World Oceans Day was brought to my attention by a friend’s blog, and after thinking about the open invitation to join the Oceans Day blog-a-thon I decided it was a great idea!
I have always found the ocean fascinating and when I was much younger I was pretty good at being able to name different species of saltwater fish, octopi, as well as types of dolphins, whales, and sharks. As I got older, my main interests turned toward other things so the best experience I have is the few times I’ve been to actually see the ocean – which amounts to about four trips. I’ve been to Corpus Cristi, S. Padre Island, Santa Monica Pier, and on one cruise that left from Florida and stopped in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Panama. (We also saw Cuba from the deck of the ship on the way back!)
So, what I have to share is mostly pictures from my experiences on the coasts and a few pictures from aquariums.

This picture was taken on the first day of the cruise I went on…the color is awesome and has nothing to do with my camera. The water really was just that blue.

The sunsets were the best. In West Texas, the sunsets are always beautiful, but there are still buildings and things that can block the view. Once we were out in the ocean, that was no longer the case. It was a little scary to realize just how isolated we were, but the views were amazing.

We didn’t see much of the wildlife, either, though one evening the captain came on the intercom during dinner to tell use there was a whale on the starboard side of the ship and a bunch of people rushed over to the windows to see it. (We crowded the people with the tables near the window, too, but they didn’t mind so much.) All we really saw was the water spouting from the whale and a sort of bump in the ocean.

Not long after we were in a storm. Now, my experiences with that are limited, but our cruise ship was pretty big and we got tossed around like a bath toy. I felt really horrible for the people who got motion sickness. The staff on the ship stuck barf bags all over the hallways for them, and the infirmary was giving away dramamine like it was candy.

But…I thought it was actually sort of fun. It’s not like we were in the middle of ice bergs or rocks or anything. Though, it made it a little harder to get around on the ship and I had no desire to be on deck. I settled for looking out windows.

The night after the storm we came into port next to this ship. It freaked me out to think how they were probably out in that at the same time we were because their vessel was much, much smaller than ours. I mean, we had an elevator that visited twelve floors, plus several areas to climb up to from the deck. Still, during the trip I insisted on calling it a boat.

Same story with this ship. It looks like it’s a sort of private mini-cruise ship – or at least that’s what we assumed since it has a pool on-deck – they are smaller than both our ship and the ship pictured above. They must have gotten their butts kicked in the ocean.

But it’s worth it when your destination looks like this:

And this is just the shower area. Why I didn’t take pictures of the beach is beyond me. Of course, by the time we made it here I had trouble staying awake…I had problems getting to sleep on the ship and I spent a lot of time exploring the deck, the stores inside, and most importantly the buffet tables. I doubt I got to bed before midnight at any given point during the trip.

The beach was very nice. We did a ton of swimming, and they had a huge trampoline and a climbing tower out offshore. It wasn’t very far from the beach, but it was farther than I’d been willing to swim before given my inexperience swimming in anything other than pools and lakes. I also got to go kayaking…in the ocean. Which was my first time to do that and after I got the hang of it I had to get myself back toward shore, which was hard work because the ocean seemed to decide I should be pulled much further out. Either tides were going out, or I’m just a wuss and the waves overpowered me. But, I made it back and I’d be glad to do it again. Cozumel was awesome. We also got some food from the store there (coca-cola and snacks) and it was fun to surprise people with the fact that we actually spoke and understood Spanish. Of course, I understand it better than I speak it, but I could get my point across and I think the residents were delighted at the fact that I wasn’t the point-and-grunt kind of tourist.

Puerto Limon was fun. We mostly did shopping and souvenier-buying.

This is about all I saw of Costa Rica. Again, if I’m ever there again I’m doing much more exploring. It’s too beautiful not to.

This was my first view of Panama. You can see the ocean on the other side of where we came into port. Geographically, I can tell you nothing about where we were, but it was nice to be there. Panama was more tourist-y than Cozumel, both of which seemed friendlier than Costa Rica and I enjoyed exploring the areas nearby.

Panama was our last stop, though and the whole trip home was straight ocean. It looked a lot like this:

For the aquariums, I’ll just leave pictures: