So it's day 8 of the cruise. Do you feel like you went on it with us?! I know that I went kinda overboard (ha, ha) with the pics but I figured you guys can skip them or skim them as you please. I am sure I'll have way too many for our day in Nassau as well. :) It's part of my charm!
We docked at 8 in the morning and had all day to walk around. We decided before the cruise to go to Ardastra Gardens, a zoo and conservation center, as well as the Pirate Museum. We hailed a cab about 10 miles to the zoo. Spent a good part of the morning there. It was extremely rustic and small. We waited around for the Military Drill Flamingos, world's only trained flamingos. (you don't have to be impressed----you should have heard how much trouble my Mom gave us!) Here are some pics of the zoo.
I love these two!!!
We cabbed it back downtown (yeah that's a word) to the Pirate Museum. They did a really great job with it. They had a small but pretty amazing collection of things in the last room. One of the guns, I forget whose it was and what it's called, but there are only 5 left in the world. Good story, huh?! They replicated some parts of a pirate ship and in one room made it look like your ship was getting attacked. There were flags of some of the most famous pirates and stories on how they came up with their flag, stories of what ended their piracy, etc. Very interesting! Michael loves pirates and he was excited to be there. We had a really good time.
Took this photo for my Momma! They had pirate movie posters along one of the hallways.
After the museum we went to Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. Yum! Found my Aerosmith stuff but it took a little while, I was getting antsy. It's Joe's guitar Becks :)
After our late lunch we walked around town. We did some shopping and then headed back to our ship for the last time.
The moon was setting, how picture perfect was this?
Our last towel friend:
The next morning we were off the boat by 8:30, just in time to rush over to the airport and wait for our broken plane that would not show up. We had such an incredible time on our cruise. We must thank Mike's Mom and Grandma for watching our kiddos so we could enjoy this time together. It was much needed and much deserved I think! So thank you, thank you Mom and Grandma Short!!! We have our next cruise narrowed down to two places, Bermuda or the Southern Caribbean. It'll probably be at least another 3 years before we get to do this again. We're thankful we have so many wonderful memories from this one!!!
We called this The Lex Luthor. It's a yacht with a helicopter pad, pretty sweet, huh?
When we got to Virgin Gorda we took an open bus about 3-4 miles to the Baths. When you first get there you have to climb down a relatively steep incline complete with boulders, rocks, and sandy places. It took us about 20 minutes to walk down this path. The man walking behind me was humming the Indiana Jones theme, it was hilarious! Once we got to the bottom there was an amazing beach right there but there was also another beach to get to. It was called Devil's Bay. To get there you had to follow a path that had you climbing through boulders, crawling through them, squeezing between massive rocks, wading through water. Some steep parts, some pretty far drops, tight places, COLD water...my goodness it was a blast :) Here is the view after we crawled through the entrance:
Michael's Captain Morgan:
Michael again. (I was also in my swimsuit---so you know that means NO pics of Jess :) 
Water at last! We snorkeled here for a good 45 minutes or so. It was awesome! Michael is so proud of these pics, one is now the background on our computer! :)
After snorkeling around, and again taking pics with our disposable water camera, we headed a little farther to a beach area. We were here for an hour or so. It was marvelous!
A hermit crab was crawling on the 'path' from the beach. Michael got him out of the way. He was HUGE!
Some photos on our trek out of there.
Uh, you go first! That was a tight squeeze!
Some views from the top (we'd climbed back up the Indiana Jones path already). 
A house we noticed on the ferry back to Tortola. Quite massive and impressive!!!
What do I always say I can't get over?! The water. Do you see why???
We got back on our ship an hour before we left. Michael used this opportunity to go down the water slide.
Some last island pictures from the ship. Good bye Tortola.
Pretty cute little animal that night, huh?
Yeah, that is just wrong! The steering wheel was on the wrong side as were all of the cars on the street! I was a little freaked the whole day. Got a little sick to my stomach winding through the mountains in this little car (Mike drove a little too fast for me!!!). But it was wonderful all the same! We started out right by the airport and discovered there was an US Air Force base on the island. Michael and I talked about being stationed here. That would be crazy! We went to the gate but the guard would not let us in. I was a little bummed but what can you do? He said we could ask the base commander (who is a MAJOR by-the-way----Mike will be a major on March 1st!) but of course we didn't. It was cool that we have one there though. Think ABMs are needed on Antigua??? We started our map journey and the first stop took us for a loop. We left the pier and drove up some hills to the airport area, got the car and then drove on a pretty gradual incline for about 20 minutes or so. When we got to the "top", the place where the road dead-ended we figured we would be at a lookout on the cliffs. We ran into this instead....
Pretty cool huh? Again the water was just spectacular. We didn't swim or anything that day. Just took some wonderful photos. We were not expecting to leave a dock and drive "up" to a beach. Awesome. Next we stopped at "Betty's Hope", it was a sugar plantation that started way back in the day (don't remember for sure when it started). It was interesting and very sad. Of course there was a slavery issue (British island) but the coolest part was a copy of the letter from the British Prime Minister abolishing slavery and telling the owners to let them go. (which reminds me, if you haven't seen the movie AMAZING GRACE, then SEE it and SOON. Wilbur Wilberforce---quite the soul!)
You would see these windmills all over the island. Lots of sugar production in Antigua's history. We were driving around and saw a lookout through the trees. It was beautiful! The red tiled roof (we learned from our map) was Eric Clapton's rehab center where he wrote the "Crossroads" album. Interesting, huh?
Another pull-off lookout. We had to stop!
Here, we just stopped for a quick sec in the middle of the road for this shot. How unbelievable is that water??!!
We now are our favorite view of the whole cruise!!!! We drove to the top of the mountain to a National Park called "Shirley's Heights". The map said we would arguably see the most beautiful view of the whole island. And it was SO right! It was a panoramic view. It started here and went like this. BREATHTAKING, I tell you!!!
I have video but it will not load right now. Sorry about that, but at least you can look forward to seeing that later. :) Here are some more shots of us to prove we were there. That is the famous Nelson's Dockyards behind us. We actually didn't make it down there because of time constraints. That was a bummer.
Next we went winding through the rain forest. That was awesome! We saw some people doing the zip lines--man, they go fast!!!
This view was just after one of the most popular beaches on the island called "Jolly Harbour". Michael was so proud he got a little of the wave break. Nice photo, huh?
I warned you it was a long post...I'm kinda sorry about that. I just had too many good photos to share!!! We got back to town around 3:30, turned the car in and walked a few blocks over to this beautiful (and huge) church, St. John's. (from the 1800's)
Our boat from the church steps:
We went back to the boat and took a few shots before leaving. This one is especially for James (Mike's brother---inside joke, you don't have to get it!)
Good bye Antigua.
Good night Antigua.
Towel animal. I do know what this one is!!! :)