Today is Jason’s Birthday! Happy Birthday!
This morning we had arrived in Samana, Dominican Republic.
We had booked a ECP sponsored excursion with one of the artists, Peter White. Our excursion was called a “Cave and Mangrove Exploration” in Los Haitses National Park. We had a special boat pick us up directly from the ship (versus tendering to shore first). We were shocked at the amount of garbage we saw in the ocean. In all our years of cruising I don’t think we’ve ever seen such substantial pollution. It was depressing. Anyways the boat took us to a bird sanctuary area (on the water) so we saw all kinds of birds and even some vultures. We then road the boat to shore and saw some caves and mangroves. We even snagged a picture with Peter :)
After the excursion we made a quick pit stop back in the room and then got back off (via tender) to explore the town a little. We didn’t want to go too far but there was a sidewalk along the shore and a few big metal sightseeing towers that we climbed. We didn’t see much but it’s always fun to explore a little beyond what the excursions show us.
Tonight’s theme night was Purple for Prince. We don’t normally get into the theme night’s but we packed our purple for this one. The main shows were Richard Elliot and Rick Braun. We then headed out to the “Purple Rain Party” by the pool. The Cruise Director Dane Butcher was sporting quite the Prince costume!
