The trip to Nassau, Bahamas

For a first real vacation, no work and no kids, we went on a cruise to Nassau in the Bahamas. We started by going to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We spent several days there, then went on a 2-day cruise, and spent one more day in Orlando, Florida.

We basically just spent a lot of time playing. We went to some interesting restaurants, played at some interesting amusement parks, and did some things we've never done before. Pictures really weren't our priority on this trip but we did get a few.

One of the things we didn't get any pictures of was a restaurant called "Arabian Knights". This place uses a coliseum for a dining room and has an entire horse-show for entertainment. It was presented as a royal wedding where you were the princess's guests to the pre-wedding banquet.

One of the larger coral formations in Ft. Lauderdale with a couple of fish nearby.

Paul displaying his prowess at snorkelling (and his big belly). This was in Ft. Lauderdale, about a half-mile off of the shore.

Theresa's favorite picture from the trip. She was unable to dive below the surface while snorkeling and without her glasses on she couldn't see very far either. But she did get swarmed by a large school of fish and managed to snap this amazing picture.

One of the bigger underwater plants that I could find while we snorkelled in Ft. Lauderdale.

A group of yellow fish (that's not their technical name) gathered around a coral formation in Ft. Lauderdale.

When we did the parasailing thing, we took a boat from the docks out to the ocean. On the way, the captain gave us a sort of tour. He explained that each of the houses along the path to the ocean runs about ten million dollars.

We went parasailing totally on impulse. Theresa is all suited up and ready for lift-off. Oh, and "don't hold on to the metal rings!"

You're attached to a winch and they let out a couple of hundred feet of rope and pull you around for a few minutes. Later, they bring you in close and dip your feet into the water. It sounds more traumatic than it is. Both of us agreed that it was nice, quiet, and serene up there.

Paul, waving bye as they let out the rope on the parasailing boat in Ft. Lauderdale. I was a bit concerned by the term "parasailing" until I saw how uneventful it was for Theresa.

The scene in Ft. Lauderdale from "Hooters". This was mostly an excuse to try the "Panoramic mode" of the goofy Advantix cameras.

Theresa waiting for boarding to start on the ship. This statue was a couple of blocks from the port. I'm guessing that it is a "Florida Marlin". That's the mascot for one of their teams (I can't remember which).

Our boat in port at Ft. Lauderdale. I had to pull over and walk half-way across a big draw-bridge to get this picture. The bottom half of the ship is actually navy blue but it didn't come out very well. This is about an hour before we went on-board.

This is where our room was on the Ocean Breeze. It was a very nice room with a really nice view. Unfortunately it rained most of the time we were on-board so we spent more time in our room than we would have liked to.

When we got to Nassau, our primary goal was to go snorkelling. This was the most boldy colored fish at the "Blue Lagoon Snorkelling" in the Bahamas.

A nice selection of a variety of the coral types we saw in the Bahamas.

These big green fish were pretty numerous at our snorkelling site in the Bahamas. I had a good time diving and chasing them for a good close shot.

A kind of coral that was different than most of what we saw. You can see several varieties in this shot.

Paul's favorite picture of the vacation. I got this picture during the "Blue Lagoon Snorkelling" excursion at the Bahamas. You have to appreciate the effort involved in taking this picture. I had to submerge with my snorkel, get low enough to get this picture and get myself upright so I get a good level picture.

Five minutes before we're supposed to be back on the boat and Theresa is just getting started. At the last minute she decided to have these island girls braid her hair. We were about 15 minutes late getting back but they didn't leave us, thank goodness.

Theresa is looking out our windows and is ready to go to dinner on the Ocean Breeze. This is the second (and last) day. We had just gotten back from Nassau where she had her hair braided by a couple of island girls. Dinner was a dress-up kind of thing. Unfortunately I didn't do a very good job of taking pictures of her dressed up.

A Betty Boop display at Universal Studios. Theresa's Aunt Mary collects Betty Boop stuff so we thought she'd get a kick out of this.

The various stages of decomposing (or recomposing as it were) in The Mummy. Just a fraction of the props on display at Universal Studios in Orlando.

Part of the set used for the movie The Flintstones.

At Universal Studio's Earthquake ride they showed us this model of San Francisco used in the movie. The buildings are about three feet tall.