August 22, 2018

Tuesday August 21 St Thomas

We arrive in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas a few minutes early and the ship is cleared by 8:00 AM. Skies are clear with a nice breeze. temperatures are in the low to mid 80's, very pleasant, for me anyway.

Four ships are expected today. We are the first to arrive. The Harmony of The Seas arrives about an hour after her expected time. Due to her size, she has to back into the bay. Later in the morning a Carnival ship and a Princess ship arrive. I' will be back on the ship before all these passengers descend on the island.

Disembarkation from the Equinox is efficient. I anticipate it will take me 15 or 20 minutes to get to my gathering point for my tour, but it only takes about 5 once I leave my cabin.

The open air bus is full, but comfortable. At several viewpoints we can see the other ships heading to dock. There is some evidence of lingering damage from the hurricanes of last year, but in the areas we drove thru it was minimal. Our driver told us that steady progress is being made, and the issue is a lack of qualified construction workers.

Captain Kate is also a geocasher and has stashed marbles in many location. She gives a few hints as we arrive at each port. What an ideal career for the hobby. Definitely of the younger generation.

The passenger manifest is as one should expect on Celebrity. A few children, I think less than a dozen in the children's program, passengers of all ages with a predominance in or near their retirement years. Mostly americans, and many from Florida.

Tonight we have another production show with the singers, dancers, and acrobats. Our magician, Jason Bishop, left the ship today so it is obvious he won't be doing another show for us.

I should know better than to write about something before it happens. So I erased a paragraph about us leaving port at 6:00 PM.

I'll start by just saying Captain Kate had a better day than Captain Johnnie on the Harmony.  No only was the Harmony an hour late in docking, when it came time to leave they were still missing "a passenger".  There is only one harbor pilot. I don't know if that is the usual procedure or if something was unusual today. With the Harmony being scheduled to leave first, the pilot was on board. After waiting a half hour, the pilot left the Harmony and came aboard the Equinox so we could depart. The Harmony had no choice but to wait until the harbor pilot returned.

As we pulled out of sight of the harbor, the Harmony was still at the pier with numerous dock workers, security personnel, and ships officers standing on the pier. It must have been an important passenger to wait over an hour and also lose the departure slot.

Maybe Captain Johnnie's motor cycle broke down while he was touring the island.

The production show tonight was well attended. As we head to Phillipsburgh, St. Maarten the skies have a few scattered clouds and the seas are under two meters, not enough to make the ship pitch or roll even a tiny amount.