Great Stirrup Cay

Day 3 Thursday, February 20, 2014

Up early and saw that we were arriving at land. I headed up to the buffet for breakfast while we anchored. Back in my room I watched the 'tenders'  pull up alongside. They are ferries that take passengers off the boat. Then I took a tender to Great Stirrup Cay for the day. I hung out at the beach soaking up the sun and views and reading until noon. Then I took a small boat trip that I had pre-booked for an Eco tour. It was not very good but the woman who guided us was very lively and fun. It was her birthday (probably one of the 365 for the year). They sent a teenage snorkeller into the water to find things for us to hold, sand dollar, starfish, sea star, sea cucumber, sponge and sea urchin. I met and talked to a man from New Jersey and a couple from Kansas City, she was beautiful and he had had double heart stents put in his arm two weeks before the cruise.

Spent the rest of the day snorkeling and swimming off the beach. The water was cool, but fine once you got in. The snorkeling wasn't very exciting but I did see quite a few of the regular type fish plus a black with orange dots ribbon type animal swimming along the bottom. I meet two members of Haken, guitarist Charles Griffiths and the drummer Raymond Hearne, and had a really good talk with Charles while he was watching his three year old son, Freddie, throw stones in the sea. We talked about the bands and music. I asked if they listened to Gentle Giant and he said, “Yeah way too much!” They had played with Three Friends (which is Gary Green, Malcolm Mortimer and others playing Gentle Giant music) in a festival in Italy. He said they were a little intimidated to play Cockroach in front of them). Also met the singer from Spock's Beard, Todd Leonard; Neil Morse, the singer and keyboard player from Transatlantic and the bass player from Beardfish, Robert Hansen, on the beach.

Back on board I went for a dinner of a mix of different curries and fish. Then I set off to see more bands.

7 pm. Stardust Lounge The Safety Fire Another fast, aggressive, heavy band. Not interested.

7:30 pm Atrium Jolly These guys have fun and although their music is mainly crunchy they have other more interesting elements. I have signed up for a free download of their stuff. I hope it comes through.

9:00 pm  Atrium Anneke Van Giersbergen One woman on acoustic, who would figure that? She was the woman who sang with Devin Townsend. She is gorgeous and has a wonderful voice. She sang some of her songs and a couple of covers including Cindy Lauper. Nice change of pace from all the heavy bands.

9:30 pm Adrian Belew's Power Trio Now here is a man who knows his instrument! He showed the speedster's other things you can do with a guitar. A real showman. He could play a riff and then somehow record it and have it play back so he could play another line. Really amazing. A chunky female bassist was also excellent and a great drummer. Adrian was obviously having a lot of fun. He said 'Is everyone happy? And then changed it to 'is everyone happy, happy, washie washie, all day', which was a reference to the young woman at the entrance to the buffet who said that endlessly as she sprayed your hands with disinfectant. He hammed it up for the audience. At one point he played a riff and recorded it but when he pressed the pedal for it to repeat it was gone. So he stopped and said 'Back to the drawing board for that one' and 'It  was going so well'.

11:00 pm Atrium Beardfish Another great show by them. They are by far the surprise of the cruise for me. I didn't really appreciate how talented they are and how good their music is. They have a good show and are very personable too. They were having lots of fun. I talked to Ted Leonard who was in the audience and he said that he finds them really talented and interesting.

11:30 pm Stardust Devin Townsend Project Really loud, heavy music with the gorgeous and talented Anneke singing backup. He projected his videos on a screen behind and it was great to see the video for “Juular“ while the band played it, great song.

On the way to bed I met Mike Portnoy in the hall and thanked him for organizing the cruise, he thanked me for coming. Downloaded pictures and went to sleep about 1:00.