Today we had a much more leisurely time getting going in the morning. I was surprised that I didn’t wake up until something like 9:30am, but A said she wanted to let me sleep so my burn could have more time to heal. I brought my laptop up to the breakfast area and had my most favorite cruise food: muesli. I have never seen it anywhere but on cruises, but I love it. It’s got oatmeal and fruit and raisins and it’s in milk and I don’t know what all else is in it. I’m not talking about Mueslix, which you can buy in the store. I will have to take a picture of it tomorrow or something, because it is my absolute favorite. Anyway, I ate my breakfast, and went back to the room to put on sunblock. Today we had a tubing tour, and I was going to wear my t-shirt, but I needed to put sunblock on anyway.

We got outside and I realized that there was a cache somewhere, so I went back on the ship and got my GPSr. When I got back outside, I found the cache was about a tenth of a mile away. We didn’t have time to find it, of course, so I just put the GPSr in the bag and waited for the tubing trip. When the guide finally got there, they announced that there was a delay with the first group of the day so we were going to be delayed too. As a result, we got a mini-tour; we went up to Morne Bruce and got pictures of the capital city below, and we went to the botanical gardens and saw a banyan tree…I’m not sure there was anything else there that was particularly botanical, but we saw parrots and a school bus that had been crushed under a tree during the big hurricane 30 years ago.

After what felt like a really long drive, we piled out of the bus next to some stairs leading down to the river. We were each given a whitewater helmet, a life vest, and a paddle - the latter, we were instructed, was for pushing away from the bank, not for actually propelling yourself anywhere. A and I had a tubing experience in 1999 or so that involved some very scraped butts, so we were happy to have hard boards strapped to the tubes this time! I had a great time on the river, and I laughed every time we went through a rapid and got soaked. There weren’t nearly enough rapids, but we had a really good time anyway. A and I got separated early on, and didn’t link back up until near the end - once I grabbed her tube, though, I didn’t let go until it was time to get out! When we did, there was rum punch and local fruits waiting, including raw coconut, which I had never had before.

When we got back to Roseau, where we were docked, A and I tried looking for the cache. Unfortunately my Palm Pilot had decided to stop accepting taps again…I think maybe it is an issue with heat, but I have no idea. Anyway, I had no clues for what I was looking for, so although I was in the right place, I didn’t find the cache. We came back on the boat and had a very late lunch - pasta is the only thing you can get at that hour - and then I did some reading of my Out of This Furnace book for history class…and took a nap! Oh, and when I took a shower, I still had sand in my suit. I am not happy with the way my Speedo suit is constructed, and I might write to them and complain that the sand cannot be gotten out from between the liner and the outside. Did I already mention this yesterday? Oh, and my burn is a little better, though my right outer thigh and my left shoulder and back are still really tight.

Tomorrow is Grenada. Because we spent a week there in 2003, we are comfortable doing things on our own without any tour. I know the Brown Sugar restaurant closed after the hurricane in 2005 but I am hoping the delicious pizza place on the Carenage is still there!