An aside:  The ships passenger capacity is 750 and we are at 550. Rumor has it that the “cheap rooms” are blocked off and are being used for quarantine. The quarantine is that the new crew coming on are quarantined for 14 days.  

Dec 25. Saturday. Bonaire,  85 degrees, partly cloudy with brief tropical showers. Christmas Day! The ship is leaving at 2pm, thus the early morning tours. We left at 7:30 on a “4x4 adventure to Bonaire East Coast It was 12 of us in the back of an open air truck, traveling through the off road countryside of this interesting island. This Island, the B, of the A,B, C’s is about the same size as the others but about 1/7 the population at just 20,0000. About 20% of the island area is dedicated to the islands major export, salt production. Other than the vast system of ponds devoted to the salt ,  most of the rest of the island is wild, and cactus covered, or brackish bays. We did see hundreds of flamingos in the bays. Our tour guide was very understandable and knowledgeable, so it was basically a fun and interesting tour. We were back on-board by 11, so grabbed our table by the pool, and spent the afternoon withMaggie and others there. After Mensa, we changed for the 5:45 pre dinner show by that broadway guest performer, then met O and L in the Meridian lounge, before a traditional Christmas turkey dinner in Compass Rose. We again skipped the violinists apres dinner performance.

Dec. 26. Sunday. Mimosa Day. Partly cloudy, 85. We were in transit to Granada all morning, arriving at 1pm. Actually we arrived almost an hour late, probably due to our leaving late yesterday, waiting on 2 guests who didn’t make it back on time and held up the ship! We got out on out “Spice of our Lives” tour by 2pm. Good news was it was Sunday, so absolutely no traffic on the extremely narrow and winding roads. Granada is totally different from Bonaire. Bonaire was mostly flat and desert/cactus, whereas Granada was mountainous and tropical jungle. Out tour took us to 2 rum distilleries and a Spice farm. It was very interesting to travel up and up over the mountains on these narrow roads and see the countryside. We didn’t get back in time for Mensa, but just had time to get dressed and meet Otto and Lissy in the Observation Lounge for a drink before having dinner together at the French restaurant, Chartreuse. After dinner we split up, with them going back to the Observation Lounge and us going to the balcony in the theater in case we wanted to make a quick get-away from the Production cast show.

Dec. 27. Monday. Partly cloudy, 82. Seas 0’. We arrived in port in Dominica at 10am, but our tour wasn’t til 1:15, so we did our usual morning Lolly-gag by the pool.  Of interest, only those on organized tours were allowed off of the boat, and the local officials made us sanitize our hands and they took our temperatures before we were allowed on the tours. Our tour was a Whale Watch Safari, so we really only saw the island from the sea. The town was pretty shabby, but the landscape was quite beautiful. There were 50 guests on a fairly large boat, usually used for diving, but the crew was very knowledgeable about whales. We went about 10 miles off shore then the crew used a listening device to determine where the whales were. Once we headed that direction we quickly came upon several whales, most of them up nursing a baby, before diving back down to feed. We stayed in the area with the whales for maybe 1 1/2 hours, seeing at least 10 or more, plus their 3 month old babies. We got bask to shore too late for Mensa, and without enough time to change before a cocktail party at 6. But….5:45 came the DREADED announcement…3 crew tested positive today as well as 3 guests. They are all in quarantine, with contact tracing done. Only 1 has symptoms. But…large social gatherings are canceled..like the 6pm cocktail party, however (strangely) the entertainment is not canceled. So, we ordered appetizers and had drinks in our room. We went Italian for dinner, where we ate outside, and skipped the entertainment (I think we will skip all future entertainment), and grabbed after dinner drinks which we enjoyed on our balcony.