A Million Words

...Okay, the pictures might not be worth THAT much, but here are some more anyway!

I stood on the rocky beach to take this picture ... looking out onto the ocean from the coast in Maui.  There's a tender carrying passengers back toward our ship.  Those boats must have made two trillion trips that day, tee hee!

                                                   I snapped a photo of this Coast Guard vessel before it left us to go on our way. I never had this happen on any other cruise...But on this one a Port Police boat and this Coast Guard boat took turns escorting our ship out of the port in L.A. and far into the sea.  Someone came aboard our ship from the Coast Guard before they turned back.  At least we were safe!

Our last port was Ensenada, Mexico (I learned why we had to have a foreign port on our itinerary by law ... I'll explain in another post).  I guess I really liked capturing the view of each pier.  I'm so unaccustomed to ocean travel!

                                                            Ahh, Kauai again! The same property (but different water) where we went tubing; this is a swimming "hole," as our tour guides called it.  Those tiny waterfalls were really warm!  I'm a city girl and thus endlessly fascinated by things such as swimming in non-chlorinated water.

Not sure if you can really tell, but I had to try to get a picture (zoomed as far as possible) of these endangered seals.  They were sunning themselves in a protected area in Mexico.

                                                                This was sad but beautiful; the coast as we left port in Kauai.  I adore that island ... one of those places you find (if you're lucky) in life where you go and just feel at home, no matter whether you know anyone or have ever been there before.

That's our unofficial traveling companion, the Mariner of the Seas, a huge ship in Norwegian Cruise Line's fleet.  I was told that the Mariner is strictly Hawaiian-going, and that their cruises are entirely geared toward the Hawaiian experience, activities, etc.  Don't know for sure, but sounds like fun!  However, I had a dream vacation on our ship as it is!