This morning we woke up at 8:30am, docked in Bridgetown, and went for breakfast at Reflections for a change, and had the a la carte breakfast. It was the first time we were up early enough with ample time to have breakfast in the main dining area. When we ordered our food, we let the server know that we had an excursion planned, and needed to be out in a hurry – a slight embellishment, but our food came up pretty quickly. I chose pancakes, Julia had french toast (coated in cinnamon & sugar). We chatted with an older couple from Ohio that were sitting at the table with us.

After breakfast, we went back to the cabin and got our stuff ready and left the boat around 9:30 to explore Bridgetown before our snorkel excursion. To our surprise, we couldn’t do much exploring, since we were in an industrial port and city was a lot bigger than others. It was a 10-minute cab into the shopping district from the pier, and since we only had an hour before our Pirate Ship snorkel excursion, we just went back to the ship to sit on the pool deck.

We left the boat for the second time and caught our shuttle bus to the Pirate Ship excursion – it was so booked up that they had two shuttle buses transporting people to the other pier. We boarded the MV Harbor Master around noon and we were en route to ‘one of the top ten beaches in the world’ for some snorkeling action. We were both pretty excited, especially after our last snorkel mission was a little bit of a bust. The boat ride to Carlisle Bay didn’t take that long, and the beach did look pretty amazing.

To get snorkeling, we had to leave the Harbor Master and board a barge that would take us over to the site of the sunken ships. This was about a 5-minute ride, since the sunken ships were right off the beach and had likely been placed there to boost sales. We snorkeled for all of 40-minutes again, and saw two sunken vessels and tons of fish (albeit only two or three different types of fish). It was kind of frustrating trying to snorkel in a confined space, with about 30 other people – it just felt very touristy, since each of us were getting bumped into by other swimmers.

The barge took us back to the beach, where we spent the next two hours relaxing on the pink-white sand and in the very clear water. The only problem was how many people were in that immediate area – just in general and also from the excursion. It was one of the first times on the trip where we REALLY felt like tourists and packed in an small area. We didn’t let it get us down and really enjoyed our time in water. The weather today was absolutely beautiful – really, really hot. At about 2:30pm we packed up our stuff and got back on the Harbor Master for the boat ride back to the pier.

What we thought was going to be a nice & quick boat ride back turned into a VERY slow ride, with a party atmosphere for all the tourists. Loud soca music (jump & wave) from a DJ and an MC that urged everyone to stand up and dance. They even started a conga line. This was pretty amusing, seeing all the older tourists who had taken full advantage of the free drinks with the excursion, start dancing. One guy in particular was wasted. He must have been in his late-40′s or early-50′s, and was knocking the white, plastic chairs all over the place as he moved around. Another lady talked about how her and her crew, which called themselves ‘The Dirty Dozen’, partied so hard while they were away. We just laughed.

When we got off the Harbor Master, we boarded the return shuttle for the pier, and headed to the Seaview Cafe for lunch – we each had a Cuban sandwich, some fries & chips and a beer. I had a hot dog too. Afterward, we each needed a nap before our last dinner, a formal event, at Reflections with Yudi & Alfredo (we made reservations for Chops Grille for the last night of our sail).

Seeing as we weren’t very hungry by the time dinner rolled around, Julia went with a chicken caesar salad, while I had a roasted peach soup and a Thai BBQ’d chicken entree over rice. It was pretty good, but definitely not the best meal we had of the week. It was kind of sad saying goodbye to Yudi & Alfredo, but we told them we’d be back tomorrow night to wish them well. We finished the night off with some roulette at the casino, and then went back to the room.

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