Yesterday was another cool day! It started very early for some of us. We received our serial call away at 0500 which meant I was up getting ready at 0400. I ate a very early breakfast of scrambled eggs and hash browns which I had to force down because my body is not used to consuming food that early…it was rough. We left for the shore at 0530 and arrived within about 20 minutes. Upon arriving, we noticed that there wasn’t any transportation for us so we all (about 25 of us) trekked through the small town square headed for the Multicultural Center (MCC). For it being just past 6 a.m., there were a lot of people (the locals) out enjoying the morning. Some appeared to be just hanging, but many were preparing their various stands for the Saturday morning fruit, meat and goods market. Throughout the 15 minute walk the MCC, many people greeted us with pleasant ‘thank yous’ and ‘goodbyes’. One person even shouted out my name! KEISHA! You can imagine my surprise…I was taken aback that he remembered me from one of our performances. When we arrived at the MCC, the 4 band folks and I quickly offloaded our gear from the truck and began palletizing. We had to get our stuff moved and palletized within an hour so that when the helos arrived, they’d all be ready for transport. Since we are such an efficient crew, wink wink…we were done in about 40 minutes! YEAH! Our pallets were on the first helos back to the ship which was great because the rest of our crew were back at the ship ready to retrieve and store it. Once the last helo picked up the last few pallets, we headed back to the BLZ for the last time in Antigua. We waited for a while to board the boat that would take us back to the ship….so I figured I’d take advantage of my last opportunity to enjoy some Australian Ice cream. I got two scoops of the best lemon ice cream I’ve ever had. It was less like ice cream and more like gelato…YUM-O! And it was served in the best waffle cone I’ve ever had too. When you walk up to the place, you smell the freshly made cones from 20 yards away. Sweet, tasty…yumminess. We finally headed back to the ship and of course, I slept on the way back. Sleepy head, I am. As we waited to be lifted up to the top in one of the lifeboats, we saw a huge school (or should I saw swarm? I don’t know) of jellyfish. I’ve only seen jellyfish in museums so that was really neat. They were small, probably the same circumference of a McDonald cheeseburger (bad analogy I know, but just to give you perspective). Our trip into the lifeboat and up to the top was less rocky/scary this time…thank goodness! We got underway again at around 1100. I barely noticed that we were moving while inside the skin of the ship because there was barely any movement and I didn’t even hear the anchor slam. I went outside after lunch and soaked in the beauty of the ocean once again…I don’t think I’ll ever tire of looking at that. If you have never had a chance to be out to sea, I highly recommend you jumping on that bandwagon in whatever way you can. Yesterday was a good relaxing sort of day after we left Antigua…nothing crazy went on so many of us practiced and just spent some time re-freshing. Today was a ‘holiday schedule’ which meant that we got to sleep in. YIPPEE! I slept until about 0800! That seems so early to call it ‘sleeping in’, but when you get up so early all the time, 0800 is like 1300! I went to church and then went to brunch. After brunch, I went outside to catch some rays and breathe some fresh air. While I was out, I saw what looked like birds flying low to the water…but then they crashed into the water. I went down to the lower deck to get a better look, and they weren’t birds, they were flying fish! I have never seen anything like it before. Another super cool encounter I’ve had being here on the ship. It has been a good morning so far, and I’m looking forward to making today a FAB-O day. Hope you do the same!

Thanks for stopping by....
Keisha