As promised, Alvaro and Enrique returned at 8AM and we went over our final bird list, making sure that we had all the feathered creatures on our lists. Enrique also went over our routes we had taken each day, and that helped me to remember where we had been! They then took us downtown to check in for our "cruise" and we bid them a sad goodbye. We checked in for our ship, the Stella Australis, left our "checked bags" with them and found a little Internet café where we had lunch and tea and juice as the hours slowly passed. I worked on the blog, getting many postings done. We decided to walk around the central plaza for a bit - in the rain - and look at some of the shops there. Finally, we walked to the cruise ship terminal to see what was going on down there. We met another passenger, Carolyn Nelson, and we all did a bit of browsing in one of the shops near the terminal. At 5:30PM, they began allowing the passengers to enter the boarding area. Our ship was fairly small, compared to the luxury liners that ply the Caribbean, but when we finally went on board, Ivan and I were quite impressed with its cleanliness and sturdy, roomy interior. Our cabin, #322, was on the third deck (of five) and had a very nice 'picture' window, king-sized bed, little bathroom and a closet. Within seconds, we had moved in! This photo of the ship was taken on the following day, but is a good one.
Get out your magnifying glass once again. I made a tiny, thin circle around the window I think was ours. The first level was where we ate our meals and it's the row of windows in the blue. Our cabin level was three and, if you look really carefully, you may see the circle!
We went to dinner around 8PM and had a nice welcome from the skipper, Capt. Oscar Sheward. Received our schedule of where the ship would be going and what shore excursions we could do. Sunset on Dec. 10 was, interestingly enough, at 10PM! Sunrise the next morning would be at 5:02AM, so we went to bed just before sunset!
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