cruise, Jan. 31, fish watching

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We went on a fish-watching excursion. A boat picked us up at the end of the cruise-ship pier, and took us to a "semi-submersible" -- a boat that basically had windows in the hull. We were under the water, but the top of the boat was above the water.

There were four big ships in port, and one slightly smaller one (closest to town, on the left). Ours is fourth from the right.





This is the resort Atlantis. I don't know how much they paid the architect, but I bet it was worth it.

Having admired the Eiffel Tower in all weather, since I discovered the webcam last summer, I am a firm believer in having architecture that is unique and iconic.

No one who has ever seen this extremely photogenic complex will fail to recognize it when they see it again..........





The tour guide on the boat entertained us with stories of where the rich and famous live, and how much everything cost.

"You can stay in the bridge between the two Atlantis buildings for only $25,000 a night, if you book at least four nights in a row." "Richard Harris lived there." "This is one of Oprah's houses." "Tiger Woods' house is over there." "The condos in this building cost one million each." "These are the cheap condos -- only $300,000 each."

Ever since my sister followed different guides around at Machu Pichu, and listened to them telling different stories about the same things, I have been pretty cynical about things tour guides say. Who knows what is true.

This guide was fun to listen to, and quite cynical, which made him more interesting to me than if he'd been all Chamber-of-Commerce.

There are surely some very nice places to live along the coast of Paradise Island.





Here we are on the semi-submersible. The water was pretty cloudy. I'm blaming the wind. It was very windy the whole time we were in the Bahamas. The clouds came and went, but the wind was a constant.

One of my co-workers told me that her family had done this trip several years ago, and they had been able to see, crystal clear, the colors of the fish, etc.

We could make out shapes, and could see shine and color if the fish were in the top three or four feet of water.

I wondered if I'd get any decent pics at all. The camera does not like to focus on wet stuff, and with the cloudy water...............

So I am pleased with these. Relatively speaking. We did see a lot of fish, and a lot of different kinds of fish. We were in a national park, where no one is allowed to snorkel or dive or kill things...... The fish love to visit this vessel, as they are fed by its captain.........







I didn't get a pic of the barracuda which visits the boat on almost every trip. He was large, and scary looking..... We saw one other fish that surely massed as much (maybe more) but wasn't as long and skinny. We also saw starfish, and sea urchins.

We really saw quite a bit, just all ... cloudy.

Luck of the draw. We totally lucked out on our whale watching trip in Alaska, and not so much this time. Oh well.



Back on the boat which will return us to the pier.





More rich-people housing.





More exotic vegetation.





There is a building at the end of the pier that you have to go through to get back on your ship. You can see it in the background behind these hibiscus.







Rusty mooring whatsis, holding cruise-ship ropes.





We went back to the ship for some late lunch, as we ate dinner at 8:30 (which is really pretty late!).

In Alaska we loved the ship's berry soup. On this ship, this was the first berry soup we were offered. Different (the other had creme fraiche) but good.



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