Planned (and Unplanned) Sea Days to Huatulco

After a busy weekend in Panama, Monday was another relaxing day at sea as we made our way toward our next port of call, San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. The usual agenda of interesting lectures, topped off by the highlight of the day, for us at least, our friend Jim’s one man play, Character Man. The is an homage to the great character actors of Broadway and Hollywood, and is a tribute to his friend, and mentor, David Byrnes. He finishes with the song “Because I Knew You”, from Wicked, and there were few dry eyes in the Galaxy Theatre, including ours!  

The ship's constant companions during our sea day. These Boobies were flying and
gliding around the bow of the ship so much that the
crew had to clean the windows of Palm Court, and probably
also the Bridge, when we reached the next port.

Our photo from the Crystal Society Party for
this segment

The full World Cruise guests can have their
photo included in an album so that everyone
can recognize each other - and make it easier
to connect names with faces. This is
our photo for the album,

San Juan del Sur was to be a tender stop, as there is no ocean dock. Actually there is not too much of anything in town, which is why our tour Colonial Granada, With Carriage Ride and Cruise, included a three hour round trip bus ride on a bus that may, or may not, have AC, and where ShoreEx described the bathroom breaks as “…few and far between, and can be described as “rustic””!! The things we do to get pictures for the blog!!

As our tour was scheduled to depart at 7:45, we set the alarm for 6:00, the earliest we have been up since before we left home! We awoke to rather a lot of ship movement for being close to a port, and when Larry opened the drapes to the balcony door, his comment was “I don’t think we will be tendering anywhere today!” Low, very close together waves with whitecaps as far as the eye could see and wind strong enough that we could see spray being whipped up off the water. While we were at breakfast the Captain came to announce that we were leaving. The winds were blowing 40 knots, with gusts to 60, and the Pilot told him they were expected to strengthen, way too strong to safely tender. Turning around, we headed off toward our next port Huatulco on an unplanned sea day.

A small boat off the starboard side as we headed into
our anchor location. There was no way that many of our
fellow guests would be able to board a tender in these conditions.

Just after we turned around and headed back out to sea.

Of course, sea days are never a bad thing on Crystal and in short order, Rick and the entertainment team had whipped up a sea day programme, which included Jim’s lecture on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We know from past cruises that onboard lecturers are “contracted” for two or three lectures, depending on the itinerary, but they are also asked to have one or two extra on hand “just in case” for a rainy (or windy) day.

Monica spent some time knitting (almost finished 1 full pair of mitts)
and working on photos for the blog

Jim's lecture on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was very well
received...but then again he'd had a great audience for Character Man
the evening before.

Larry resting his foot on the balcony and reading

At his Noon update the Captain told us that the winds had subsided somewhat and since they were coming from behind us, he expected a smooth sail and we would need 14 knots to arrive in Huatulco on time. This made for a very pleasant afternoon and Monica took advantage to get in additional laps on the Promenade and extra time in the pool. Unfortunately, in doing our ten laps on Friday, Larry, in his brand new running shoes, managed to raise, and break, a rather nasty blister on the back of his left foot and has been unable to wear much other than his Tevas during the day. We did manage to get some good sized bandages from the Medical Centre, which help with shoes in the evening!

 In contrast to Tuesday, we awoke on our “planned” sea day on Wednesday to seas so calm you almost wanted to do a double-take to make sure they were still there!!! There was barely a ripple, and winds, as we found out later at the Captain’s Noon update, of 2 to 4 knots!!! All in all, perfect conditions for another lazy day at sea. And yes, Monica did more laps and swimming. Larry joined her on the first four laps to test out his shoes for the next day’s tour. Dinner was our first visit to Prego, the Italian restaurant where we had a delicious dinner, followed by an early night back in the room, just because that is what we felt like doing. One of the nice things about being on this long is the freedom to not have “to do” everything. The show we missed will be preformed six more times before we leave in Rome, so we can catch it next time, or maybe the time after that!

Sunrise at sea

Sunset at sea

Monica's favourite  Osso Buco at Prego

Thursday morning dawned sunny (again) and hot in Huatulco. This is a very small resort town. According to the Destination Lecturer, the Mexican tourist planning board had intended for the nine bays/beaches in Huatulco to be built into a major destination of 20,000 guest rooms, akin to The Mayan Riviera on the Gulf side, to be completed by 2020. Unfortunately, that has not happened, with only 2,000 rooms built to date, and the Club Med closed and pulled out a year ago. Trying to make lemonade, the tourist authority has now designated five of the nine bays as “ecological preserves” and hope to re-brand Huatulco as an “eco-destination”.

Arrival at Huatulco. The early morning sunlight gave everything
a gorgeous glow.

Our tour was “A Hands-on Mexican Cooking Class”, which has absolutely nothing to do with putting your hands on a Mexican!! After a short bus ride, we arrived at Clio’s Restaurant on the next bay over. A few days prior we had been advised that the original restaurant planned for the demo had to be changed as the chef had a health emergency, so we were not sure what to expect. After breaking into smaller groups, over the next 90 minutes we made our own lunch of Tortilla Soup and Red Snapper a la Veracruz. The snapper was poached on a bed of tomatoes, bell and jalapeno peppers, onions and garlic, and it was delicious and very filling! We found out afterwards that while our Paris-trained Chef Maria had very recently started offering cooking classes, this was only the second one she had ever done. Could have fooled us!

Our cooking station setups

and our selection of ingredients

Larry spent most of his time behind the cookplate

while Monica 'sliced and diced'.

Chef Maria checking out progress with the soup

The snapper just after the fish went into the sauce; and our
almost-finished soup

The plated result of our toils

The restaurant is in a beach club that services many of the
condos in the area.

A view across to one of the condo apartment buildings

We ended up being almost half an hour late getting back from the ship and they virtually pulled the gangway in behind us and we set sail for our next port, Cabo San Lucas, arriving late Saturday afternoon for an overnight visit.

The view over Huatulco Bay and the marina

We didn't have time to stop and shop, but it only
takes a couple of seconds to snap a photo!

More of the local 'rooms with a view' as we
pulled away from the pier.

As we had had a larger lunch than usual, we decided to try to get seats at the Sushi Bar at Umi Uma for dinner. That way we could have as much or as little as we wanted.

Seafood ceviche

Seared tuna on a bed of pesto

Rock shrimp and Vegetable tempuras

One of the chefs preparing sushi rolls

Thursday evening was the ‘White Nights’ dance party for this segment. It is quite a popular event, with the Crystal Show Band taking over the Cove for a couple of hours. We’ll have more photos as we have more ‘White Nights’ along the way.

Violinist Irina performing during the
White Night event