. This was a nice, quiet island stop. We walked down to a quiet part of the beach where we ate some snacks from the ship, swam in the brilliant blue ocean and generally soaked in the views,
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| Our ship at St. Croix |
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| Happy couple on the beach |
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| Our little piece of shade with the ship in the distance |
More music that evening...and every evening...and day...
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| Ron Block and Dan Tyminski |
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| Steve Poltz and Molly Tuttle |
We didn't take any pictures of our second port of call, Antigua. It was busy, touristy and with 3 other cruise ships in port, noisy and congested. We walked around, but had forgotten to bring money (!) so went back to the ship and enjoyed swimming in a deserted swimming pool. It was then that Len started to feel sick and overnight was officially "sick". It took a couple of days to fully recover.
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| Sunset between Antigua and Miami port |
More music, right up until bedtime. We had to disembark at 8:30am so didn't stay up very late. We took our bags back to Monty's and then went and spent the day at Miami beach. They have a very nice open mall with shopping and lots of outdoor restaurants. Len was feeling better, so we had Italian late-lunch, after going to see the new Little Women at a theatre. It was well done and we enjoyed the sitting down in the dark quiet time.
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| Palm trees on the mall in Miami Beach |
We walked down to the beach, had a cappuccino and tiramisu in another open-air cafe, then Ubered back to Monty's. The next day we headed over to the Miami airport where we indulged ourselves with a visit to the Priority Lounge. Too early to drink, but they served good coffee.
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| Watching planes at Miami airport lounge |
The flights home were uneventful and on-time. Miami to Atlanta, Atlanta to Calgary and then to Abbotsford. We stopped at the lounge in Calgary as well, this time NOT too early for a drink! We had three hours to pass, which we did very pleasantly with a glass of wine in one hand, and a snack in the other.
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| Sunset somewhere between Atlanta and Calgary |
We arrived at our BnB about midnight, hit the bed and then were up ready to go at 7:30. We ran into Vancouver to pick up a break drum for the Buick, back to the Sumas border to pick up some aircraft headphones and then got on the road for real.
It was a lovely drive, dry roads the whole way. Back to real life! Oh, and Emma was fine as we had a lovely house-sitter who cleans when she gets bored. So the house was spotless as well. A happy end to a lovely vacation.
