Caribbean Cruise Oct 2023

#caribbean #tui #marellacruises #bahamas 

 
​After looking forward to getting away for a couple of weeks, and after the long flight and coach ride, we arrived at a very rainy Cape Canaveral port. 

We set sail in the early evening and were treated to an impressive sunset.

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 Next morning, we were up early for our stop over in Freeport in the Bahamas.
      Deciding to take an organised trip, to optimise our short time spent here, we joined the coach to visit The Garden of The Groves, a local botanical garden. We were met by a local guide who showed us around explaining about the area, how a rich American called Groves designed and created the garden for the use of the local people, many of whom he employed.
After about twenty informative minutes, we were left at a row of about seven souvenir shops and given an hour to explore the grounds. This proved rather too long as the circuit took about another fifteen minutes before we arrived back at the start and the centre's café. Fortunately, this provided cover as the local storm decided to download a deluge.  
The garden would possibly have been more impressive in sunshine but in poor weather, we found the views disappointing. (I did manage to do a sketch of the guide when I later returned to the ship)

To round off this exciting tour, we were then taken to a local shopping mall where most of the shops were closed and, as it was still raining heavily, most people either stayed on the coach or came back to it early.
A disappointing trip to the Bahamas, a place we were looking forward to visiting. It was a shame we never got to see more of the island and it was hard seeing all the devastation along the route caused by the recent floods.
Hopefully, in future we will get a chance to visit again.
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The only benefit of being there for a morning meant that I could attend a watercolour class in the afternoon, where I got a chance to experiment with the medium and completed three quick paintings. The one of the guide as well as a portrait of another attendee, who took it away with him, and the start of an idea for a landscape.