The cruise part two...

CocoCay, Bahamas

Monday 26th September was a beautiful day and we arrived in the Bahamas at CocoCay, an island owned by Royal Caribbean.  It was so warm, the sea a beautiful blue, soft sand and palm trees everywhere - paradise.  I had booked myself on an ecoboat tour, but had a bit of time to kill beforehand so wandered around the colourful market.

CocoCay Coconuts!

Perry, the tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and entertaining.  CocoCay is also known as Little Stirrup Cay and is part of the Berry chain of islands, and is about 50 miles from Nassau.

Freedom of the Sea at CocoCay

 It was so refreshing to feel the seaspray and cool breeze while on the tour, and every so often we'd stop and Perry would stand in the bow of the boat with a big fishing net then pull things out of the sea.

Conch

 First we got to hold a large conch, beautiful colours and Perry told us that this one was around 5 years old and was going to be his dinner that evening :)

 Next came a large starfish, they become hard to the touch when out of water to protect themselves, and would soften again when returned to the sea and no longer felt under threat.

Stingray

After the boat tour, I wandered around the island for a while, and had a paddle in the sea.

I spotted a little hermit crab trying to climb it's way up the steps to the bar - maybe it wanted a Crabbies Gingerbeer(teehee).

We had a barbecue lunch on the island, and I found a great spot on a picnic bench in the shade of some trees.  A few people were making their way to another table then all of a sudden I saw them tearing off in the opposite direction - I wondered what was happening then I spotted the cause of the uproar, two iguanas decided that they wanted some lunch too!  There were chickens wandering about too, and they didn't seem bothered about the iguanas, so I couldn't resist trying to get close for some photos.  I was trying to get him head on, but he decided that his profile was much more photogenic

iguana

ready for my closeup

 

 Back on board we had our first workshop that evening. I was in group B, our class was at 8:00 that evening.  We decorated an insert for a cup, great first project and the cup proved to be very useful to take to class without worrying about spilling drink on your projects.  It didn't take very much materials to complete the project but as always with Tim we had more then enough supplies to make a different insert for every month if you were so inclined.

Cup of creativity

Back to reality - can't believe it's over..

All ready to go!

It's been a few weeks now since I returned from the most wonderful holiday - Tim Holtz cruise to the Carribean.  It was an amazing experience, even better than last year - I think because it was my second cruise I knew what to expect and wasn't so nervous, and I was sharing with my roomie Carolyn from last years cruise too.  This time we were sailing from Port Canaveral, so the flight was a bit longer than last time.

We decided to spend the night at the Disney All Star Sports resort in Florida before the cruise, we had hoped we'd arrive in time to meet some of the others for dinner, but it took us so long to find the right place to get the Disney Magic Express, then get checked in that it was too late. We hit the diner then just crawled into bed - long day of travel.  Loved the towel mickey on the bed though!

Next morning we had a few hours to kill before taking the shuttle to Port Canaveral to board the ship.

First order of the day was breakfast, pancakes with warm strawberries and extremely crispy bacon, the pancakes were so good - must be healthy a wee bit - did have fruit with them :)

We then had a walk around the resort, the place is so big and beautifully laid out, there's a wonderful pool, a Disney store, diner, amusements - we didn't see all of it.

While walking around I saw a shadow darting across the ground, and found this wee fellow on a tree, who knew lizards could be cute?

I loved how the stairs to the upper apartments were made to look like lifeguard stations - and just loved the beautiful blue sky.

The shuttle came to pick us up, and we got to see some of the other resorts and beautiful scenery on the way to the port.

Near Port Canaveral

Disney ship at Port Canaveral

Boarding the ship went really smoothly, and just as we stepped on board I heard voices calling my name - it was Pat and Lorraine, who Carolyn and I had met on the cruise last year.  It was so great to see them and catch up.

Lorraine

Pat

This time our cabin was on deck six, just above the Promenade deck, which made it so handy for getting to the conference centre for class and Mario's marketplace.  Last time it took almost to the end of the cruise before we worked out the easiest way to get there!

Children's pool

Promenade

Later that evening we had our welcome reception, we were given our ScrapMap cruise tote - a mini rucksack, and then all madly swapped out our trades before Jim West introduced Tim and his team.
My trades seemed to be well received, and I gave one to Tim too - think he liked it.

My trades - dress form pencil holders

It was great to see fellow crafters I'd met on the New England cruise, and to put faces to the usernames on
cruise yahoo group.  There's so much to write about and photos to share that I'm not going to try and cram it all into one blog-post.  Stay tuned for the next installment :)