Thursday 11th February

Curacao

Curacao itself doesn't look desperately exciting, but it has the best tourist attraction we've seen anywhere in the Caribbean on either of our two cruises here - dolphins!

The Dolphin Academy - see www.dolphin-academy.com - has a dozen resident dolphins. They're not captive here, as they sometimes swim out to sea to accompany swimmers, but their home is here so they always return. It's a breeding community and there are two or three youngsters swimming close to their parents.

You step down on to a platform and stand in waist-deep water together with one of the trainers. They call the dolphins with whistles and then, in exchange for claps, pats and the occasional fish, they perform. Each visitor on the platform gets a turn with one of the

creatures. First it pops its head out of the water for a kiss - yes, really - then you get a chance to hold it underneath and try to lift it out of the water and then you both pose, kissing, for the camera. And, of course, the photos are available afterwards, at a price. Were we prepared to pay? Mais, naturellement!

It sounds just a bit cheesy, but take it from us, it's a wonderful experience. The dolphins clearly enjoy the attention (and the fish!) and come readily when called. The trainers also get them to do party tricks, like reversing at speed with only their tails in the water, jumping out of the water in pairs, lying upside down so we could see their naughty bits (best not to ask!) and racing around in front of us at top speed splashing us with a torrent of water. Just excellent fun, especially since they're so very clearly having such fun too.

So, now we're back on board and setting off on the 1,100 slog up to Miami, arriving Sunday morning. Before then we've got two sea days to relax in the sun and read.

There's one more formal night and we've got an invitation tomorrow afternoon to an 'Elegant Tea' – sounds good already!

So, we'll be having dinner three more times with the six people on out table. There's a brother and sister plus their spouses, all around our age, plus Harry and Margie, the Jewish couple. Well, Harry keeps mentioning that he's Jewish, but in an aside to me one night he implied that he's a non-believer. He seemingly has a large fund of self-deprecatory Jewish jokes/stories that go down well with us all - here's one: