A Day at the Beach
Our last full day of the cruise was spent at the cruiseline's private island, Stirrup Cay, in the Bahamas after steaming for about 36 hours from Costa Maya - really a restful day at sea after three days in a row of tours.

We tendered (were transported by a smal boat from the cruiseship) to the island as the ship requires 40 feet of water. You could rent snorkeling equipment at the beach but Marolynn and I brought our own from our diving days.

As you can see, the water at Stirrup Cay is really clear, and when we swam out to the rocks in the foreground, there were a lot of tropical fish to see and a bit of coral. Even though it was November, some folks got a good surburn from laying out on the beach and in the water.



Stirrup Cay is a stirrup-shaped island with a lighthouse in the middle, so some of us decided to take a walk down a sandy road to see the lighthouse. The U.S. military used the island during World War II and again to track space launches from Cape Canaveral, and the lighthouse and the Stirrup Cay International Airport stemmed from those times. Clark Butler and Paul Griffin are in the picture. The lighthouse is pretty well buried in the bushes now and I don't know whether it is operational. A small Iguana was out on the rocks for a photo-op as we passed by.

My Life is in Ruins

Kohunlich


The next port was Costa Maya, Mexico, only about 50 miles north of Belize City, and our second Mayan ruin tour. Laura Rowbury, our tour organizer arranged for the tour to be given by an LDS guide of Mayan descent, and everyone in our group climbed into two vans to make the 60 mile journey up to the ruins.

Our guide, Mosiah, a third-generation LDS church member (all his brothers and sisters got Book of Mormon names also), and was convinced that the Mayans had knowledge of the Book of Mormon people, though there are various theories and no real Church position on any of them. His most interesting point was that the Mayan annual calendar had 12 months totaling 360 days plus 5 holidays, 4 of which fell on the first day of winter, spring, summer, and fall, but the 5th holiday was on April 6. There is a calendar ruin wherein the sun rises and shines through a marker hole on April 6. The guide's viewpoint in explaining the ruins at Kohunlich was quite unique and interesting to say the least.

The ruins shown to us at Lamanai were much less extensive than at Kohunlich which was a large area of buildings and Mayan temples. The ruins were also much more out in the open with well-kept lawns around them, rather than the junglely surroundings at Lamanai.

We got to see all of the ruins rather than just part of them afforded to the shipboard arranged tour group, and spent all our available time on this tour. Pulling out of the area, one of the vans blew a tire and we had to stop and help change it with a half-filled spare. Then 60 miles back down the road to the ship. Very little time again for shopping, so we didn't bring much more than photos back from this trip.

My Life is in Ruins

Lamanai

(Caribbean Cruise Continued)
Two shore tours were planned to visit Mayan ruins from Belize and from Mexico. The ruins in each case were about 70 miles inland, but actually only about 15 miles apart.

It was an easy jump to Belize, only about 120 miles northwest of Roatan with the ship making slow headway during the night. But the change in weather was amazing, from clouds and rain to beautiful clear skys dotted with a few clouds in the afternoon.

The trip out of Belize was an hour's bus ride to a dock on a river that led up to the ruins. Departing the dock on the boat was so remindful of the Disneyland jungle boatride, but the guide noted that "this is all real". Up the river we went for 10 miles, with wildlife on all sides; Iguanas and all manner of birds.




The narrow river suddenly widened into a larger lake or lagoon with a low hill on one side, and the top of a Mayan temple rose out of the trees on top of the hill. This was part of the Lamanai ruins. We learned that the Mayans built up the hill by hand and also forming the lagoon, a 10ft layer every 52 years when the sun and moon calendar coincided. We docked and walked up through the jungle toward the ruins.








First we had lunch under a large palm-leaf thatched roof. These roofs last about 25 years without leaking - a lot better than the flat roof at home.



We then took a mile hike through the jungle to the ruins; the temple of masks - one of the masks is shown above.












Secondly we visited the large Mayan pyramid shown here. No, I didn't climb to the top though an old lady in the group did and came down on her rump, step by step. The 18 inch steps were meant to make the climber bow as he ascended the temple to worship his god. Finally we visited the shaman's temple of the jaguire. The tribal shaman was required to kill a jaguire and wear it's pelt cerimoniously, but he received gifts from all of the village because he was the healer.

Next Ruin - Kohunlich

The Caribbean Cruise
Last year nearly everyone of us who did the Alaska cruise decided to sign up for another cruise, and at the beginning of the year decided to go to the Caribbean in November. Little did I know that the sailing date would fall right in the middle of selling our house and moving everything to Utah. But we did the cruise this last week nevertheless. Twenty of us went and the weather was mostly great and we had a good time.


We spent the first day sailing west along Cuba and then as we rounded the island, south to our first port, Roatan, an island about 30 miles off of Honduras. The photo is of the sun rising off of Cuba. We passed the time in the ship's pool and in the game room playing different card games and Risk. The stateroom TV also featured recent movies such as "Up" and the latest Harry Potter movie. Days at sea aren't all that bad.
We experienced the only cloudy and a bit rainy day of the cruise in Roatan. The island's economy is built on tourism. Each cruise line has its docking area and shops and stores. Norwegian Cruise Line goes all out for jewelry and gems, especially diamonds. I think that it is an old business profile that comes from the days when only the very wealthy went on cruises, but the stores were crowded and some people were probably buying diamonds.



Six of us arranged for a chartered boat to take us ocean fishing. It was a poor day for that, but "uncle Paul" kept his record intact by catching the biggest fish (actually the only fish). We trolled up and down the 35 mile length of the island, then let down bait at the edge of the reef, but no fish.

Others had fun on the ziplines and snorkeling, though the day was cloudy with showers.

Dinner at the Shaws
So much has happened since the last post. On Saturday we rented a Uhaul truck at 7:30 in the morning, and much to my surprise, several folks from the ward were waiting at my driveway to help load the truck. Most of the loading was done within a couple of hours, and we had the truck, plus our own completely loaded by noon. The next day, we drove the U-haul and our own truck up to Utah and unloaded a large portion of our goods to a storage unit in American Fork. Yesterday(Tuesday) we returned, and today we received final word that the people interesed in the house had signed acceptance to buy. So the road is clear to closing on November 25. This evening, the Shaws, our east-side neighbors had us and other neighbors over to dinner. Janet Shaw is Hawiian and we had a Hawiian/Japanese meal, just delicious. We'll miss these great friends our ours

The Maple Bursts Forth
We thought that the cold weather of a week ago might have frozen the leaves on our Japanese Maple just outside the kitchen, but today all the leaves turned orange and red. The Fall foliage only lasts about a week before the leaves all fall, and we'll miss this tree after we've retired to Utah.

The sale of the house proceeds well, and we're at the last stages with a closing date of the 25th of November. Events run very fast as we do the heavy hauling of boxes and furniture to Utah this weekend, then come back only to leave on a Caribbean cruise that was planned months ago. Once we return, we close on the home sale and make our final run to Utah.