Coral by the Sea Hotel Carolina

... views of cascading falls framed with tropical foliage, beautiful sunsets, turquoise waters and beautiful beaches with white sand. But most of all, cruising the Caribbean Sea and enjoying the nice weather. Each day has been a new adventure onboard the Caribbean Princess as well as on land.

Each island visited had its own identity. Aruba, for it emerald green divi-divi trees, Bonaire, for it colourful rainbows, Grenada, for ...

... were already there, so we got the intro to the place. But once again, this was a place best visited on the weekend. In fact, most of the bars and restaurants are only open on the weekend, catering to the Puerto Ricans coming from San Juan. In the tiny village we counted about 15 restaurants- all shut. We had to get some work done on the boat as our 12 volt system burned out on the trip into Salinas (leaving us back in the dark ages of boating as the boat runs on 12 volt - without it meant ...

... be reunited! That night we went to Senor Frogs and met tons of SASers (semester at sea people!) for the first time which was really fun. At the end of the night we decided to jump off the dock by the bar into the water to kick off a crazy semester. As I was getting out I felt something poke my foot. It didn't hurt too bad but I decided to check it out and sat down to look at it. A couple security guards who had been watching ...

... every weekend and I'm probably as tan as I'll ever be. Oh yeah and they're actually as beautiful as they appear on postcards. The water is beautifully turquoise and I sit to bake for hours, or what I tell my parents I'm doing, "studying by the beach." Well, I think if you're still reading at this point, you must really love me or I'm a really engagling writer! I'll take either. Write back and keep entertaining me with your stories! Miss you guys! Muchos besitos y abrazos, Kathya

Well, the wedding day was packed full of good times. The morning was rainy. The threat of moving the wedding from the point on the beach was eminant. (The housekeeper swore that in her traditions, rain on a wedding day was good luck.) I think she was mostly trying to make the situation a positive one! That's cool n all, but the bride n groom werent havin' it. Good luck or not that wedding was gonna be on that beach ...

... city, it looks like the USA and Mexico had a baby and plopped it on a Caribbean Island and slapped some colonial architecture on it), everything was just perfect. This port was a great first stop because it was somewhat familiar to everyone and gave people a chance to ease into the whole traveling thing. Now for some bad news, rumor has it that two girls have already been kicked off of the ship, one for marijuana and the other for trying to sneak some Puerto ...

... but oh well. Day 1 was okay, I'm too shy for this whole meet and greet thing but I'm doing fine. All day today we've had meetings ranging from student affairs to safety issues to the speech by the student conduct affair (an ex-Minnesota patrol officer who was also in the Army). He is intense.

Classes start tomorrow, which I'm kind of excited about because they aren't accounting classes. I'm taking a film class, an art ...

... that we didn't want to pay 5 bucks to go inside, so we walked around the outside. At 1800 we caught a cab back to the ship to shower and get ready for the night and meet some other people. Then we headed back out to experience San Juan nightlife, and we left the ship with about double the amount of people we planned on, but it was fun. We were going to go to a place recommended to us earlier, but we heard that was closed so we headed to Senor Frogs instead and spent most of ...

... private mooring balls. Over lunch we examined our overnight options and decided we wanted to get to an anchorage where we could swim. We chose Sun Bay and Esperanza on the southern coast as our destination. We began our routine to pull up the anchor and when Al called that the anchor was up I began to pivot Free Spirit to port. Suddenly the port engine cut out. Al told me to try it again, but it cut out immediately. Al donned his snorkel gear and went over in the less than ...

... trying to communicated with tres limited Spanish and all the Caribbean English that is confusing to even most non-Caribbean English speakers. Finally got a cabbie that understood our destination. $40USD later, we had driven through quaint towns and scattered high risers, a blend of Puerto Rico that I had not expected. What I did expect were all the beautiful churches en route and plenty silence from the cabbie who ...