After just one day on our trans-Atlantic cruise adventure, we had port! We enjoyed our breakfast buffet, then walked the boardwalk into St. Maarten.
Fun facts: this island is in the northeast Caribbean (approx. 190mi east of Puerto Rico). The 54 square mile island is divided roughly 60/40 between France and the Kingdom of the Netherlands; they are roughly equal in population. It is one of the smallest sea islands divided between two nations, a division dating to 1648.
We only went to the Dutch side, but there, we found two geocaches. . .
and met a coconut merchant named Dexter who had quite an inspiring story about hard work and dedication... mixed with a lot of humor... he was great. Back on the boat we met these two... Tostin and Elisabeth. They came up to us laughing, and with German accents went on to tell us that we had stayed in their same hostle and been at the same beach in Puerto Rico! They were super fun and nice and we ended up chatting with them every day.
After 7 days at sea, we made our second port call at Tenerife. This is the largest and most populous of the Canary Islands at 784 square miles. It is home to the oldest university of the Canaries, and also has the highest elevation of Spain, a World Heritage Site that is the third largest volcano in the world from its base, El Teide.
We walked to the awesomely shaped "architectural symbol of the Canary Islands" the modern Auditorio de Tenerife.
From the view from there we saw rock paintings, seemingly honoring famous musicians.
We looked, unsuccessfully, for a geocache and made our way back to the ship in time for Wren to take his victory tour of the bridge after his team won the progressive trivia on the ship! Go international Mercorn!
(INSERT PHOTO OF THE TEAM HERE)
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