St. Thomas U.S. Virgin Islands

On the cruise we stopped at St.Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  It was a beautiful island.

 

Christopher Columbus landed on the island in 1493 and he named it Santa Cruz. It also used to be owned by the Dutch to grow sugar cane. It was a place that pirates used to go to. We got a taxi. It was a cool taxi because we sat outside in the taxi.  Our drivers name was 10-10.

 

We went to Magens Bay which is a beach. It is known as one of the nicest beaches in the world.  I went swimming and I built a sand castle and a moat that I could go in.

 

There are about 50 000 people who live on the island.  Their main language is English and they buy things with the U.S. dollar.  It is kind of strange because they drive on the left side of the road.  They are 1 hour ahead of us because they are so far east of where we live.  I really liked all the great views I saw when I was on the island.

 

At night we had a pirates night because of all the pirates that used to be in this area.

 









San Juan Puerto Rico

San Juan Puerto Rico has deserts, rain forests, caves and wild cats running around. I forgot to mention it also has forts. Ponce De Leon founded the city in 1508.

 

If you don`t believe me about the cats look at this photo. The population of the old part of the city is 18,000. We were there on Ash Wednesday when people wear ashes on their heads. There was an Ash Wednesday service on the ship.  

  

This is Castillo de San Cristobal. It was built in 1783. The fort was made to protect the city.

Puerto Rico has many beautiful buildings and nice shops with homemade items.

Below are some photos of the city that I like.

 

 



 

This is a grave yard. 

 

 

 



Castaway Cay

On the Disney cruise we stopped at Castaway Cay. Castaway Cay is 1 of 700 islands in the Bahamas. Its located near Great Abaco island. Also known in the story of Castaway Cay, a group of castaways went to the island in a small boat. When they got there they started to dig. They believed there was treasure on the island. Days went on then one day they didn't think there was treasure on the island because there was nowhere else to dig. They made a plan to escape in the night there was a storm in the morning and their boat was  gone... or so the story goes

This is what it looks like after Hurricane Sandy.

 

 

This the adult beach.

 

 

We went snorkeling.  We saw a sunken submarine, a Mickey statue and parrot fish and angel fish.

 

Ship facts

The Disney Fantasy cruise was Amazing! The ship was ordered, Feb. 22, 2007. It cost 900 million Dollars. The Disney Fantasy is almost the same as the Disney Dream. It was built in Germany. It is 42 m [ 137 ft 10 in] from side to side.

It has 1250 staterooms sleeping 4000 passengers and 1450 crew members.  The ship even includes the worlds first aqua duck water rollercoaster which I went on 8 times. The ship includes an "arr-cade", ice-cream bar, broadway theater, movie theater, the D-lounge, discos, many pools, mini golf, ping-pong, basket ball courts, many stores, including the Bibbity Bobbity Boo shop, an interactive detective game, an art gallery, shutter fly photo lab many restaurants, and every Disney character you can imagine!  Wow, we were entertained!!

Orange Juice Museum

We went to Florida’s Natural orange museum.  We learned that 1000 orange groves with 50 000 acres of orange trees provide oranges and grapefruits for Florida’s Natural orange juice factory.

Here are millions of oranges waiting to be sorted and squished.

 

 

An orange seed is planted and it grows for a year this is called “root stock” this tree then goes to a nursery where a bud is grafted to it from another established tree or “parent tree”. The tree then grows for another year and it is ready to be transplanted into a grove.

Orange trees are full grown at 25 years and have up to 2000 pieces of fruit. Do you know that a grafted tree can start producing fruit at 3 years of age.  Can you believe that a citrus tree can bear fruit and live for 100 years or more.  The fruit must stay on the tree until it is ready to eat because once you pick an orange it does not ripen like an apple or a banana.

 

 

Here is a picture of Grace and me in front of a Valencia tree.  These trees are used most often for juicing.

 

This is a picture of an orange grove near my Grandpa's place.

 

 

This is a picture of an orange juicer that they use to squeeze all the juice out.

 

.  At the museum I got to sample many kinds of juice I have decided that Florida’s Natural is the best juice because it is only juice and no water is added.  The pulp and peels are even made into shampoo, perfumes, cooking oils, animal feed, and furniture varnish. The company has even won awards for being an environmental friendly company they reuse and filter water for washing and watering their groves.

 

Oranges that are in season

 

Nov.-Jan.                                             Jan.                                                        Feb.

Royal Navel Oranges                      Honey Bells (very sweet)             Temple oranges (tangy, tart)

Ruby Red Grapefruit                      Ruby Red Grapefruit                      Ruby Red Grapefruit

 

 

Mar                                                        Mar.-June

Honey Tangerine                             Valencia (sweetest of the season)

Ruby Red Grapefruit                     

 

That is my day learning about oranges. 

Ships Ahoy!

Just to let you know I won't be posting for a week as I am off on a cruise on the Disney Fantasy. Please look for any updates when I get back.

http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/ships-activities/ships/fantasy/

Gatorland

Yesterday I went to Gatorland in Orlando! At the beginning of the day I went to the upclose encounter show. At first they picked my mom to hold what was in the box. She had to close her eyes and hold her hand out. Here is a picture of what was in the box.  A TARANTULA!

 

 

After that we ate lunch. Then we went to the gator wrestling show. If  you think you run in zig zags to escape an aligator you are wrong!  Just run straight ahead as you can outrun them. If you want to put a gator to sleep you flip it over.  To wake it up you tickle it's belly.  Here I am sitting on a 2 metre gator.



 



 

I also went to an aviary where there were dozens of budgies and a couple of parrots.  The real name for budgies is Budgerigars or the common pet parakeet.  They are native to the Outback of Australia and migrate in flocks to find food and water.

 

 

 

 

Aligators are cold blooded.  If you try and poke one in the eye the eyes will retract.  This time of year the gators are not as active.  They have 82 teeth and if they lose teeth, the teeth will replace themselves.  

 

 

 

 

 Is this a picture of an alligator or a crocodile?  Do you know what the difference is?

 

 

Do you know how long alligators live?  Do they live longer in the wild or in captivity?

 

I want to answer some questions and comments from my classmates.  Here is a picture of a Panama hat Nicholas.

 

Yes, Alison I am having fun.  No, Racheal, Flat Stanley did not break his arm but he is a little flatter now.

 

 

Alligators do not even bother with birds or things that land on it's back.

 

 

 

Palm Tree Paradise

Here are some pictures of some palm trees I took yesterday.

This is a picture of a Date Palm.  It can grow over 23 metres tall and over 150 years old.

This looks like a Panama Hat Plant.  The leaves of this plant are woven to make Panama Hats.

Here is Flat Stanley with what looks like a Miniature Fishtail Palm.  This type of palm is the only one that has leaves that are subdivided twice.  In India people eat the starch from the stem and eat the palm heart.

Yesterday Flat Stanley was out for a walk.  He saw an alligator who just finished reading the Gingerbread Man story and offered Stanley a ride to the other side of the lake to explore.  Flat Stanley said yes.  Once Stanley realized the alligator had bad breath and sharp teeth he quickly jumped out of the alligator's mouth and back around the bend and home.

Bald Eagle assignment

Here is a picture of a bald eagle I took yesterday while I was on a golf cart ride.

The Bald Eagle comes from the word "piebald" which means that it has spots or patches.  The wings are two metres long.  If one wing loses a feather, the other wing will lose one to balance it out.  Baby Bald Eagles leave the nest when they are 12 weeks old and they are called Eaglets.  Most of Canada's Bald Eagle population is along the Pacific Coast of British Columbia.  They are also found in Alberta and Saskatchewan.  There are 70 000 left in the world and half of these live in Alaska.

On the road

We arrived at the Border at 10 pm on January 30th.  The border guard asked us if we had anything three dimensional to declare and we said "NO, nothing 3D but ourselves".  We then smuggled Flat Stanley into the United States.  Luckily he is two dimensional so we did not have to declare him.  We stopped in Erie Pennsylvania overnight and woke up to a big snow storm.  Here is a picture of Flat Stanley and myself with the snow storm behind us.

 

 

We had some bad driving and white-outs in the Appalachian mountains but when we got to Orlando we saw a really nice sun set.

 



My Grandpa bought me a Nikon camera to take pictures of my trip.  Here I am taking a picture of you!

The weather in Florida is really nice.  Here I am outside my Grandpa's place.

Flat Stanley started to come to life and pop up again but unfortunately he fell out out of the car and got run over.  Watch for more posts later.