I’m writing from the Fort Lauderdale airport on Sunday. We have a very late flight, so Mark and I have had about 14 hours to kill today. But I’m jumping ahead.
Yesterday, Saturday, our last day on the Nieuw Statendam, was our beach day. We tendered into Holland America’s private island, Half Moon Cay (aka Little San Salvador) and spent the day walking on the beach, swimming in the Atlantic (not me; too cold), and watching wild chickens chase each other while we ate hamburgers and ice cream for lunch.
James and Tom had rented for the six of us a private cabana, so we had a place I could be in the sun but not directly in the sun and where I could play my music and read my book. There’s not a lot to tell about the beach stay. After all, doing nothing is kinda the point. Although it does seem like everyone’s legs hurt today. Walking on compacted, hard sand takes a bit of a toll.
I didn’t take many photos on the island, but here are a couple of mine and some that James took on the tender and shared.
We were back on ship before noon, but having had lunch on the island, we just cleaned up and puttered for a while, eventually finding our way back to the Crow’s nest to play Rummikub. Alex joined us a little later; the game is not as exciting with just two players. (These are pics of Mark and me playing Mexican Train on Friday, but you get the idea.)
We had our final dinner with Aloysius and Albert yesterday then turned in early. We had to be off the ship by 9:00 this morning, so we got up at 6:00, had breakfast, cleaned up, and then disembarked. Neither of us was looking forward to spending the entire day in the airport, so we stowed our bags and went walking along Las Olas Boulevard. We picked Las Olas because we wanted to go through the NSU Art Museum, which was nearby, and because a number of galleries were also nearby. Being Sunday, the galleries were closed until noon, but peeking through the doors and windows, we were able to see lots of large canvases with very Miami painting styles. Brash. Surreal. Sparkly. Not really our speed.
We contacted James and Tom, who are staying in Fort Lauderdale until tomorrow, and the four of us a had lunch (a pretty good one, actually) at matchbox. We walked through the museum’s special exhibit, but somehow, we missed the permanent collection. Another time.
Here are Mark and I at lunch, courtesy of James.
It’s been raining all day in Fort Lauderdale, so after the museum, we just headed here to the airport. Now, we’re (im)patiently waiting for our 8:40 flight—which was just delayed to 9:35. We’ll be arriving at around midnight to officially close this vacation.