WE'RE BACK

I was always led to believe that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but here we see off the coast of Bonaire N.E. that there is actually a private yacht there. This particular ship's name is the Octopus and she is the private yacht of Paul Allen of Microsoft fame. She's 414 ft long and has a full time crew of 60. She carries a 40 ft submarine as well as a 63 ft tender and has a flight deck to accommodate a helicopter. Amazing what money can buy, eh?

We spent a week cruising in the Caribbean on the Caribbean Princess and visited the islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Grenada, Dominica and
St. Thomas. The sun burns were minor and we had an overall great time. Cruising is the perfect vacation for me as when the ship leaves the dock, you are disconnected from the world and can do nothing about anything that you leave behind so you may as well begin enjoying it from the first minutes. We had a few glitches at the start because the ship had been in dry dock for 3 weeks having some updates done and she wasn't quite ready for passengers when the day of the cruise arrived. We spent a week (actually 6 days) in the Caribbean and then returned to San Juan, P.R. and then flew into Ft. Lauderdale, FL. In Florida, we managed to visit with friends that we had met on a previous cruise vacation as well as a few church members who were within comfortable driving distance. We would have liked to visit even more but Florida is an awfully long state! We saw alligators (on Alligator Alley, of course) as well as egrets and herons. We were amazed to see signs along some of the roads warning of panthers in the area just like the deer crossing signs up here. On Thursday when we were to leave Florida, it was 35 degrees in the morning and we had to scramble to find somewhere to purchase sweatshirts as we hadn't packed any warm clothes. I brought a cold home with me and it's starting to leave but I could have done without it entirely. It is good to be back home. Coming home is what makes vacations special. Thanks for your prayers.