OMG!!!! Jim...that's Frederiksted pier! One of my favorite places to dive in the whole world! I'm sitting here wearing my St. Croix T-shirt.

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St. Croix is one of my favorite ports of call. Great island! On this side of the island, the shore is mostly sand. On the opposite side it is almost all rocks.

These are salt flats in Slovenia

Oh those sawfly larvae. They devour my yellow twig dogwood if I don't notice them in time. Two years ago I was aghast at all these white furry curled up "balls" under every leaf, not just one or two worms but many. I sprayed, last year nothing, this year I nearly forgot and happened to check the shrub and the leaves were nearly all gone! I sprayed and got rid of the worms just in time. I'm not sure if they will kill the shrub but when you see all the chewed and missing leaves one panics.

Two more pictures from the recent trip to the Portland area

That cruise ship in Bob's posting is an older one from Royal Caribbean. It carries about 4,000 passengers and a crew of 1,100+. Not even their biggest. The big ones carry more than 5,500 passengers with a crew of 2,300.

A delicious salad that accompanied dinner.