Our excursions from this cruise have been generally disappointing to me. Yesterday in Ocho Rio we had a great excursion.

We had opted for the VIP beach excursion complete with beach chairs, appetizers, lunch, open bar and entertainment. It was everything that it claimed it would be. The appetizers were good and plentiful, the meal of jerked chicken and lobster was very good, and there were ample opportunities to get yourself plastered. The entertainment was not outstanding but it was entergetic.

If there was one complaint it was that they were serving a local bottom shelf rum in their drinks and my guess was that it was refined by Sunoco - head-shakingly strong. After pouring the 1st drink into the sand I decided to show the bartender my last name on my shipboard card. He got very excited and made me a rum punch using Appleton 151 - still strong but it did not give me whiplash. He kept the bottle under the counter just for Carol and I.

The staff were very good, attentive to every need and eagerly interacting with the group. Both Carol and I were grateful for a good final excursion to the cruise.

Swimming in the shadow of the Island Princess and some old tub that was grounded in a hurricane.

We are at our final stop of this vacation. Everything is heading home from here - two days at sea, followed by 4 or 5 days on the road. Carol and I both feel like Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day - every day when we go for breakfast we hope to find something different. Instead if it is Monday I have the lamb chops, Tuesday Carol has the ravioli, Wednesday we see the Michael Jackson show (quite good), Thursday . . .

Here are some photos. Be sure to click on one and then forward through the stack.

We are in rough water tonight, rocking back and forth. Actually, I am not too fond of it. So I started to Google "Caveman Thoughts" to see if I could find anything to take my mind off the creaking and groaning of our cabin. Here is what I found:

• are stone tools making our lives too easy?
• now that we have words, nobody's going to be able to keep secrets from each other.
• is ding-dong good for more than just slapping on rock.

Now I feel better. Good night.

My Dad was born 117 years ago on February 26. I was thinking about this today, kinda sad that I did not realize that it was his birthday a couple of days ago. He was a great guy and it does me good to think about him. It was years after he died that I realized just what a good person he was. He was fair and honest, fearless but quiet, humble and fun. He taught me to look at everything carefully before making a judgement.

We are in Cozumel gunkholing in the MSC Seaside. The MSC Seaside is 1060 feet long and has a beam of 135 feet. She carries 5,179 passengers on 17 decks and sales with a crew of 1,413. Her god mother is Sophia Loren.

Gunkholing is a boating term referring to a type of cruising in shallow or shoal water, meandering from place to place, spending the nights in coves. The term refers to the gunk, or mud, typical of the creeks, coves, marshes, sloughs, and rivers that are referred to as gunkholes. While not necessary, gunkholers typically seek out the serenity of isolated anchorages over the crowds of marinas and popular bays, and a minimal draft is preferred, since gunkholers tend to go as far up and into the gunkholes as possible, seeking ever more inaccessible destinations.

So we are not quite gunkholing we are cruising in a ship that would hold the entire population of the town that we have chosen to live in when we return to Canada. The gunkholing thought arose because another large boat docked along side of us and caught Carol exiting the shower. You cannot get privacy anywhere these days.

Our walk from the ship to the centre of San Miguel was fun. We returned to the hotel that the family was evacuated to in 1995 when Roxanne swept through. The hotel was partially boarded up but probably not as a result of the 1995 winds. We tried to find the bakeshop where I laid in supplies for the event. It was gone. The eye of Hurricane Roxanne passed right over the hotel knocking out sliding doors, peeling the garage-like security doors, uprooting the palm trees, and knocking out water, electricity and food supply. Everybody had to hunker down in the hallways of the hotel until the storm had passed. We were a couple of day before we were transported back to the mainland. Quite a night for all.

Stopped for a minute to unload the camera, clean up some shots and post them to The VOX. We are cruising for three weeks back-to-back on the MSC Seaside. It is quite the boat operated as a pizza bistro. Breakfast pizza, lunch pizza, dinner pizza - pizza 24 hours a day. Very nice though. So far we have had a beer in Antigua, US Virgin Islands Amalie, Grand Turk, and Jamaica. Tomorrow Grand Cayman, then Cozumel, Nassau, Antigua, Amalie, Grand Truck and home to Miami. We will start the drive home. Here are some photos:

We are driving to Miami to go on a cruise. Well, not a cruise but cruises. Since October we have been living in a beautiful AirBNB in Scarborough near Katie's home. We were to stay for 10 weeks, then we expanded it to 14 weeks and finally added another two weeks so that it would be a total of 16 weeks. Staying this long would allow us to do our drywall inspection at the new house and then head south for a bit before we take possession. So we are driving to Miami.

This morning we woke up in downtown Savannah - walking distance to the historical centre of the city. It is really quite a fun place. Savannah has an "open carry" law - no, not guns, but you can carry up to 16 ounces of beer in an unconcealed plastic glass. My kinda town - beer to go - you can drink a beer will shopping in the clothing stores, you can bring an unfinished beer into a restaurant to have dinner. Very civilized.