Panama Canal Cruise Part 1 of 9 - St. Thomas
This is the first of a nine-part series of photos from a recent cruise that Sean and Melissa took, leaving New York and ending in Panama City after going through the Panama Canal. Each of these posts will cover one of the stops along the way sharing some photos and telling some stories about the trip that hopefully you will enjoy.
The early morning sunrise looks like the eye of Sauron shining over us.
The cruise started out a bit rocky with bad weather off the coast of New York, which held us in port on Manhattan’s western side for an additional night before heading out early in the morning. Even with that delay, the seas were pretty heavy that first day at sea. We were supposed to go to Bermuda for a one-day stop on the way to Saint Thomas, but due to the delay that was canceled so, we spent the first few days heading south and stopping first at this beautiful island.
We were on board the Norwegian Gem, this is the third cruise we have taken on this particular ship all coming out of New York or Boston.
We were one of three cruise ships in the port that day, and of course, like always in St. Thomas there were a lot of luxury yachts… The one to point out in this photo is the one that has blue around its upper decks, that is the personal yacht of Nancy Walton of Walmart fame. I think any time you have a helipad on your yacht. You may have a bit too much money.
We took the sky ride to Paradise Point which gives you a nice overlook of the bay and the island. They say on a sunny day you can see Puerto Rico from up here, but the visibility was not quite enough for us to see that far on this day.
Being the bird nerds that we are, we are always looking for different species when we are traveling. I didn't get too many new bird shots on the island, but I did find this gray king bird, eating berries, near Paradise Point, and got a nice shot of him, or her.
Saint Thomas is famous for its shopping which is not really our thing after going up to Paradise Point we headed back to the ship and took some pictures of the harbor where you can see the amazing color of the water and lots and lots of boats.