Sunday, December 24th – Christmas Eve Concert

I was so blessed to be able to speak with my family and dearest friends this Christmas Eve, as we departed from Key West, Florida. Granted, it would be better to be together on Christmas, but thank God for cell phones while we are apart!

But after we sailed, it’s probably the one day per year that I work the hardest! I love Christmas, and I love working hard, so this year has been very blessed for me. I had a fabulous red dress that I was excited to debut here, and I got to share my God-given talents with all the passengers by singing carols about our Savior’s birth at dinnertime with the Veendam cast.






Me with Noel, our Stage Manager













Robert played piano for the cast and I singing carols at the Rotterdam dining room








Destiny, Xavier, Victoria, Brad, Jacoby, Julie, Tara, James, Lauren, Samantha, Jenna – the Veendam Cast






Later that night, I was asked to open our Veendam Christmas Eve Concert with “Winter Wonderland.” The boys and I worked together to take a simple lead sheet and turn it into a fabulous island-style opening number. Thanks to the hard work of all my boys, the HALcats, featuring our percussionist John Patti on the steel drum, the number was a smash hit! It was so much fun, I wish we could have done it twice!

(This video is 2 ½ minutes, so please be patient while it loads. Trust me, it’s worth the wait just to see my fabulous red dress and my boys! This is us at our absolute finest!)

Finally, when all of our work was done at about 1 AM on Christmas morning, the cast, the band and I, and some of the other musicians from around the ship all gathered together around the Christmas tree in the Rubens showlounge to exchange Secret Santa gifts. It was an awesome experience to be able to spend Christmas with our family-away-from-family.

Opening gifts together on Christmas morning

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL and GOD BLESS US, EVERY ONE!

Sat, Dec 23 – “Going Under” the Sunshine Skyway Bridge

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love bridges. Each week, the Veendam performs an amazing feat, which I try never to miss.

The Veendam departs from the port of Tampa at approximately 4:45 pm every Saturday. And at about 7:15 pm, as we sail through Tampa Bay on our way out to the Gulf of Mexico, we pass under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which links St. Petersburg and Bradenton, Florida.

It also happens that every time we depart Tampa, I have an opening night show to do at 6:30. I am the last act to appear in the 45-minute production. So as soon as the show is over, I run out the backstage door to the big open deck on the forward-most part of the ship to watch us pass under this bridge in the night.

Now, I think bridges are beautiful anyway, and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge is no exception. But what makes this occurrence so incredible is that the Veendam extends vertically above the water 55 meters… and the vertical clearance to the bottom of the bridge is 58.8 meters. When you’re standing on the uppermost deck of the Veendam, you feel like you could practically reach out and touch the bottom of this bridge.

(The video is about 1 minute. Click the play button until it says "loading" and then be patient while it loads.)

And lucky me… I get to experience this incredible rush every week!

Sat, Dec 23 – Christmas Cruise!

Another easy cruise has past. Only 12 sets last week, most at which I sang seven songs or less. Once again, let me reiterate – I am the highest paid singer on this ship, with the best accommodations, and the least hard working. IT’S A CRIME!!!! I volunteered to work once with the Port and Shopping Ambassador, modeling jewelry and passing out flyers, and once for about an hour registering bidders for the art auctioneers. I stayed onboard in Ocho Rios and had port manning in Costa Maya. It’s been a pretty laid-back week.

But NEXT WEEK IS CHRISTMAS!!! Hooray! Our new cruise director seems to be a real whiz at leaving things to the last minute and expecting us to pull it all out for him in the end to make him look good, and he takes all the credit for pulling it together. (Can you sense my sarcasm?) Boo.

Yesterday, 48 hours until showtime, I FINALLY received the music to the solo with which I’m supposed to open our Christmas show. Luckily, it’s a fairly simple rendition of “Winter Wonderland,” and my boys are fabulous, so we should be able to pull it off. Plus, my famous red dress is sure to knock out their eyes so maybe they won’t even notice if I miss a note or lyric.

Then, I also found out JUST last night that I am going to be leading six Christmas carols with the audiences who are gathering before the guest entertainer’s show on Christmas night. As of right now, I still don’t know which six carols, but I have been assured that they are standards, and that I’ll be given the lyrics for them SOMETIME before that night.

I’m ready to throw my Cruise Director overboard. Shh. Don’t tell anyone. (You know I’m only kidding.)

Last Christmas I was in the Bahamas. This Christmas I’ll be on the Mayan Coast! This Western Caribbean cruise will be a little mixed up from the way we normally do it, though.

Sunday – Key West, FL
Monday – Sea Day
Tuesday – Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala
Wednesday – Belize City, Belize
Thursday – Costa Maya, Mexico
Friday – Sea Day
Saturday – back to Tampa, FL

Mon, Dec 18th – “Bwile en eedem!”

I didn’t have any big plans for today in Georgetown, Grand Cayman. I definitely wanted to get off the ship for a while, so I wandered on down to the Olde English Bakery. On the way, I ran into Robert, our new piano player, walking by himself, so I invited him to come along. I couldn’t decide between the strawberry cheesecake and the walnut/almond-honey bar, so I got one of each. Robert played along and bought a sugar cookie in the shape of a red Santa hat, but as it turns out, he’s not a big fan of sweets, so left me to devour most all of it. (Which was heaven at the time, but I later regretted with a huge stomachache.)

So we decided to wander on down the beach front. I know of a gas station down the way with really good fruit smoothies, so I set out at a good pace. But, it was sweltering hot, and he had made the mistake of wearing all black. So when we spotted a little pier leading out to a dried coral reef, we took a little detour.

The dried reef is so remarkable. You know at one point it was large underwater bushes, brightly colored and teeming with tiny amazingly unique fish and other sea creatures. But now it looks like just jagged grey rocks with pools of clear water in the crevices…. Until you stop long enough to look closer.

Soon we spotted little sea urchins, spiny and poisonous, leeched in the crevices of jagged dead coral. And pea-sized hermit crabs or soldier crabs, hustling along edges until a wave would catch them and pull them back in to the sea.

A boy was sitting fishing off the side of the pier with a simple line with a hook on the end. Sitting so close to the shore, I passed him by, thinking he’d never catch anything. And we saw his mother and little sister down at the end, stepping carefully over the jagged coral, seemingly searching for something. The little girl had a bucket and was standing at the edge of the pier, while her mother prodded the edges of the coral with a stick. We asked what they were searching for and she looked up and grinned, “Wilks!”


She showed us a few that she had in the bucket – wilks are little nautilus shells, green and purple on the fungus-covered outside, and with a spiral shaped mollusk inside. They attach themselves to the outer banks of the coral and feed off the plankton that washed through. The mother was using the stick to pry them off and every once in a while would bring back another handful to her daughter’s bucket at the pier.


So Robert decided to help her out looking for more wilks, while I stayed on the pier and played with Christina and we used sticks to poke at all the little sea creatures I only noticed after looking more closely. She showed me how to spot little wilks, but said we must put them back, because they’re too small for good eating, and we should wait til they got bigger. Meantime, Robert was getting educated on how to smell and throw back wilks that are too big, because when they get that big, they’re too tough to eat once cooked.

I asked Christina what they would do with the collection once they got it home. She looked at me like I should know better and said very matter-of-factly in her thick Caymanian accent, “Bwile en eedem!” (Boil and eat them.) She explained that they would boil them first, which would loosen the meat out of the shells. Then they’d clean them off, slice them thin, and fry them up in a flat pancake-like batter. This is a Sunday-dinner, she explained, a delicacy they only enjoy once in a while. Still, for someone like me who’s never cooked anything she didn’t buy directly from a grocery store, I was quite impressed!

Once they’d filled the bucket, which the mother explained would be enough to feed six people, we all returned over to where the little boy had just caught another fish. The silver skin was glinting in the sunlight, the fish was about five inches long. It was flopping around on the pier, and mother and son were chasing it around with a Styrofoam cup until it slipped through the cracks and back into the water, at which they just sighed, laughed, and watched through the waves as it swam back out into the water at the side of the pier, almost as if it was laughing back at them.

I couldn’t believe that he was really catching fish this close to the shore! But sure enough, he would cut a bit of squid, put it on the end of his hook and toss it no more than five feet off the pier into the water below. No pole, no fancy weights and flashy lures – just a plain bare line with a simple hook and some squid. Then, through the clear water, I was amazed to see three or four fish swim right up to his hook! He waited, watching patiently to see which one would go for it. As soon as one did, he tugged! Five out of six times, the fish got away with the bait, but ten minutes later, he’d caught two more silver fish and one yellow one he called a “grunt.”


Of course, Robert couldn’t resist trying it a few times. It’s a bit like gambling, if you ask me. It looks like it should be so common sense, so easy. But the more you miss, the more determined you get to try just one more time…

Finally, it was time to get back to the ship to get ready for the sailaway set. We blessed each other and wished them Happy Holidays. And the family invited us to come back and join them in a couple of weeks, when Veendam returns to Georgetown to help them out some more. I’m looking forward to it!

Sat, Dec 16 – Return to the East

Sorry that there wasn’t much to report last week, folks. With two new players, a new cruise director, and a new music director, there’s been a lot of adjusting going on, and that means a lot less sets. I had two whole days off last week, on Sunday and Friday, and of the five days I worked, I did a total of 8 sets. At two of those sets I did only three songs each, and at two more sets I only did one song each.

This week I have been BORED out of my GOURD. (My friend Gordon thinks this is a reference to him. He says I should just hang out with him more often.) It seems so unfair that I work so little and get paid so much. But I’m trying to, “Just be grateful.” At least I’m knocking out some of my credit card debt and student loans.

Here’s where we’re headed for my 59th cruise:
Sunday – Sea Day
Monday – Georgetown, Cayman Islands
Tuesday – Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Wednesday – Sea Day
Thursday – Costa Maya, Mexico
Friday – Sea Day
Saturday – Tampa, FL

Thurs, Dec 14 – What would you take with you?

At about 1:45 this morning, just after I’d gone to bed, something very strange occurred. The ship’s whistle woke me up.

One short blast, one long blast…

Ok, we know it’s not a general alarm, which would have started with seven short blasts, so if it sounds twice more it will be a fire alarm…

One short blast, one long blast…

Grrr, why are they having a fire drill at 2 AM???

One short blast, one long blast…

Ok, for fire drills, generally after the third repetition the captain and/or the cruise director will come over the PA and announce to the passengers that “this is only a drill” and we should all just stay put…

One short blast, one long blast…

Um, that’s FOUR times… my eyes are now open, but I’m still laying in bed waiting for the announcement to tell me it’s going to be ok…

One short blast, one long blast…

Sounds are emerging in the corridor, people are getting out of bed to see what all the fuss is about…

One short blast, one long blast, and one more short blast.

And then…. silence. Eerie silence as we all stand and wait for the familiar voices to tell us what to do next.

But there were no voices. And after another moment, the voices of crew began to fill the halls to share the news that the fire squad had been set into action. Holy cow… this is no drill. This could very well be the real thing.

I grabbed a shirt, roughly smoothed over my hair, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, and opened my door. There’s my neighbor, John, with his warm clothes already on, putting on his close-toed shoes, packing a bag getting ready to jump ship.

I wander out farther down the hall to where I could see the ship-length corridor. Crew members are standing around everywhere, wondering what we should do next. One of the traffic directors, clearly still drunk from the previous evening’s festivities, is the only one of his kind in place. (He’s not supposed to be there until the general alarm sounds.) And all the way down the length of the ship, people are sticking their heads out of their hallways to see what all the commotion is, and trying to discern answers.

I can’t imagine what panic must be ensuing upstairs in the passengers’ hallways.

I return to my cabin and shut the door. Immediately my heart begins to race with thoughts of, “Ok… so this could be the real thing. But I can still hear the engines propelling us forward, so if the captain hasn’t stopped the ship, maybe it’s not… But if it is, and the fire squad can’t contain it, the general alarm is going to sound next… and I’m not dressed.”

Ok, yes, I started to panic just a smidge. Still not having heard an announcement, I feel it necessary to assume and be prepared for the worst. What if I have to abandon this ship in the next five minutes? Standing in the middle of my cabin I am thunderstruck by a huge question – what should I take with me?

My immediate first thought is to grab my passport. We’re somewhere in the middle of the gulf of Mexico, halfway between the Mayan Coast and Tampa. The closest land is Cuba. (!!!) No matter where I end up, I want to be able to prove I am an American citizen so I can be taken back to the USA. But Human Resources keeps all of our passports on file after we sign-on. I don’t even have access to my passport.

Alright then, I want to take my wallet, with my government-issued ID and some money. But the liferafts will not accommodate any purses, backpacks – nothing but people. So whatever I take has to fit in a pocket.

But so much of my life is on record in this computer! I can’t take the whole laptop with me under my shirt and my lifevest, and even if I do, the moment I jump in the water it will be useless anyhow. Same goes for my camera. What if I save a bunch of stuff to my memory stick – will that ruin in the water? Do I have time to open up my computer and make a bunch of transfers? Maybe I should take my bible…

Bing, bang, bong… Ladies and gentlemen this is the captain speaking…

Hallelujah, at last! The captain explains to us that a moment ago we did indeed hear the fire alarm. Some steam was spotted, and was incorrectly presumed to have been smoke. The fire squad checked it out, the steam is normal, so this has been a false alarm. He apologizes for the early morning interruption.

And with a heavy sigh, I sink back into my bed, realizing that in the time it took me to panic, I didn’t manage to pack anything, make any solid decisions, or even put on my warm clothes and close-toed shoes.

And before I closed my eyes to sleep again, I resolved to be more prepared in the future, to know immediately what I would take with me if the ‘real thing’ should ever actually occur.

But since I woke up this morning, I still haven’t done it………..

Wed, Dec 13 – Learning Romanian

My keyboard player, Vasile, is from Romania. Over dinner, he was teaching me some phrases in Romanian! Here they are, along with their pronunciations, so you can try them too:

Ce face - /chay FAHtch/: How are you?

Fac bine - /fahk BEE-nuh/: I am good (well).
(or, to avoid the awkward feeling the first word gives you, just ‘bine’) /BEE-nay/: Good

Doi zece - /doy ZEH-che/: Two-ten. (the common phrase used at a mic check)

Proba de microfon - /PRO-bah deh MEEK-rro-FONE/: Microphone check

Yes, I have used the latter two a few times. Also, some of the girls in the casino, and our new Lido manager are Romanian, so I get to use the “how are you” bits here and there.

Other than this, the week has been fairly uneventful. Bad weather has caused several arrival delays, which cuts off a lot of our in-port time. I haven’t even bothered to go out in Belize or Guatemala, which is quite a shame, since we’ll only be there a few more times before the itineraries change again.

But the good news is: the two new band members, Seth and Robert, are settling in quite nicely! We’re all working hard to get them caught up, we’re playing a lot more jazz in general, and we’ve had fewer sets to make way for more rehearsals. The flipside of this is: these two guys are only here for four weeks, then we’ll get a new pianist and bass player and start the rehearsal process all over again! Then two weeks later, we’ll do the same with the guitarist and drummer, and two weeks later the percussionist. Well, that’s one way of “keeping it fresh!”

As for me, I’m currently in negotiations with Stiletto Entertainment and Holland America Lines about the extension of my contract past January. We should come to an official agreement soon, so stay tuned to the website, the fan club e-mail newsletter and this blog for the latest news when it comes available!

Fri, Dec 9 – The only thing constant is change…

What a cruise we’ve had! This past week has been fraught with changes – most notably, the loss of our bass player and our piano player/music director. They went home today, and Robert and Seth came onboard. Because of the rough weather we’ve had in the gulf the past few days, we arrived late to Tampa this morning. So by the time the two new guys got oriented and safety trained, etc., it was time to put on the introductory Let Us Entertain You show… and they’d barely had a chance to rehearse.

Luckily, these guys are both really professional players. Both of them picked up the charts and played them straight. The first show had some little hiccups here and there, some scrambled numbers, but the entire cast and crew of entertainment staff here on Veendam carried on as if all was well, and the audience was none the wiser. A true case of, “The show must go on!” And it did. I am so incredibly blessed to be counted as part of the team of such a group of pros!

This week… back to the Western Caribbean again.

Sunday – Key West, FL
Monday – sea day
Tuesday – Belize City, Belize
Wednesday – Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala
Thursday – Costa Maya, Mexico
Friday – sea day
Saturday – Tampa, FL

No big plans yet, but anticipating much rehearsal with the two newbies! Can't wait to learn some new stuff. Sometimes - change is good!

Thur, Dec 7 – Three amigos a “Banditos”

Simply put: today in Costa Maya I took a few of my friends from the ship, Gordon and John Patti, into a restaurant called "Banditos" at the pier (where we get free internet) to show them how to blog. Here's the picture of the three of us hard at work:

Ok, I know, it looks like we’re working REAL hard out here in the sunny Caribbean on a warm December afternoon, right? Can you believe this is what we get paid to do??? Yup, it’s a tough life, but somebody’s got to do it!! :)

Tue, Dec 5 – Swimming with dolphins, snorkeling with sharks!

Today was awesome! As a birthday gift, my dear friend Dave set me up on an awesome tour of Dolphin Cove in Ocho Rios, Jamaica! Dalma and Greg, the directors of the resort gave me and a friend VIP star treatment during our day there. May I HIGHLY recommend if you ever get the chance to visit Jamaica, DO NOT MISS this once in a lifetime memory-making adventure resort!!!!www.dolphincovejamaica.com

This is my friend Coby. He’s a dancer in the Veendam cast, incredibly talented and an all-around stellar fella to hang out with. I asked him to accompany me this morning to swim with the dolphins.

The resort itself is gorgeous! It’s set up not too far from the pier – we could actually see our ship from the lagoons. As soon as we arrived we were welcomed like royalty and escorted down to the dolphin lagoon. We were assigned to a dolphin named Nina, and guided by Romaine. Once we splashed into the cold saltwater, we met Nina, who passed by us several times close enough that we could touch her skin and feel her slippery fins. Then she did some jumps for us, and tricks! When we put our hands up and twirled around, she danced with us! When we shook our open hands in the air, she sang a Bob Marley song for us! Then Coby was asked to throw a brightly-colored ring out into the middle of the pool, which Nina then went and scooped up with her nose, leaping way up in the air before splashing down and returning the ring to the pier! Then each of us got to share loving kisses with Nina and have our pictures taken. It was spectacular!

As if that wasn’t enough, then we were escorted on a jungle tour, where we met and pet all sorts of God’s creatures! A donkey and a goat, a huge iguana, a boa constrictor, so many flowers and sea creatures, and all kinds of beautiful birds, including African grey parrots, macaws, and lovebirds. After we chowed down on some fries with a strange concoction of ketchup and sweet’n’sour sauce at the restaurant, we headed over to see the Shark Encounter!

“When in Rome….” Coby and I decided, if this is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, let’s do it all the way! So we volunteered to be pioneers on the shark experience. This part of the tour won’t be open to the public until Fall of 2007, so we felt very privileged to get this chance. After five guys dressed as pirates gave a very high-spirited, energetic, entertaining and informative talk, Coby and I were “brought on as victims!” All five guides got into the lagoon and each corralled a shark into his grasp. Then Coby and I were escorted down to a concrete platform in the center of the lagoon, and once we were situated, the guide set an 8-foot-long, 220-lb nurse shark in our laps! The feeling was so intense! The skin is made up of millions of little tiny shark teeth, so it feels like sandpaper. And when the guide dropped a piece of fish down in front of the shark’s snout, it made this huge popping sound and writhed in our hands as it sucked it in! I really think my heart stopped for about 2 seconds!

Then the shark was lifted off of us, and set loose. We were handed our snorkeling masks and fins, and off we went! The feeling of swimming openly in a tank with five very large, very LIVE sharks is simply indescribable! The guides were always near us, and several more were standing all around the lagoon, keeping an eye and a finger pointed at each of the five sharks at all times, so it was all as safe as possible. There are only two places in the entire world where you can swim with sharks like this - one is in the Dominican Republic, and the other is right here at Dolphin Cove. It was so awesome to look down through the snorkel mask and see these massive creatures swimming just inches from your face. They swim so gracefully, you feel strangely threatened and calm all at the same time.

Our time at Dolphin Cove was really one of THE BEST tours I have ever been on! The property was clean, well-managed and meticulously kept. The staff were all very educated about the animals, passionate about their conservation efforts, and above all FRIENDLY to the utmost standard. And the management was superb. My hat’s off to the people and animals in Ocho Rios, Jamaica at Dolphin Cove!


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Mon, Dec 4 – Three compliments

I have had three strange comments in the last two days that, separately are kind, but together are a bit confuzzling:

“Wonderful! You sound just like Connie Stevens!”

“Just like Rosemary (Clooney)!”

“Sounded just like Frank Sinatra!”

That last one especially makes me giggle.

Sun, Dec 3 – Job Swap party

Last night was fun! Every once in a while, the cruise staff puts on a theme party after hours and below decks, just to keep things interesting. I’m not usually much of a party person, but this one was especially intriguing. Everyone was asked to come dressed in someone else’s uniform! It was hilarious! We had steiners tending bar, musicians dressed like officers, cast dressed as maintenance, and so on.

The hardest part of my idea was getting someone to wear my famous “blue handkerchief.”
Some of you will have heard me speak in loathing tones of the blue handkerchief. Much as the giant banana hat was the bane of my existence aboard the Fasc, the Veendam comes with its own bane, pictured at right. When I first came onboard, the music director gave it to me with a laugh. Days later, I discovered that all the boys have shirts in matching material. So every once in a while, I have to wear it just to fit in. Luckily, I’ve got a nice long white skirt that I wear with it and a pair of four-inch heels to make it somewhat attractive.
Anyhow, everyone’s aware of how much I despise wearing this blue handkerchief. So there was only one way I was going to this party, and that’s if I could get someone to wear the blue hankie.



This is my bass player, Tibor, and he’s leaving in a week, so he’s got nothing to lose. He agreed to wear the blue hankie, and the wheels in my head started spinning! Woohoo! As soon as work was over, he came over and we traded costumes. I even persuaded him to bobby pin my flowers in his hair! Then I slicked my hair back, got out the mascara and the eyeliner to make a goatee and eyebrows, and put on one single diamond stud in my left ear, and here’s how it turned out! We were a party hit!

Sat, Dec 2 – December already!

I can’t believe it! This afternoon, I was making cell phone calls in a tank top and shorts, bare feet, wandering around the forward deck, and sweating despite overcast skies. I can’t believe it’s December!

….somebody please send me some pictures of your snow…..

We’re going back on the Eastern Caribbean itinerary this week:

Sunday – Sea Day
Monday – Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island
Tuesday – Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Wednesday – Sea Day
Thursday – Costa Maya, Mexico
Friday – Sea Day
Saturday – back to Tampa, FL

(I know the picture shows "Montego Bay," but we are definitely going to Ocho Rios - same island, other side!)

As aforementioned, I’ve got plans to go out on tours in both Ocho Rios and Costa Maya this week! (Thanks to my friend from Belgium for my birthday gift!) So stay tuned to the blog this week for all the pictures and stories!

Tues, November 28th – Mayan Ruins of Altun Ha, Belize

Last night, I ran into a friend of mine, Gordon (from South Africa) who’s one of the art auctioneers. He’d had a hard day at sea, and I’d had four sets myself. So we agreed to get out in Belize this morning to take an excursion to the Mayan Ruins of Altun Ha!

It was great fun! I’m only just getting to know Gordon, but we’re quickly learning that we share a lot of the same interests – sushi (makes me miss Reji and Café East!)… coffee (makes me miss A.D. and Prince St. Café!)… and (for Abi!) taking pictures that create illusions of being something we’re not…. like DEAD! [shameless plug: www.deaddani.blogspot.com]

The first one we got right off the bat… or should I say, right off the boat! The Veendam is required to anchor way off shore in Belize (the continental shelf is just really long here, and only the smaller tender boats can get into the shallow waters of the pier). So Gordon and I took the opportunity to enjoy the sun on the back deck of the tender boat while riding to shore. And as the Veendam disappeared into the distance, Gordon’s first idea was brilliant – jet skiing!


Brilliant and fun! And I didn’t even have to get wet! Ha ha! …Ok, on to the Ruins!

I’ve been to two other Mayan Ruins excavation sites, Tulum and Muyil, both in Mexico. Altun Ha is a little bit further south along the Mayan Coast in Belize, but it’s definitely the most prolific that I’ve seen so far. There were at least eight major temples/burial pyramids, just in the two “elite class” plazas we got to wander around, and an adjoining 6-mile path leads down to a pond surrounded by a smaller village, where the lower classes lived. When Dr. James Pendergraff discovered these ruins a few hundred years ago, they were piles of rocks and stones overgrown with vegetation. So he named the place for what he found: “Stone-Rock Pond” or in the Mayan language: “Altun Ha.”

This is plaza A, one of two major areas in which it is believed the elite-class of priests and royalty lived, and commerce was traded. This is “downtown.” It is believed that the earliest generations lived on the foundations of these temples, and as each generation died, they would be buried right on site, with all their belongings, and that block would then become the foundation for the next generation, who would rebuild a new level on top, and so on and so forth.


This is the cornerstone of a smaller temple, in which you can see the depiction of a “beautiful” Mayan face. The forehead is large and flat, and the nose is low, wide, and painted red to draw the eyes to be crossed. The earlobes are huge, and the lips protrude like a pucker. The entire head is about 3 ½ feet high, which is about how tall the tallest men of the time were.


The picture on the right is the tallest of the temples in plaza B, known as B4 or the Temple of Masonry Altars. In the huge stair block at the top was the tomb of an elderly priest along with the largest carved jade artifact ever recovered in the Mayan area, called the “Jade Head”. (Belize is still the world’s most popular place to get great quantities of good quality jade.) The Jade Head was elaborately carved to depict the Sun God, and weighed almost 10 pounds! It’s very intricately carved to look like a Mayan face, with curving fangs, crossed eyes, a large flat forehead and giant earlobes, sticking his tongue out. Ok… so maybe not a contemporary idea of “beautiful” but the jade it’s carved in lends an eerie green luster that actually makes it stunning to admire.

So what else to do with this Mayan religious arena now that we’re fully aware of its sacred symbolism? Climb all over it, of course!

I got to the top of B4 first (in the picture at right, that little speck at the top is me!), then Gordon joined me. Let me tell ya – that’s not an easy climb! There were about 50 stairs that took us up about five stories, and each stair, carved from the stones the temple is built with, was 18 to 20 inches high! Yet it is said that for their religious ceremonies, the Mayans would crawl to the top on their knees with their heads bowed forward, to show reverence. That can’t be easy in the blazing hot sun for a man less than 4 feet tall!


But once we got there, it was quite a rush to look down from the edge. Gordon had the bright idea that this would be a brilliant place for a BASE jump!



See for yourself in the video...



Ok, ok…. So I only jumped from the uppermost level to the top of the tomb – about a 2 foot drop. But still, you gotta admit that’s funny!

Back on the ground, we encountered a few kids holding baby alligators for a photo op. Apparently they’re abundant in that pond at the end of the 6-mile road. Hey Andrea: how do you like my new purse?

The ruins were great, so beautiful to see. But after a few hours in the blazing sun, it was time to get back on the air-conditioned bus and head home. Hooray for Altun Ha!

Mon, November 29th – Formal Night with my boys

Sea Day – four sets: Lido at noon, 2 Captain’s Cocktails, and a Crow’s Nest

I’m well energized after having all of yesterday off from singing. My voice rejoices! And still, I think I’m the luckiest woman in the world to get to be constantly surrounded by these seven gorgeous men – especially when they get all dressed up for formal night!

With all the Christmas decorations that have gone up all around the ship, and the fact that our bass player is leaving in 2 weeks, the nostalgia of “we must take pictures!” begins to rear its ugly head. And boys are notoriously impossible to round-up for picture-taking opportunities, but tonight I tried my best to make it happen.

We got a photographer to take a few group shots of us on the staircase and on the stage. Keep checking in – I’ll post that one a little closer to Christmas time. Meantime, here’s a look at me with each of my boys (except my MD, Daniel, who seems to be wildly flagrant in public, but tremendously shy for the camera). Take one look at these gorgeous (not to mention talented!) men and tell me I’m not the luckiest girl on this ship!


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Sunday, Nov 27 – A whole day off!!!

I have done at least one set every day for the past 16 days straight. This is my first blessed WHOLE day off in 16 days!!! I don’t have to sing a single set today!!!

But let’s not celebrate too quickly – this can only mean one thing: I am the only loser with port manning duty today – the joke’s on me!!! (Grrrrr….)

Of course, my dauntless work ethic won’t EVER let me be still, so in the morning I offered to help out as a showroom model and assistant for the Port and Shopping Ambassador, Rina. She’s the person onboard who tells you where to find all the best shopping, the best prices, the best quality stuff. She puts on a presentation before each port to highlight and tout the sponsoring stores and give away samples and prizes and stuff, so I offered to help her out by doing all her walking around the audience, modeling the jewelry and passing out raffle tickets while she spoke from the stage.

That lasted for only an hour, and as the ship started to pull into the port, I had to scramble to find someone to take over my port manning duty. I was dying to get off the ship, get my Starbucks fix and just find some secluded beach where I could chat on the phone with my best friend all day. (It’s been a long week for both of us, and there is much to discuss, but we didn’t get to connect while I was in Tampa yesterday.)

So here’s what I did in Key West!


Ok, I know… so most people go to Key West to go to the beach or party hearty! Me… I’ve been to this 8-sq-mile island about 3 dozen times, literally, so at this point, I'm just happy to find a quiet pier and CHILL. Luckily, the only ones bugging me were the pigeons and seagulls, and Maria and I had a fun time yelling at them (long story, but funny!).

Ahhhh…. Five glorious hours of strolling through the streets of Key West and then peeling off my socks to attempt to kill the sock tan around my ankles while yammering til my cell phone literally went dead. This was a GREAT day!

Sat, November 25th – Back to Central America

There’s good news and bad news! This week we’re traveling back to Central America for three days in the middle of the week. Good news – we’ll be in Key West on Sunday and another day in the US means another day of cell phone service – hurrah! Bad news – I’ve got port manning duty on Sunday, and Key West is a popular port, so I’ll be lucky if I can get someone to trade with me so I can go ashore.

Good news - It’s nice to have the foreign port days centralized, bookended by the sea days. Bad news - the ports themselves are not particularly glamorous. If you don’t take a tour in Belize, Guatemala, or Costa, there’s really not much else to do. Good news - Most days we’ll be leaving the ports late, just after sunset, so I won’t have to do too many sailaway sets. Bad news - I like to work! But this is going to be a light work week.

Well, maybe I’ll try to get out and do some excursions. ;) Since I’ve been onboard, we’ve only sailed to Belize and Guatemala once, but it was early in the rehearsal process, so I didn’t get to go ashore. Maybe this time!

Here’s the course for the week:

Sunday – Key West, Florida
Monday – Sea Day
Tuesday – Belize City, Belize
Wednesday – Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala
Thursday – Costa Maya, Mexico
Friday – Sea Day
Saturday – Tampa, Florida

Fri, Nov 24 – Another day at sea

Ok, so today would normally have been a sea day anyway. But it feels extra long because we didn’t stop in the Cayman Islands yesterday, so this is our second day at sea. Oh boy, I’d better get used to this – if I ever intend to go trans-Atlantic, it will be SIX long days at sea!

I had almost all my boys gathered around me at lunch today, during our break from the Lido set. I felt so special, surrounded by all these talented musicians, sharing their ideas on how to improve songs and sets, and generally just shooting the breeze. I am amazed at the camaraderie I’ve become a part of in just a few short weeks.

And my bass player, Tibor, is coming to the end of his contract in just a few weeks. So I’ve decided it’s time to finally get some pictures together. Daniel, our music director and pianist, was not with us when we were having lunch, but these are MOST of my boys – my family away from home. They take good care of me. ;)


Standing – L to R: Aaron Koppel (guitar), Nathan Kivett (drums), Tibor Duka (bass), John Patti (percussion); seated: Patrick Mayette (sax), Vasile Ribu (keys)

Thur, Nov 23rd – “Push the Button, Jack!”

(Fans, like me, of the ABC hit show “Lost” will understand this reference better.)

In the plot of the hit series “Lost,” there is a bunker with a mysterious complex computer that runs on a cycle. Every few hours, an alarm will begin to sound, and the inhabitants have about three minutes to enter a specific code and “push the button.” Now, for drama’s sake of course, this alarm never seems to go off when they’re all just sitting around on the couch, reading a book, or having a jovial conversation over a cup of java. No, this alarm is, for some unknown reason, CRITICAL to their survival on this island, and only sounds when they’re all tied up being held hostage, or trying to resuscitate someone’s life, or rescue a wanderer from some deadly smoky apparition! No one has ever dared to let the alarm run out without pushing the button, just to see what might happen.

Veendam has its own version of “the button.”

I work on a weekly salary. I get paid the same amount every day whether I work 20 hours, or 0 hours. Still it is, for some unknown reason, CRITICAL to my boss that I “clock in” at least once every 24 hours. I punch in the same “work hours” every day, 5 pm to 10 pm, regardless of when I actually worked. And the time clock’s day turns over at 10 am every day.

So if I have forgotten to clock in on any given day, as I did yesterday, then the boss calls my cabin to remind me. (Somehow, he seems to know what time my alarm is set for, and conspires to call me just 20 minutes before it goes off.)

So at 8:15 this morning, I dragged my tail out of bed to answer my phone, and I hear my boss on the other end of the line. “Dani, you need to clock in before 10 am.” Thanks, boss. In my still half-asleep stupor, he might as well have yelled in desperate anguish: ‘Push the button, Dani!’

And of course, never willing to risk what might happen if I DON’T push that button, I got myself dressed, walked out to the time clock, and pushed the friggin’ button. :::sigh::: I guess it could be worse: I could be living the drama of Fox’s 24. Ha ha ha.

Wed, Nov 22nd – An unexpected detour

Well, I was serving port manning duty today, so I didn’t get off the ship in port today. I was really looking forward to tomorrow though, since we’ll be in the port of Georgetown, Grand Cayman with Carnival’s Conquest and Carnival Victory (as well as four other big ships), and a few of my friends from the Fasc were going to meet me at the bakery there for lunch.

Unfortunately, the weather in Ocho Rios was sort of overcast and bleak. And as we sailed away, the captain came over the loudspeaker with a very important announcement. The port of Georgetown had announced that it would officially be closed to all cruise ships tomorrow due to inclement weather. You know that this has to be bad news, as the Cayman Islands are supported almost 90% by tourism, and denying all seven ships means losing the revenue of 17,000 passengers!

The reports say that winds there are very bad, and the waves are crashing up over the pier and flooding the streets in Georgetown. Three ships will be allowed to port at another pier in Grand Cayman, but as Veendam is one of the smallest of the seven, we were not chosen as one of the three. So, we will be sailing for the next two days to arrive back in Tampa on time on Saturday. In a way this is good, because sailing at a much slower speed means a smoother journey while the seas are very swollen.

But it means that the entertainment department is now scrambling for ways to stretch the shows we have left to cover all of the next 48 hours. Hooray! This is the sort of excitement I live for! Flying by the seat of our pants, never knowing what’s coming next. It’s a little harrowing, but a lot thrilling!

Mon, Nov 20th – Horseback Riding in Costa Maya

This morning I got to go on an excursion with about nine other passengers from the ship. It turned out to be quite an adventure! We took a 16-passenger bus from the port about 45 miles inland to a ranch in the thick of the jungle. They had a small menagerie of animals there, including turtles, chickens, a boa constrictor,
and a toucan! (And no, he was not eating Froot Loops….)



Then we were each assigned to horses that were ‘suited to our personality.’ Interestingly, my horse’s name was Pajarito (which means “little bird.”) I think it’s interesting because my first name, when pronounced in Spanish means “little wing.” Cool, huh?

Once we got acquainted with our horses and got a little orientation on how to drive them, we set out in single file into the jungle. We traveled about forty minutes through some pretty beautiful trees, and we got to sample some of the natural jungle fruits. At some places, the mud got very sticky and sloppy, and the element of danger only heightened the excitement of the tour. Pajarito was an old pro and took great care of me! When we got through it, honestly I was probably the one person of the whole group who had been the least splashed with mud.

A view from the saddle…


Then, close to the end of the trail we turned onto a straightaway. Now, we’d already discovered that the horses were a little bit energetic, since they hadn’t been out on a tour since Friday. But here’s where they got really excited. The group was divided into those who wanted to canter and those who wanted to walk. Well, everybody ended up cantering – you might as well get the full experience, right? The cantering was a bit bumpy, so I took it up a notch and led Pajarito into a full run. It was amazing! I mean, he only ran for about ten seconds before we ran out of track, but it was still pretty intense!

Yes, the next day I was a little bit sore, but only in my knees. I think something with the stirrups must have been turned wrong, and my legs were twisted in this weird position for just a little too long. And I had one small bruise on the side of my right wrist, where I had bumped it on the horn while running. Other than that, the mosquito bites hurt worse – six of them in all. I can honestly say, Mexican mosquitoes are some of the smallest and most vicious insects I’ve ever met. But not one of the other passengers got bit! Maybe Mexican mosquitoes have a preference for Mexican blood…

But the excitement didn’t even end there! We all piled back into the bus to head back to the pier. It’s amazing how much just sitting and riding can take out of you, and half of us were nodding off as we ploughed down the Mexican highway. But then I heard this strange sound and felt the van jolt softly… putt, putt, putt… putt, putt… putt….. coasssssssssst. Um…..?

The van had run out of gas. Clearly this was poor planning on the part of the driver. And we were still ten miles away from the port. It was only about 1 in the afternoon, and the ship wasn’t due to leave until sunset. But I had to be at rehearsal at 2! Luckily, our tour operator, Ramon, was able to radio down to the port to send another van to collect us. Meantime, we all piled out and waited there. Ten Americans in the middle of the desert on the Mayan Coast.


Well, we made it home, and I was happy to report that all of us returned safely. I even had time to grab a Coke Zero and my favorite cookie, Doraditas, before getting back to the ship just in time for rehearsal. What an adventure!

November 18 & 19 - Tampa and Sea Day

This week’s itinerary has been reversed – not sure why, maybe it has something to do with the Thanksgiving Holiday. One thing’s for sure: there are a LOT of families onboard this week, including the lead male singer’s entire family (25 of them altogether!) and 180 kids. It’s a FAR cry from the usual nursing-home crowds we have! It’s almost like being back on Carnival again… almost. ;)

Here’s where we’re headed this week:
Sunday – Sea Day
Monday – Costa Maya
Tuesday – Sea Day
Wednesday – Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Thursday – Georgetown, Cayman Islands
Friday – Sea Day
Saturday – back to Tampa

Worthy to note: On Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, the Veendam will be in port together with Carnival Conquest and Carnival Victory, and I’m planning to have lunch with several of my friends who are now serving on those ships – hooray! I already have so much to be thankful for….

Last night the band and I finally attempted to do “Conga” for a public audience. And not just any audience… the first night’s “Let Us Entertain You” (LUEY) show audience, where each performing group gets a chance to give the passengers a sample preview of what to expect throughout their week. We’ve been rehearsing this song on and off for a few weeks, but it’s been tricky, as the band had separate charts from the vocal charts that Dan and I had; they were in different time signatures and had different forms… it’s been a chore to pull this song together. At first I really didn’t think this song was at all appropriate for the LUEY show, as there are separate solos for each of the seven players, which leaves a LOT of time for me to just stand there and…. What? Shake my ‘groove thing’? Look lost? I’m not a choreographer, and I’m surely not about to make up some ridiculous dance breaks…

So for a long while, I’ve been resistant to the idea of putting this song in this show. But reluctantly I must admit: it’s not only a crowd pleaser, but it makes my boys very happy, especially our percussionist, as they all get a little machismo-rush with all the solo material they get to highlight. It would be just plain cruel not to indulge indulge them just a little.

And so when it finally got to the point-of-no-return, when I realized that we were going to do this song for the LUEY show whether I liked it (or looked like an idiot) or not, I did the best thing I could do with my perceived lemons – I made lemonade. Late on Friday night we had a last ditch rehearsal of the song, and I started to pay attention to who played what and where throughout the song, in all my lyrics breaks. I had to find a way to get the spotlight off of me when I wasn’t singing. Ideas were cooking.

Throughout this week, God has been humbling me, in a great way. I’ve had a lot of passengers stop me to compliment me on the job I do, that ‘celebrity factor’ I had such a hard time getting used to on the Fasc. I remember I learned to use it as an opportunity to compliment my dancers, and throw attention to all the hard work that they put in onstage as well as behind-the-scenes. I recognize how much harder they work than I, and I wish they were given more applause for it. So I do what I can with what I’m given.

Well, I’ve easily slipped into doing the same thing here, for my boys. I know how hard they are working and how little it is noticed… my job is easy by comparison. In any given 90-minute set, I might sing 5 to 10 songs, but they are playing for the entire 90 minutes. They play for me at deck sets, sailaways, cocktail sets and nightclub sets, but also for all the production shows, and all the fly-on entertainers. And that doesn’t include all the countless hours of rehearsal they dedicate individually! So some days I look at a schedule and I can see they have two rehearsals, and four sets, half of which don’t even require my attendance. To me, four sets is great! I love getting to work hard, and it’s just enough to be fun without being a burden. But these guys are really working their tails off! How come nobody knows it?

So when I started to put this idea together with all the solo opportunities in “Conga,” it finally clicked. This is for the introductions show… if all these singers are going to get their names mentioned and get their personal moment in the spotlight, then I’m going to make it my job to see that these boys get their names and their moments too. After the Friday night rehearsal, I ran back to my cabin and re-wrote a lyrics sheet with the new introductions written in. Essentially, as each guy plays his solo, I introduce him by name and instrument, and the spotlight hits him. It’s supposed to induce applause for him. I made a spotlight script and ran copies of it straight up to the lighting guy, Emiel, to give him as much prep time as I could.

Even so, I was still feeling anxious. This whole big change was happening very last minute, and at the LUEY run-thru on Saturday morning, we still weren’t completely on the same page with the form of the song. We ran through it three or four times, and only finally got it right the last time. But as it was our only day to be in Tampa, and we had four more sets still to go, we decided to call it quits and hope for the best.

I scrapped any thoughts of trying to go into Tampa myself that day. Whatever “things” I needed would have to wait. I spent every moment between sets going over my new form and new lyrics. I put together my five-points choreography and memorized the script faster that way. I had woken up at 6:30 am and started with a cappuccino, praying all the while that God would not just instill confidence in me, but BE my confidence.

And eight hours later, it happened! The first LUEY show got wild applause, thanks in part to the lead singer’s family being there. ;) The entire audience was great! They clapped for each individual band member as he played his own solo, the spotlights all cued in all the right spots, and you could see the pride in each guy as he finally got the moment he’d worked so hard for and so deserved. Praise the Lord for His provision of a great idea!

And then the Evil One tried to throw us a curveball. As I was making my entrance for the second show, the sound guy accidentally cued up the next song and it started to play as I came out to sing! The band stopped, and I stood there, doing my best to keep my calm for what seemed like an ETERNITY as the mistake was recovered, and we cued up to start again.

But once we launched into it, I felt more determined than ever to make this routine work! Even as the opening lyrics were coming out of my mouth, my head was spinning the prayer that would see us through. Once again, the audience clapped in all the right places, and each of these boys got his due. At the end of the song, the collective sigh of relief from the band was palpable if not audible! Thank you, Father!

Overnight, all the hard work has paid off in the response we’ve received. Everyone from cast members to administrators to passengers, have complimented the idea of giving credit to each player. And at this afternoon’s deck set, all my boys were clearly ego-boosted. It’s all I could have asked for.

Now I’m feeling much more confident, even energized, about making “Conga” the standard intro song for the LUEY show. I love being able to give credit to my boys. And I’m humbled to give credit for the inspiration and completion to my Lord. Praise the Father!

Tuesday, November 14, 2006 – Montego Bay, Jamaica

I’ve done 10 sets in the first three days of this cruise… I’m a little tired. Today is the only day in my entire three months that we were going to port in Montego Bay, Jamaica, but even so, I really didn’t feel like getting out there. But something kept telling me I needed to go. There was a small matter of business I needed to attend to, but nothing so urgent that it couldn’t wait until we are back in Ocho Rios in 9 days. Still, something kept calling me out.

So, reluctantly, I put on my shorts, my sturdy runners, and my dark sunglasses. Maybe, I figured, I’ll just do a little walking and shopping right close to the ship in the tourist section. I don’t feel like getting all dressed up for a tour, even though I’ve only got three more chances in Jamaica to see the Dunn’s River Falls, something I don’t want to miss. Even as I stepped off the ship, my legs were getting heavy, but my heart was urging me onward.

The bus taking tourists to downtown was $3 per person. Still thrifty, and eager to dodge all the very pushy vendors, I opted to walk, and was quickly joined by a couple of passengers, Robin and Brian, who were like-minded. They had a map, so we were sort of all following each other.

Well, what I thought was going to be a spiffy little jaunt turned out to be about a 3-mile hike along a busy highway, with no shade in the 86 degrees blazing-hot Caribbean sun – much more sun exposure than I had anticipated. I was sweating buckets. Still, something in me was determined to journey on.

I don’t think we ever really reached “downtown.” But after that much walking, we started turning down streets and searching for the place where the buses were dropping off their loads of passengers. We had passed a straw market along the way, but collectively decided to keep going. Still, something about that straw market was calling my name.

We wandered into a very busy and dirty section of commerce where there wasn’t a single white face to be found. But Robin was looking for a mall. Problem was – every “mall” we passed was more of a shopping centre, and usually we’d take a look at it from the distance and agree, “Uh… let’s find the next one,” and we’d keep walking further.

So with this same adventure happening at every new corner, we zig-zagged thru the streets of downtown Montego Bay: me insisting on returning to the straw market, Brian and Robin fruitlessly searching for a ‘decent’ mall. Probably not the best idea. I was quickly discovering that not only did Brian’s sense of direction usually keep us on the sunny side of the street, it was also leading us in circles. In our attempt to dodge vendors, we began mostly ignoring the people we passed, for which I sort of felt bad (this is the way foreigners begin to get the impression that all Americans are stuck-up and snobbish). Until one of the taxi drivers that approached us finally got downright angry and told us, “Look, I’m just trying to warn you that the direction you’re headed is the wrong part of town. You really don’t want to go that way.” About that same time, we saw three military policemen walking down the center of the street wearing Kevlar vests and carrying M-16s. Yeah, at that point, Brian finally gave in to my insistence to turn back in the direction of the straw market.

When we got to the market, I knew we would find other passengers there – it’s the same sort of trinkets-and-cookie-cutter-t-shirts place that is found in every port. Still, Brian and Robin weren’t convinced that they wanted to shop here. So finally I had to put my foot down and wish them a safe journey, but that I was going to stay here and look for a taxi back to the ship. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of wandering around by myself, but somehow I had a peace that I’d be ok with God’s direction.

I wandered back through the vendors, and actually peered into a few shops, presumably seeking some new sort of blue dress or skirt and top to add variety to my performance attire. But as I ducked my head into one small hut, the shade seemed to be considerably cooler, and something stopped me in my tracks. There was an old woman sitting there with an American baseball cap and a toothless smile, along with one called “the Birdman,” who was putting the finishing touches on his latest mahogany bird sculpture to add to the collection of five he had to sell today.

This woman asked what I was looking for, and I told her I was just looking for a spot to rest for a moment. She pulled up a stool beside her, and we began the normal conversation. ‘Where ya from? First time in Jamaica? How you like eet so fah?’

And then there was something else. Nothing in this shop was even close to what I might have come shopping for, and the time was growing close for me to return to the ship. As I fanned myself with a page folded in half, the old woman and I began to compare and contrast ourselves – old/young, preferring the heat/preferring the cold, and the obvious: white/black. That’s when she said the words that confirmed why God had brought me here, to this hut: “But we are all one world – one Maker.”

She saw my eyes light up. Two Christians now recognized each other. Her name was Nita Thompson, and she is more than 80-years old. Without hesitating she went on to share her testimony of God’s Goodness in her life: how He had brought her a husband and taken him too, and how she had been miraculously healed of gallstones after his passing. Praise the Lord! During the course of our conversation, I was blessed to meet her daughter, granddaughter, and 6-months old brand new baby great-grandson, Everton. She never stopped smiling, not once. There was so much wisdom in Nita's eyes, such unbridled compassion in her heart.

The fruit man came by and for about $30 Jamaican (about 50 cents, US), gave her a yellow banana and a green orange, peeled and ready to eat, as was his daily custom. She shared the orange with me, which was surprisingly sweet, and told me her daily routine with the ripe banana for breakfast was to keep her young. [Jamaicans rarely eat ripe yellow bananas – instead, their Official National dish is aki-and-codfish, a style of mashing boiled green bananas and mixing it with shredded fish, and most Jamaicans eat it for breakfast every single day. They love it!]

Finally I could wait no longer and made up my mind to get back to the ship. But I did promise to remember her in my prayers, and to share her testimony with all of you back home, that you might pray for her also. We took a picture together, and she blessed me with a palm-sized wooden plate, decorated with scenes of Jamaica.



THIS is the part of Jamaica that you can’t buy on an excursion. These are the people God sent me here to learn from! These are the lessons you can’t learn in church, or from a book. THIS is the entire reason I sing for retired senior citizens who can’t hear me anyway – so I can receive the blessings the Lord has set before me, and so I can pass them on to you. Please keep Nita and her family in your prayers, as will I. And remember that God is so Good – He will show Himself to you in all the places you least expect it!

Monday, November 13, 2006 – Georgetown, Cayman Islands

“Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.” -- Italian Proverb

Today I had the luxury to spend a few hours on a secluded beach I found hidden away in Georgetown, Grand Cayman. I was marveling at all the coral bits along the shoreline – it seemed like everywhere I looked there was another shape, or texture, or growth pattern. God’s creativity is breathtaking! But all the coral that is washed ashore is already dead, and it’s all white and stony. When the waves have washed over it enough, it degrades back into sand and is washed out to sea to be a bed for the new sea coral to grow in.

You can tell where to find the most vividly colored coral reefs by the expense of the excursion tour that takes you there. Ostensibly, we put a higher value on the most beautiful ones – the more colors and shapes you can see, the reefs with the most variety of textures and sea life, are worth paying more to see. But how often do we stop to remember once we get back to the shore that God created all things, and God recalls all things?

The lesson is this: Beauty is fleeting. Status and rank are created by man. Money is “easy come, easy go.” The only thing that lasts eternally is God Himself. He is mighty, and worthy of all glory. He shows us so, over and over, in the nature He has blessed us to behold.

Friday, November 10, 2006 – Tampa

Finally I’m working!!! Last week we did thirteen sets in six days. Yesterday we only had a quick rehearsal where Dan and I went over a couple of songs, then we did a few of those with the boys, and next week we’ll be adding “Conga,” “New York, New York” and a couple of country songs, “Top of the World,” and “All I Ever Need Is You” to the repertoire.


This week’s itinerary is basically the same as last week’s, with one little change up: Montego Bay instead of Ocho Rios in Jamaica on Tuesday. Same island – other side.

And on Thursday I’ll be celebrating my birthday in Costa Maya, Mexico! I started throwing hints at my boys earlier this week about the surprise party they should be planning for me. ::wink:: Of course, we’ll probably have to do at least one deck set that day, as we sailaway, and the boys will have to play two production shows that night. But hopefully I’ll get to do some kind of cool excursion that morning, maybe horseback riding on the beach or something fun.

Ok… I know I said I wouldn’t add any more videos, but this one has very special significance. Be aware: it’s about a three-minute video, so load at your own discretion.

Some of you know about the charts show that I had commissioned over the summer. Well, here is the first song I’ve performed from that show, “Stuff Like That There.” The Veendam has a sort of previews-style show on the first day of each cruise, to sort of give the passengers an idea of what sort of entertainment they’ll be able to experience around the ship during the week. Each of the production singers get a song, the string quartet and the Filipino band, each of the piano soloists, and at the end – me and my boys! So here’s how I hit ‘em on the first night of every cruise. Enjoy!

Thursday, November 9th – Costa Maya

Today I spent two glorious hours on a private beach in Mexico. Somebody pinch me - I can’t believe this is my life! Bless the Lord, for I’ll never know what I’ve done to earn this precious gift.

Today is my thirteenth day on the ship, and the whole 'celebrity' factor ("Oh! You're the singer!!") is finally getting on my nerves. So I donned my baseball cap and dark sunglasses and decided to wander by myself into town to get my Doraditas, and then walked a little ways further to get a cab. Honestly, I didn’t even care how much it was going to cost; I just had to get away to somewhere where I knew no one would recognize me.

So the first cab driver to greet me was a man named Arturo. I put on my smile and quickly recalled my broken Spanish. I asked him the name of the tall white lighthouse we can see from the pier, and I learned a new Spanish word: “el faro” – the lighthouse. He took me in the cab to the lighthouse.

Turns out that that lighthouse is actually a restaurant, and it’s not as pretty up close as it had been from the distance of the pier. :) So I asked him (still using my kitchen Spanish) to take me to a beach a little ways further down, “una playa sin turistas” (a beach with no tourists). He thought a moment, then continued driving.

We passed several patches of beach which looked like they would have served just as well, but he kept on driving. We were headed down this sandy path, where they lay the lines that tie up the boats across the road to serve as speed bumps. Not that you’d need them – it’s impossible to speed through the maze of sandy sinkholes.

But finally we got to a little clearing in the jungle’s edge where you could walk down the water, and I asked Arturo to pull over and drop me off. There was one little man there, named Angel (say “ahn-HEHL"), who was kind enough to warn me that the water is not so clear, as there is lots of seaweed and rocks. But I told him that that was ok, I only wanted to lay out in the sun for a few hours. So he agreed to let me spend a few hours on this little patch of ‘la playa.’


Arturo put the car in park, and that was when I learned that this wasn’t just a cab… this was a Tour Taxi service. Anywhere you want to go, they take you, stay until you’re ready to leave, and then they are there to take you back to the pier. Well, since Arturo had sort of figured out that my kitchen Spanish only goes so far, I was content to let him stay and chat with Angel while I kicked back in the hammock that was set up between two palm trees.

I hadn’t been lying in the hammock for even ten minutes when I heard Arturo calling me down to the beach. “Mira los cangrejos,” he told me. I learned a new word, “Look at the crabs.” There are silver dollar-sized holes all along the beach, and if you stand still long enough, the sand crabs will peek out to see what’s going on. There were dozens of them, so clear-brown that they nearly blend in with the sand! (It made me more aware of where I’d lay out my towel later.)



When Angel noticed how this delighted me, he invited me and Arturo to wander with him down the beach a little ways, he had something to show us. He started climbing up in this tree that was hanging over the edge where the water meets the sand. He grabbed a handful of fruit and passed it to me saying, “juvos frias.” Grapes. Absolutely fresh! Straight off the beach, a blessed gift from God, as Angel explained to me that they shouldn’t even be ripe at this time of year. Not as sweet as vine-grown grapes, but certainly tasty!

Still further down the beach, Angel started grabbing large coral rocks and turning them over to see what sort of treasures we’d find. A lobster tail, some beach spiders, quite a few blanched conch shells of various sizes, mostly empty, and tiny tiny nautilus shell creatures, and a baby red crab.



Grateful for my mini-tour, these guys at last got the hint that I really had just come to spend a few hours laying quietly on the beach, and they let me be. But they continued with their scavenging, and about 20 minutes later I look up to see them approaching me, and Angel’s got a machete! Not to worry… they brought me a couple of coconuts with holes in the side, for a refreshing drink. Once I’d finished that, they split them in half, and scraped the fruit up into bite-sized pieces, using the half-shell as a serving bowl – what a treat! This is not like the flaked coconut you buy at the store and put on top of your cupcakes at home. This was smooth, actually slimy, but so sweet! No processing, no preservatives, just sweet beautiful fruit of the Lord.



Finally it got late in the afternoon, and it was time to return to the ship. I thanked Angel graciously for allowing me to spend time on his private beach. I asked him what he called it and he threw his hands up. So we all agreed to call it “La Playa de Daniela,” at least when I’m in on Thursdays. ;)

Arturo had spent three hours chaperoning me around, and I braced myself for the price when we got back to the pier. He told me $10. I was astounded, I couldn’t believe it! ‘That’s it? For the private slice of heaven I just experienced? ALL this for ten bucks?!’ This was a section of Costa Maya unknown by the weekly ship passengers; no pushy vendors, no loud music, and best of all NO TOURISTS. All I had was a $20, and Arturo looked sad because he had no change to offer me. So I told him that he’d just have to take me again when I come back in two weeks! He agreed, I got his cab number, and I’m already looking forward to doing this again!

Bless the Lord, how did I ever get so lucky?

Wednesday, November 8th – Sea Day

I witnessed a marvelous wonder this morning – flying fish!

We crossed into the Central Time Zone today, so I had an extra hour to kill after breakfast this morning. I decided to take a stroll on the Sports Deck, deck 12, which sits above the main pool and the bridge. I stood at the railing looking across the sea, which is calm for the very first time since I boarded 12 days ago – no white peaks at all! We’re traveling at about 60 knots, and as I peer over the portside railing into the water, I see these slivers of light streaming across the waves, perpendicular to the ship’s course. At first there were only few, and then many of them, and in a staggered formation.

It was then that I figured out that those little slivers were really fish! Flying fish! They’re about six to twelve inches long, and they have these long thin bones along each side, about three-quarters the length of their body, webbed to their side and retractable. I guess we must have been sailing through schools of them, because every once in a while you’d see group of them speed toward the surface, leap out and spread those side fins, sailing through the air for 200 feet before they’d just touch the tops of some waves to get another wiggle of acceleration and keep on flying! They’d keep on like this, grazing the surface for a few feet and then flying for another 200 feet or so, up to 1000 feet before plunging back beneath the surface, once they were a fair enough distance from the ship’s wake.

It doesn’t seem physically possible for such a phenomenon to occur, but here I was witnessing it hundreds of times, over and over. I was amazed at how far these little fish could fly! And it just reminded me of how clever and creative God is, and occasionally how whimsical.

The amazing price of gas in Jamaica

… Yes, that’s $52.64 for a gallon of unleaded gas. But don’t worry, the exchange rate is $65 Jamaican dollars to $1.00 US. That means a gallon of gas in Jamaica costs about 81 cents!

Tuesday, November 7th – Ocho Rios, Jamaica

As promised – pictures of me and the band!


This was taken at today's sailaway deck set on the Navigation Deck Aft. From left to right: John (percussion), Vasile (keyboard), Nate (drums), Aaron (guitar), Daniel (MD, piano), me, and Patrick (saxophone). The only one not in the picture is Tibor (bass); you can see the end of his guitar above Vasile’s shoulder on the far left. I’ll try to get some good posed pictures with the whole band soon, maybe after a Captain’s Champagne set or something, if I can talk these guys into it. They really do look good when they’re all suited up on formal night.

Went river tubing on the White River this morning in Ocho Rios, Jamaica! It was great fun, with about ten other passengers, including my drummer, Nate. A few rapids here and there kept it exciting, but the best was our river guides, three native Jamaicans who kept the jokes coming and still kept us all safe enough to feel relaxed.

The tubing tour ended at this botanical oasis, where I saw so many wild and crazy flowers in astounding brilliant colors. The pictures look great, but the camera still just can't do justice to the beauty of these Jamaican wonders.


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