Samana, Dominican Republic

Day 3 of our cruise, we woke up to finally see land.

We were anchored off of the coast of Samana, Dominican Republic.

That morning Dave woke up and watched the activity going on outside the ship.

Life boats lowered into the water, tender boats (we had to be tendered to land - meaning we had to get on a small boat because there wasn't a place for the ship to actually port on land), and this cool ramp that was brought in also. 

We used this ramp to get on our little boat.

It was pretty cool being right up against our huge ship as we drove off.

We had heard from others that had taken this same cruise 2 weeks before, that Samana wasn't the best place to be on your own.  One girl said she didn't feel safe.  So we were advised to make sure we were part of one of the boat excursions this day, instead of trying to explore on our own.  Who knows if this was accurate or not, but we took the advice.

And instead of going to the town of Samana - we took the Cayo Levantado Beach Excursion - to another island nearby.

When we docked, this friendly guy welcomed us...

 drinks awaited us on shore..

as well as some local entertainment...

This was our new friend Pablo.

Not the statue above - the guy in the picture below.

He is trying to sell us his snorkel equipment so we don't get it from someone else.

Dave became quite good buddies with Pablo.

We got good deals on snorkel equipment for our whole group.

And instead of going up to the bar, Dave used Pablo and his connections to get us anything else we needed during the day.

Including this coconut drink.

Although Dave was really only interested in getting to taste actual coconut milk.

This was one of the things on his "things I want to do in the Caribbean" list for quite a few months before we left.

So this was cut open right in front of him and he got to taste it.

He brought some to us in a cup - it tasted like salt water.

He had them put something more yummy in it for me.

The coconuts looked weird, not what we're used to, but they were still coconuts.

I enjoyed mostly just laying in the sun.

Dave tends to need to be a bit more active than that.

So he enjoyed lots of snorkeling.

That was another thing on his list of "things I want to do in the Caribbean"

Along with "make friends with locals" - thanks to Pablo for helping him knock out that one.

"Making friends" to Dave means - he would rather use their services than any services provided by the ship or non-native people, he wants to talk to them, find out about them, ask them where they live, what they do, etc. Even if he can't speak their language he is still pretty good at this!

Dave and his sister Stefanie

I was still amazed that we were really on that huge ship.

Look close, it's in the distance.

Our first beach excursion was wonderful.

We really were in paradise.

Right in the middle of a postcard picture.

And our trip had JUST started!

4 days still to go!