Second Bermuda week

The Majesty docks right in a little town called St. George, which is a little ways away from the capital of Hamilton.  Despite not being in the main town, there is plenty to do right here in St. George.  There are a few local bars and restaurants that are right next to the ship, that stay open late enough for any crew member to have a chance to go there.  In particular, a tavern called the White Horse is a popular hangout since it is literally just next to the ship.  So far I've only been once, its not really my kind of place.  

There are at least two nice beaches that are just about a 15 minute walk from the ship, and both are really beautiful.  Today I went to "Tobacco Bay" beach with all my friends, and we swam a bit and even did some amateur cliff diving.  Maybe it would be more accurately described as rock jumping, since we only jumped from about 8 or 10 feet up.  But the water is absolutely gorgeous, and there are some really neat rock formations that I plan to take about a million pictures of, on a sunnier day (today it was overcast and even a bit rainy).  

Starting from the ship, heading out along the coastline, is what is referred to by crew as "the loop", a 2.5 or 3 mile loop road that follows the coast out around a peninsula, around a few of the popular beaches, and back into town and the ship.  Walking or jogging it on a daily basis is a popular activity among my friends, and it is such lovely scenery that it makes for a really pleasant experience.  I jogged it once last week with friends, and then gave my shins time to recover from the hills they weren't used to.  Today I jogged it again at my own pace (slow), and was able to make it quite a bit further around before walking.  A few of my friends have the goal to run it every day we're in port here, so we'll see if I'm that motivated. 

This week we have a lot of changes on board.  First, our trumpet player John was replaced by the original trumpet player Alexi, who had left after my first week on board.  It is really nice to have him back - he is a great lead trumpet player and a lot of fun to perform with.  The second big change is that we have a new cruise director for a couple of weeks.  Denny, our previous one, is on vacation, and his assistant Candi is filling in.  She is very opinionated and has already made quite a few changes that affect us.  For example, our welcome aboard show is entirely different.  Instead of centering around the guest entertainers, it features the musicians that perform in the lounges, giving them a chance to be introduced to the guests and encourage them to come out to hear them in the lounges.   So whereas up until now the welcome aboard show would be the cast "bumper" followed by a showband feature, followed by 20 minutes of each of the three guest entertainer acts (including Brett);  Now, after the bumper we no longer do the band feature, instead we do just 3 songs back to back, each featuring a different lounge act.  After that we are basically done for the rest of the show, which I must admit is nice.  Brett doesn't mind not being involved in the welcome aboard show - one bonus for him is a few days of peace and quiet since the guests don't know him yet, so don't all pay him lots of attention anytime he's in public.  I'm not so lucky - after the welcome aboard show everyone recognizes me since I'm the only girl in the band and its such a small theater, AND because the show is recorded and played on one of the ship television channels for the next three days straight.  And so I get to experience something I never thought I would - people telling me,  "I saw you on T.V!!"  I get to be famous here in my little cruise ship world.  :-)