Labadee, Haiti

Hello from Haiti!

Today was the first of five (5) ports of call. It was a glorious day, simply beautiful. The sky was blue, the waters were a brilliant turquoise, the sun was huge and bright (more on that later) there wasn't a cloud in the sky and there was a gentle breezy blowing.

We got up at an un-godly hour of 5:45 AM (completely, my own accord, I know!) I got it in my head I wanted to see the sunrise this morning...showered and headed to the wind jammer cafe for a quick breakfast...incidentally despite the early start we still missed the sunrise by about 10-15 minutes...oh well I tried, but I probably won't be doing that again! After all I'm on holidays! LOL!

The ship was still about 2 hours off Haiti, so we went down to the 4th deck (a quiet deck most people never visit) and snagged a chair for Peter and watched Haiti rise up out of the fog. She is absolutely spectacular! We watched little fishing boats out for an early morning catch. Now truth be told, we actually saw very little of Haiti, or as Trish has put it...we saw "fake Haiti", Peter called it "Presque Haiti". Given that it does not represent Haiti at all and you cannot venture off the resort. But as the Ship approached Haiti, the coast line was beautiful.

Labadee is Royal Caribbean's own private day resort. They have been there for a number of years and have been creating their own oasis. In Labadee,there are three beaches, connected by cement pathways...very accessible. We made our way to the third beach and the farthest from where we docked called Columbus Cove. Columbus Cove was a cute little beach on white sand in a little bay (or cove...LOL) and had beautiful calm turquoise water. The beach was scattered with palm and magnolia trees. We snagged a couple lounge chairs under a beautiful magnolia tree (woohoo shade!), listened to the calypso music and alternated between reading and people watching...we spend the day moving around the trunk of the magnolia tree chasing the shade and when there was none to be had by 2pm we headed back to the ship. One draw back to Labadee was that there are no umbrellas.

Now there was a marketplace where you could buy souvenirs from hawkers, who were very aggressive and bargained for everything. Unfortunately, I forgot my hat at home so I needed to find one today and I did find one...the starting price was $50 and I negotiated him down to $20, apparently Peter heard other women talking about the same hat and they paid $35 each so I guess I drove a hard bargain. Little did he know who he was dealing with! He started at $50 and I started with $20... He negotiated with himself, from $50 to $45 to $40 to $35 and when I was walking away he agreed to $20.(heehee! I know, I'm a professional!...the poor guy didn't have a hope in hell!)

Overall I am relatively sunburn free...a few random spots...looks weird but not bad at all should be gone in a day or so...unfortunately, we were really hoping the pesky allergy to the sun was medication related but it appears that it is not the case. Now either because of my attempts to stay out of the sun worked or because it is at least less severe than before I am currently only reacting on my right foot...yes I did leave it uncovered as a guinea pig to see what would happen (yes Mom, I did have lots of sunblock on...SPF 110...seriously! Love you! xoxoxo!)

For anyone waiting with baited breath as to how one performs on a trapeze on an ice rink while at sea....I wish I could tell you but we never made it..,you see yesterday afternoon whilst ( Yes, BAD I through whilst in just for you!) sitting in the Solarium (the adult only, non-smoking, partially covered deal with it's own hot tubs and pool) reading and listening to the iPod, we should of gone down to deck number 3 to the ice rink... But the sun was shining and the breeze had died down, we were in the shade with just intermittent pockets of sun so was just perfect...so we stayed right where we were and decided we really had no desire to go inside.

I'll leave you tonight with a couple of pictures of the ship and of Haiti...Navigator of the Seas, her sister ship was in port with her today...

Good Night!

Megan & Peter