nightheron28
Exterminate! Exterminate! Exxxtttteeeerrrrmmmiinat
Went on a fantastic cruise, not because of the cruise itself, but I think I did pretty well considering you are stuck on the ship almost half the trip. I bought this cruise for my GF as a treat for doing something really important for me in my life. She is a cruise nut! I really hate them! Although I did manage to do some really good birding off the ship on the various ports of call.
Tokay so let's get to it. The cruise was from June 24- July 1st 2007.
Unfortunately my GF has a huge phobia of flying and so we had to drive 24hours to Port Everglades Florida to get to the ship. It is a beautiful drive, but it is not nice being stuck in the car for 12 hours and then another 12 also having to drive past bird reserves that might have a few birds I have not seen is painful to say the least, but keep your eye on the prize right. I saw some interesting birds on the way down and on the launch of the trip, but I do not want to bore with the minor details (if anyone wants a more details just pm me, I will happily give them) so I will just get to it.
So princess has their own little beach/cay that they call princess cay. It is basically one giant beach connected to eleuthera bahamas, it is hugely crowded so I made a B-line for the dirt bridge that takes you over a very beautiful Lagoon that was filled with Reef fish and takes you over to the mainland. Here are the life birds I got there:
Bahama mockingbird, Greater Antillean Bullfinch, Thick-billed vireo, Western Stripe-Headed Tanager, Black faced Grassquit, American Oystercatcher, Wilsons Plover, Gull-Billed Turn (very close, 20 feet fly over), Laughing gull.
All of the birds were seen in the mangrove that borders the main dirt road from princess cay which then comes to a fork that runs left or right I chose to go left where I saw quite a few birds. Warning this area is extremely hot and did have some mosquitoes, also it is tempting to keep walking thinking you might see that elusive mangrove cuckoo or bahama woodstar up the road which I did to my extreme detriment. The road does become paved which is slightly nice, and it takes you to another dirt road which will rap around back to the beach for princess cay. DO NOT DO THIS!! Just stay within a half mile of the main bridge. All of the birds that you could possibly see with the exception of a nice shorebirding habitat are right within this area. The walk back to the beach is like 5 miles and very, very hot! It ended up giving me a huge sunburn and a bit of heat exhaustion. Not too mention I got some hard looks from the natives (which I do not blame them, they were probably wondering why I was not on the beach like the other tourist). I met a nice birder from the U.K. who apparently got a hummingbird (probably a woodstar, but he wasn't sure but was going to look at his photo back on the ship). I guess he suffered from having a bad guide. It had mostly black and white illustrations. I used the Birds of the West Indies pocket guide (all photographs of very mottled terrible looking birds, and birds of the west indies by Herbert Raffaele, James Wiley, Olando Garrido, Allan Keith, Janis Raffaele. I also dipped on the mangrove cuckoo.
I'm sure there are a lot of american birders laughing at me for the american oystercatcher, laughing gull, and wilsons plover well I say to you I have lived most of my 32 years on the west coast so back off! J/K!
Tokay so after severe heat exhaustion I got further exhausted in the water but saw a nice Caribbean reef. It was very weird how the water would get extremely hot and then cold? Not sure why? Anyone know why this is?
So on to Ocho Rios, Jamaica where I had a guide lined up. The amazing Carolyn Barret who I will never forget! She is a lexicon of information, she runs 8 miles a day and she is 60 years old! She speaks the potoi (spelling) very well!! She really knows a lot about the flaura and fauna! I was blown away by her. I felt like such a schmuck next to her. I was out of breath the whole hike and she was like a spring chicken! Anyway I highly recommend hiring her! Here website is http://www.barrettadventures.com/ Please tell her Nathan sent you! She is very affordable and well worth it if your on this side of the Island. She does all kinds of tours as well. She knows so much about the history of the Island as well.
Anyway I ended up with 13 life birds and I believe 11 were endemics.
She took me to a botanical garden within driving distance of the ship dock and a waterfall that far surpasses Dunn river falls in it's beauty. The water is Turquoise from the lime stone apparently. The nice thing is that none of the tour guides no about it really.
Here is the list
Red-Billed Streamertail, Olive-Throated Parakeets, Jamaican Tody, Jamaican Lizard cuckoo, Yellow-Shouldered Grassquit, Orangequit, Jamaican woodpecker, White-Chinned Thrush, Jamaican Crow, Jamaican Mango (silhouette really, but Carolyn said it was and she knows), Antillean Palm Swift, Black-whiskered vireo, Jamaican Stripe-Headed tanager
Not bad for about a 4 hours birding almost 5 I would say for my first visit to Jamaica. One thing this vacation has taught me is that guides are incredibly effective at getting you more birds. They just know where the birds are in real time, unlike a book which was written so many years ago and may not be reliable anymore for a particular bird. Of course one can use the internet to find out if a spot is reliable or not. It was also nice to just be picked up taken to a local Jerk stand and given a complete and thorough history not too mention a safe and comfortable ride!!
Two things about the local cuisine, It is cheap! $5 US ($700 Jamaican) for the two of us and more then we could eat, and I HATE BREAD FRUIT! It is awful! The most flavorless horrible texture. Interesting tidbit about the Bread fruit it was actually brought over to feed the slaves by the Spanish slave traders I believe. They needed a starchy fast growing food for the slaves and I guess bread fruit was it (poor slaves, shame on the Spanish did they even try it?). I guess it can be good with certain spices but I did not like it at all. Oh but I did love the festival bread oh man good stuff, as Carolyn put it the Jamaican Dunkin Donuts.
With bitter farewells I left Carolyn and Jamaica (man what a wonderful place) and got back to the ship on time.
Tokay so on to Grand Cayman this time I was prepared I had booked a car rental with avis which was $50 U.S. for a nice comfortable 2-door with room for 4 (awesome gas mileage) I believe it was called a diahatsu or something like that. But anyway that also included all the nec. insurance. A word of caution here, DO NOT RENT FROM any of the non national agencies or you will be taken for a ride! I have heard they basically will try to charge you for all kinds of minute dings on the vehicle that may or may not have occurred during your rental and to the tune of hundreds of dollars. So don't skimp because you'll pay for it in the end.
Anyway so this was an adventure we were on our own on Grand Cayman as once again a certain famous tour guide could not help us but it was tokay we faired well! We decided to drive to the Queen Elizabeth II botanical Gardens http://www.botanic-park.ky/ on the west side of the Island. It is only about a 30 minute drive from the airport where we got the car. Oh and btw Avis has a service that will pick you up at a place right next to the cruise ships. Driving on the left side of the road was AWESOME! I loved it! I felt immediately at home. Of course I have slight dyslexia so that may be why lol! Nice thing about the Gardens is that they have some of the last remaining wild forests on the Island with water features so all of the west indian endemics and the single endemic to the Island can easily be had here although for some reason no West Indian Whistling duck.
Got 4 new lifers here having been to Grand Cayman before I now have all of the west Indian endemics for the Island except for the West Indian Whistling duck.
The lifers: Cuban Parrot (Grand Cayman race) right by the entrance to the botanical gardens what a stroke of luck, Vitelline Warbler (calling) and quite a few, Zenaida Dove, Cuban Bullfinch.
Non bird: This place is full of poisonous plants so be careful where you walk. Also this is the last threshold of the Blue Iguana which was most excellent to see so close. They are very tame!
Another tip do not do the Cruise approved Botanical Garden tour! It is overpriced and it looks like they rush you through it.
Tokay so we decided after doing so well and within such a short amount of time to go along the main road which I think is called Frank Road that cuts across the Island on the way to the Gardens a little further in the hopes of finding some whistling duck habitat, which we did but no whistling duck, so back to the ship where we spent 1 hour in Georgetown driving around trying to find the Rental car agency in the most horrid traffic (not sure why but sometimes there just are not stop signs where there should be and its like an honor system which most do not honor lol) finally we stumbled onto it and at this point my gf was through and just wanted back on the ship for the buffet lol and I decided to do some snorkeling right next to the dock area which was amazing.
Tokay so onto Cozumel. I have been to Cozumel before and got very luck with being able to see the cozumel vireo and black catbird along with some other specialties. Now most people would probably try to see the mango and the other specialties they missed, but I had other plans. I have never been to Mexico and I had read that there was a fairy that can take you to the mainland Specifically Playa del Carmen which is not far at all from some amazing birding which is not better then Cozumel it is just richer with many more bird species in a smaller area. Anyway the fairy only takes about 25 minutes (so fast) and is 10US and along the way they have a wonderful mariachi band playing amazingly well and really lifting your spirits, there were even some passengers dancing! So I met a guide in Playa del Carmen unfortunately the cruise ship was a half hour late in letting us off the ship so I had to wait for the next fairy which was an hour later making me crazy late for my appointment with my Guide.
The guide I used is named Luis Ku www.birdsoftheyucatan.com or I can give you his email upon request. Anyway he picked me up at the docks and drove me to the birding habitat which was probably about 25-30 minutes away. Nice way to experience Mexican roads, people, etc. Cozumel is a watered down experience if you ask me. Luis was amazing! He knew the birds very well to the point where we saw a bird that was easily a mile away and he called it Red-Legged Honeycreeper, sure enough I could see it and it was definitely Red-legged. So anyway I just want to say again if I did not have a guide I would be spending far more time thumbing through the obnoxiously large Mexican bird book and not seeing the birds but thanks to Luis that did not happen and I ended up with over 30 lifers and over 60 birds in less then 4 hours lol! One thing about Luis, he is very polite and friendly. He is a little soft spoken and his English is a little broken, but it did not help that my left ear was partially deaf because of a ear plug I pushed to far in and damaged my ear. Anyway he was very affordable.
So here is the list:
Lesser Yellow headed vulture, Red-Billed Pigeon, Ruddy ground dove, Groove Billed Ani, Squirrel Cuckoo (head only), Buff Bellied Hummingbird, Wedge-tailed Sabrewing, Black-Headed Trogan (female only seen, male heard), Turquoise-browed mot-mot (amazing call and beeeeeautiful!!), Golden-fronted woodpecker, long-billed Antwren, Yellow-Olive flycatcher, Tropical pewee, Social Flycatcher, Great Kiskadee, Rose Throated Becard, Spot-breasted Wren, Clay colored robin, Tropical mockingbird, Yellow-green vireo, Lesser Greenlet, Yellow Throated Euphonia, Red-Legged Honeycreeper, Grey-headed Tanager, Red Throated Ant Tanager, Rose Throated Tanager, Melodious Blackbird, Black cowed Oriole, Altamaria Oriole, Orange Oriole, Yellow backed Oriole. Also a Yucatan Jay apparently crossed the road in front of us, but I missed it, I was too busy being exhausted on the way back.
I would say maybe about 5-8 birds were seen on the way and the others were all at a reserve that is down a dangerous dirt road, I say dangerous because it is being paved and the construction crew are crazy, they do not try to let you through and they will not yield lol! Muyah loco!
Non-bird: This reserve is in a rainforest according to Luis and when we first pulled up we encountered a Boa that he almost ran over. Fortunately or unfortunately for the local villagers (they are afraid it will eat their chickens) he did not hit it. Also were amazing butterflies which the only one I can name is the 5" wing span blue morpho butterfly. There were so many in front of us all the time it was very distracting. Also I spotted an amazing grasshopper that was banded all over in gold, yellow, white and black.
This was my first rainforest exprience and a life long dream come true in 4 hours hey I know but Ill take it!
All in all I ended up with 50 or so life birds and close to a hundred or more birds total.
I made some critical errors though when I went to the reserve I did not bring a checklist so I had to rely on my and Luis memory and luckily according to Luis I only forgot the Wedge Tailed Sabre Wing and the Yellow backed oriole. So do not make a noob blunder like me and forget a check list when going to a foreign bird spot, you will be so excited by your sightings and seeing so much life period, that you will forget. I also did not bring a strong enough sunblock, this is true for the majority of the trip. Although it was supposedly sweat proof and water proof it did come off and I did get burned in a matter of an hour. I was amazed at how little biting insects there were at this reserve! I think I was only bit once. I am not sure but I think they have bot fly so definitely bring and wear your repellent!
Highlights were getting up into the canopy of the rainforest, thanks to this tower they built for zip liners, and seeing Rose-Throated Tanger, Red Throated Ant Tanager, lesser greenlet, yellow throated Euphonia, Yellow-backed Oriole, etc closeup! Carolyn Barret, amazing lady, awesome tour guide Jamaican Rain forest beautiful Orchids and amazing Land Snails, butterflies.
Overall it was an amazing trip with amazing birds in both diversity, I.D. challenges, and numbers considering it was all done from a cruise ship.
I know I probably could have seen so much more if I had went to an all inclusive or just rented a car and drove around say the Yucatan/Quantana roo, but It would have been far more expensive and I would not have been able to sample so many western Caribbean locales. It was amazing to be able to go to the bahamas, jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Mexico all in 8 days time!!
I will try to upload some good and not so good photos from the trip later from a point and shooter.
Anyway if anyone is going on a similar adventure and needs any info that I did not cover here please ask!
Tokay so let's get to it. The cruise was from June 24- July 1st 2007.
Unfortunately my GF has a huge phobia of flying and so we had to drive 24hours to Port Everglades Florida to get to the ship. It is a beautiful drive, but it is not nice being stuck in the car for 12 hours and then another 12 also having to drive past bird reserves that might have a few birds I have not seen is painful to say the least, but keep your eye on the prize right. I saw some interesting birds on the way down and on the launch of the trip, but I do not want to bore with the minor details (if anyone wants a more details just pm me, I will happily give them) so I will just get to it.
So princess has their own little beach/cay that they call princess cay. It is basically one giant beach connected to eleuthera bahamas, it is hugely crowded so I made a B-line for the dirt bridge that takes you over a very beautiful Lagoon that was filled with Reef fish and takes you over to the mainland. Here are the life birds I got there:
Bahama mockingbird, Greater Antillean Bullfinch, Thick-billed vireo, Western Stripe-Headed Tanager, Black faced Grassquit, American Oystercatcher, Wilsons Plover, Gull-Billed Turn (very close, 20 feet fly over), Laughing gull.
All of the birds were seen in the mangrove that borders the main dirt road from princess cay which then comes to a fork that runs left or right I chose to go left where I saw quite a few birds. Warning this area is extremely hot and did have some mosquitoes, also it is tempting to keep walking thinking you might see that elusive mangrove cuckoo or bahama woodstar up the road which I did to my extreme detriment. The road does become paved which is slightly nice, and it takes you to another dirt road which will rap around back to the beach for princess cay. DO NOT DO THIS!! Just stay within a half mile of the main bridge. All of the birds that you could possibly see with the exception of a nice shorebirding habitat are right within this area. The walk back to the beach is like 5 miles and very, very hot! It ended up giving me a huge sunburn and a bit of heat exhaustion. Not too mention I got some hard looks from the natives (which I do not blame them, they were probably wondering why I was not on the beach like the other tourist). I met a nice birder from the U.K. who apparently got a hummingbird (probably a woodstar, but he wasn't sure but was going to look at his photo back on the ship). I guess he suffered from having a bad guide. It had mostly black and white illustrations. I used the Birds of the West Indies pocket guide (all photographs of very mottled terrible looking birds, and birds of the west indies by Herbert Raffaele, James Wiley, Olando Garrido, Allan Keith, Janis Raffaele. I also dipped on the mangrove cuckoo.
I'm sure there are a lot of american birders laughing at me for the american oystercatcher, laughing gull, and wilsons plover well I say to you I have lived most of my 32 years on the west coast so back off! J/K!
Tokay so after severe heat exhaustion I got further exhausted in the water but saw a nice Caribbean reef. It was very weird how the water would get extremely hot and then cold? Not sure why? Anyone know why this is?
So on to Ocho Rios, Jamaica where I had a guide lined up. The amazing Carolyn Barret who I will never forget! She is a lexicon of information, she runs 8 miles a day and she is 60 years old! She speaks the potoi (spelling) very well!! She really knows a lot about the flaura and fauna! I was blown away by her. I felt like such a schmuck next to her. I was out of breath the whole hike and she was like a spring chicken! Anyway I highly recommend hiring her! Here website is http://www.barrettadventures.com/ Please tell her Nathan sent you! She is very affordable and well worth it if your on this side of the Island. She does all kinds of tours as well. She knows so much about the history of the Island as well.
Anyway I ended up with 13 life birds and I believe 11 were endemics.
She took me to a botanical garden within driving distance of the ship dock and a waterfall that far surpasses Dunn river falls in it's beauty. The water is Turquoise from the lime stone apparently. The nice thing is that none of the tour guides no about it really.
Here is the list
Red-Billed Streamertail, Olive-Throated Parakeets, Jamaican Tody, Jamaican Lizard cuckoo, Yellow-Shouldered Grassquit, Orangequit, Jamaican woodpecker, White-Chinned Thrush, Jamaican Crow, Jamaican Mango (silhouette really, but Carolyn said it was and she knows), Antillean Palm Swift, Black-whiskered vireo, Jamaican Stripe-Headed tanager
Not bad for about a 4 hours birding almost 5 I would say for my first visit to Jamaica. One thing this vacation has taught me is that guides are incredibly effective at getting you more birds. They just know where the birds are in real time, unlike a book which was written so many years ago and may not be reliable anymore for a particular bird. Of course one can use the internet to find out if a spot is reliable or not. It was also nice to just be picked up taken to a local Jerk stand and given a complete and thorough history not too mention a safe and comfortable ride!!
Two things about the local cuisine, It is cheap! $5 US ($700 Jamaican) for the two of us and more then we could eat, and I HATE BREAD FRUIT! It is awful! The most flavorless horrible texture. Interesting tidbit about the Bread fruit it was actually brought over to feed the slaves by the Spanish slave traders I believe. They needed a starchy fast growing food for the slaves and I guess bread fruit was it (poor slaves, shame on the Spanish did they even try it?). I guess it can be good with certain spices but I did not like it at all. Oh but I did love the festival bread oh man good stuff, as Carolyn put it the Jamaican Dunkin Donuts.
With bitter farewells I left Carolyn and Jamaica (man what a wonderful place) and got back to the ship on time.
Tokay so on to Grand Cayman this time I was prepared I had booked a car rental with avis which was $50 U.S. for a nice comfortable 2-door with room for 4 (awesome gas mileage) I believe it was called a diahatsu or something like that. But anyway that also included all the nec. insurance. A word of caution here, DO NOT RENT FROM any of the non national agencies or you will be taken for a ride! I have heard they basically will try to charge you for all kinds of minute dings on the vehicle that may or may not have occurred during your rental and to the tune of hundreds of dollars. So don't skimp because you'll pay for it in the end.
Anyway so this was an adventure we were on our own on Grand Cayman as once again a certain famous tour guide could not help us but it was tokay we faired well! We decided to drive to the Queen Elizabeth II botanical Gardens http://www.botanic-park.ky/ on the west side of the Island. It is only about a 30 minute drive from the airport where we got the car. Oh and btw Avis has a service that will pick you up at a place right next to the cruise ships. Driving on the left side of the road was AWESOME! I loved it! I felt immediately at home. Of course I have slight dyslexia so that may be why lol! Nice thing about the Gardens is that they have some of the last remaining wild forests on the Island with water features so all of the west indian endemics and the single endemic to the Island can easily be had here although for some reason no West Indian Whistling duck.
Got 4 new lifers here having been to Grand Cayman before I now have all of the west Indian endemics for the Island except for the West Indian Whistling duck.
The lifers: Cuban Parrot (Grand Cayman race) right by the entrance to the botanical gardens what a stroke of luck, Vitelline Warbler (calling) and quite a few, Zenaida Dove, Cuban Bullfinch.
Non bird: This place is full of poisonous plants so be careful where you walk. Also this is the last threshold of the Blue Iguana which was most excellent to see so close. They are very tame!
Another tip do not do the Cruise approved Botanical Garden tour! It is overpriced and it looks like they rush you through it.
Tokay so we decided after doing so well and within such a short amount of time to go along the main road which I think is called Frank Road that cuts across the Island on the way to the Gardens a little further in the hopes of finding some whistling duck habitat, which we did but no whistling duck, so back to the ship where we spent 1 hour in Georgetown driving around trying to find the Rental car agency in the most horrid traffic (not sure why but sometimes there just are not stop signs where there should be and its like an honor system which most do not honor lol) finally we stumbled onto it and at this point my gf was through and just wanted back on the ship for the buffet lol and I decided to do some snorkeling right next to the dock area which was amazing.
Tokay so onto Cozumel. I have been to Cozumel before and got very luck with being able to see the cozumel vireo and black catbird along with some other specialties. Now most people would probably try to see the mango and the other specialties they missed, but I had other plans. I have never been to Mexico and I had read that there was a fairy that can take you to the mainland Specifically Playa del Carmen which is not far at all from some amazing birding which is not better then Cozumel it is just richer with many more bird species in a smaller area. Anyway the fairy only takes about 25 minutes (so fast) and is 10US and along the way they have a wonderful mariachi band playing amazingly well and really lifting your spirits, there were even some passengers dancing! So I met a guide in Playa del Carmen unfortunately the cruise ship was a half hour late in letting us off the ship so I had to wait for the next fairy which was an hour later making me crazy late for my appointment with my Guide.
The guide I used is named Luis Ku www.birdsoftheyucatan.com or I can give you his email upon request. Anyway he picked me up at the docks and drove me to the birding habitat which was probably about 25-30 minutes away. Nice way to experience Mexican roads, people, etc. Cozumel is a watered down experience if you ask me. Luis was amazing! He knew the birds very well to the point where we saw a bird that was easily a mile away and he called it Red-Legged Honeycreeper, sure enough I could see it and it was definitely Red-legged. So anyway I just want to say again if I did not have a guide I would be spending far more time thumbing through the obnoxiously large Mexican bird book and not seeing the birds but thanks to Luis that did not happen and I ended up with over 30 lifers and over 60 birds in less then 4 hours lol! One thing about Luis, he is very polite and friendly. He is a little soft spoken and his English is a little broken, but it did not help that my left ear was partially deaf because of a ear plug I pushed to far in and damaged my ear. Anyway he was very affordable.
So here is the list:
Lesser Yellow headed vulture, Red-Billed Pigeon, Ruddy ground dove, Groove Billed Ani, Squirrel Cuckoo (head only), Buff Bellied Hummingbird, Wedge-tailed Sabrewing, Black-Headed Trogan (female only seen, male heard), Turquoise-browed mot-mot (amazing call and beeeeeautiful!!), Golden-fronted woodpecker, long-billed Antwren, Yellow-Olive flycatcher, Tropical pewee, Social Flycatcher, Great Kiskadee, Rose Throated Becard, Spot-breasted Wren, Clay colored robin, Tropical mockingbird, Yellow-green vireo, Lesser Greenlet, Yellow Throated Euphonia, Red-Legged Honeycreeper, Grey-headed Tanager, Red Throated Ant Tanager, Rose Throated Tanager, Melodious Blackbird, Black cowed Oriole, Altamaria Oriole, Orange Oriole, Yellow backed Oriole. Also a Yucatan Jay apparently crossed the road in front of us, but I missed it, I was too busy being exhausted on the way back.
I would say maybe about 5-8 birds were seen on the way and the others were all at a reserve that is down a dangerous dirt road, I say dangerous because it is being paved and the construction crew are crazy, they do not try to let you through and they will not yield lol! Muyah loco!
Non-bird: This reserve is in a rainforest according to Luis and when we first pulled up we encountered a Boa that he almost ran over. Fortunately or unfortunately for the local villagers (they are afraid it will eat their chickens) he did not hit it. Also were amazing butterflies which the only one I can name is the 5" wing span blue morpho butterfly. There were so many in front of us all the time it was very distracting. Also I spotted an amazing grasshopper that was banded all over in gold, yellow, white and black.
This was my first rainforest exprience and a life long dream come true in 4 hours hey I know but Ill take it!
All in all I ended up with 50 or so life birds and close to a hundred or more birds total.
I made some critical errors though when I went to the reserve I did not bring a checklist so I had to rely on my and Luis memory and luckily according to Luis I only forgot the Wedge Tailed Sabre Wing and the Yellow backed oriole. So do not make a noob blunder like me and forget a check list when going to a foreign bird spot, you will be so excited by your sightings and seeing so much life period, that you will forget. I also did not bring a strong enough sunblock, this is true for the majority of the trip. Although it was supposedly sweat proof and water proof it did come off and I did get burned in a matter of an hour. I was amazed at how little biting insects there were at this reserve! I think I was only bit once. I am not sure but I think they have bot fly so definitely bring and wear your repellent!
Highlights were getting up into the canopy of the rainforest, thanks to this tower they built for zip liners, and seeing Rose-Throated Tanger, Red Throated Ant Tanager, lesser greenlet, yellow throated Euphonia, Yellow-backed Oriole, etc closeup! Carolyn Barret, amazing lady, awesome tour guide Jamaican Rain forest beautiful Orchids and amazing Land Snails, butterflies.
Overall it was an amazing trip with amazing birds in both diversity, I.D. challenges, and numbers considering it was all done from a cruise ship.
I know I probably could have seen so much more if I had went to an all inclusive or just rented a car and drove around say the Yucatan/Quantana roo, but It would have been far more expensive and I would not have been able to sample so many western Caribbean locales. It was amazing to be able to go to the bahamas, jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Mexico all in 8 days time!!
I will try to upload some good and not so good photos from the trip later from a point and shooter.
Anyway if anyone is going on a similar adventure and needs any info that I did not cover here please ask!
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