12-2-17 St. Kitts:

Woke up to cloudy skies, but with it came a beautiful rainbow!

Wasn't long after sunrise that we were heading into port.  So we headed up to the Lido for breakfast and admired the views while we ate and waited for customs to clear us so we could head down to land.

But first---another huge rainbow greeted us! 

One of the things we did at the CruiseCritic M&G a couple days ago was to make arrangement with 3 other people to share a taxi with for the 30 minute ride to Cockleshell Beach.  So about 9:30 we headed down to the taxi waiting area and waited for the 5th person to join us.  We agreed to meet at 10, but were hoping everyone would get there earlier.  4 of us did, then we waited about 25 minutes for the other person---as van loads of other walk up passengers came and left while we still waited.  I was a little annoyed that the other person didn't call us, but we still had plenty of time to enjoy the beach.  Turned out we weren't the only ones in the van anyway.  The driver made sure he packed it to the gills!  At $7/person @ way, I guess I can't really blame him.   Even though it took 30 minutes to get to the beach, we weren't moving the whole time.  He made a point of stopping at this viewpoint---just like the taxi driver did when Ken and I went here a couple years ago during another HAL cruise.  The Caribbean is to the right, the Atlantic is to the left.  On a sunny day, the difference in colors of the water is pretty awesome.  Today it was a little disappointing.

Note the monkeys to the right of this picture (and in the little median to the left).  We saw monkeys about here a couple years ago, too.

I actually forgot to take a picture from the beach today!  So here's one from a previous trip there.  Wish it was this pretty today. 

Instead we had total cloud cover and some thunder.  After waiting out the thunder, we headed in. 

The water near the shore was almost totally opaque from the stirred up sand, but we headed to the far side by the rocks and found it much clearer.

one of the many conch shells here.

one of the few eels we saw this cruise.

love the lines of this anemone. 

another anemone?

and another?

A cute little butterflyfish

some of the nice coral here.

more corals

fish hiding under the coral

more types of coral

a large lizard fish

a large snapper, and more coral

saw some of these guys last time we were here.  Glad to see there's still some here.

a trumpet fish

more soft coral

a couple little blue fish

to my surprise, the sun actually came out while we were out by the point.  I didn't wear my rash guard since I didn't expect to see sun.  I usually wear one while snorkeling to work as a sunscreen.

a sea centipede.

Out by the deep water around the point, I came upon a couple of these guys!

2 lion fish---very invasive, but pretty cool looking.

They're so cool, they get another picture.

also saw quite a few squid or cottlefish here.

more of them

Looking back towards the beach from the point.

a wrasse as we were heading back to the beach

the wrasse and a blue tang

schoolmaster snapper

yellow tail snapper that looked like it had been in a fight

a blue tang

some sort of shell

there was a lot of grass at the surface of the water.

and weedy stuff growing from the bottom

blue stiped grunts hiding in the rocks

more coral

I was a little surprised to see all the kids of coral here.

another trumpet fish

one of the lobsters I saw here.

a couple juvenile fish---french angelfish and a little wrasse

blue head wrasse

the little French Angelfish again.

spot light parrotfish

lots of conch shells along the shore

after about 3 hours of snorkeling, we met back up with the couple we came there with and sat by the bar.  I also enjoyed a nice cold Carib Lager.

Pretty flowers by the bar.

The driver came back for us and the other group at about 2:30 and took us straight back to the ship.  Turned out to be a really nice day---but I got sun burnt and paid for that the rest of the trip.
Back on the ship, we hurried up to the Lido Restaurant and got a light lunch---salad for me.
Then I was back on deck to watch sail away at 5.  St. Kitt's is a really pretty island.

Shortly after sail away the sun set---

and the full moon rose.

not a whole lot of clouds, but still pretty.

That's about it as it disappeared into the clouds at the horizon.

Went back to the Lido Restaurant for a light supper.
On World Stage tonight was the comedian Cory Kahaney.  She was good, although not so good that i really remember her act.
The Poolside movie was suppose to be War for the Planet of the Apes.  We chose to pass on tonight's movie.

The "O" activities today:  NONE!!!