You say Tortola, I say Tortuga...

So we've pulled out of Tortola and are making our way north to Castaway Cay. It will take our 8th sea day in which to make the trip, arriving a bit later in the morning at the island and leaving late afternoon in order to make Port Canaveral in good time Saturday morning.

Tortola is a smaller island than yesterday's St Maarten. The town is right there at the end of the pier, but many of the activities are on the other side of the island. As one cruiser asked: Why didn't the captain park the ship on that side?

We're now headed westerly south of the many islands before turning northwest towards the Bahamas. Instead of 18,000 feet of water we're in only 180 feet, though we are speeding along at 22 knots (our top speed is 24 knots). We'll be passing up the eastern side of the Bahamas so hope to avoid the storm presently crossing Florida and predicted to affect the states as far north of Vermont.

And blessed relief, the toilet just flushed! For the last half-hour it has just sat there. Calls to engineering resulted in replies that they were aware of the problem and were working on it. A recent call from Guest Services checking on the status of the problem brought a negative response from us. However, it seems to be working again. Whew!

On board ships, the sanitary system is run under a vacuum system. If for some reason there is no vacuum, the toilet doesn't flush. Last week there was a problem for a short time with a brief delay, but it righted itself. This time it took a bit more (two calls to Engineering before it was fixed. I'm guessing that the problem was area-wide and not just our cabin like the phone and shower problems earlier this week. We've never had problems on Disney ships, but it's making up for it on this voyage.

It will soon be time to visit the spa for my appointment for the Men Only Spa Treatments (hair cut/style, Frangipani scalp massage, and Spa mini-facial). Haven't had a hair cut in a month from a new shop down the street in SMA ($20mp = about $1.49). We'll see what Alex can do for a bit more (!). Michael is there now. Then tomorrow are our manicures. At least we'll be leaving DCL looking better!