Category Archives: 2022 West Indies Cruise

DAY 10: ST. LUCIA: WANDERING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES

The lovely island of St. Lucia was our oyster today. We explored it all on a 7.5 hour excursion. We left no stone unturned, so to speak. It was a long day but a good one. In order to get it all done, however, we had to get up early and be out the door by 8 AM.

Before I start on our day, however, here is the requisite history lesson which I can repeat practically by memory as it is the same as 9/10ths of the other islands we have visited.

The Arawaks were the first people on the island. They settled it about 200 AD. Then the Caribs came along and took over the island in 800 AD. For a change, Columbus didn’t “discover” this island although it is believed that he sailed nearby it in 1502. The island remained in the hands of the natives until 1550 when “Wooden Leg” a.k.a. Francois de Clerk set up a camp here. He used Pigeon Island as his base to attack Spanish ships. Clerk was a French pirate. Then the Dutch came and built a fort on the southern tip of the island. However, it was the British who first tried to colonize. Their efforts failed due to repeated attacks by the Caribs. After two unsuccessful attempts, they gave up for a while. However, in 1660 the French successfully negotiated a peace treaty with the Caribs and were able to colonize. By 1674 St. Lucia was made an official French crown colony and a dependency of Martinique.

The Brits didn’t give up for very long and over the next couple of hundred years, ownership of the island traded back and forth between the two countries 14 times. Finally in 1811 the British took full control of the island. In 1979 it gained its independence although it falls under the British monarchy and is a member of the Commonwealth.

The volcanic island itself is 27 X 14 miles so not big at all. It is part of the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles and is located northeast of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados, and south of Martinique. The Atlantic Ocean is on its eastern side and the Caribbean on the west. The population of 182,000 people is mostly of African descent. Their ancestors were brought here to work the sugarcane fields. The island has one city—Castries which is where we docked. The next largest place is Anse la Raye which is just down the coast from Castries. It was the first fishing village. There are five other towns on the island as well as a few fishing villages. Of course the official language is English but they speak their version of Creole. They even have a Bible translated into Creole.

We got our bus pass down in the lounge and then discovered that we were going straight on to a catamaran. I could have sworn we were suppose to do a bus ride first and THEN do the catamaran and ocean swim. Things change though so you always have to stay flexible. I brought stuff to change into to swim but wasn’t sure if it was worth all of the trouble or not. The catamaran was much larger than the one we snorkeled off of which was nice. We actually had a seat up top so we could see out and be comfortable. Although it was open, there was a covering so we were also out of the sun which was nice.

Although we weren’t scheduled to do the ride until this afternoon, it was nice bouncing through the water and seeing the view of the coast from the catamaran. Onboard we had a local guide who explained what we were seeing as we sailed by. Apparently St. Lucia is a big tourist area as they have several Sandals resorts here. Most resorts are on the north portion of the island but there are a few towards the Pitons which are on the west side of the island down towards the southern end.

We sailed passed Grand Cul de Sac Bay which is the 7th deepest harbor in the world. It is also a crude oil storage area. We could see huge oil containers from where we were in the water. They weren’t very scenic but this was the best location for them because the deep harbor allowed the tankers to get in there and offload the oil to them.

The coastline itself was dramatic and beautiful. Rocky cliffs topped with trees dove straight down into the water. Waves smashed upon the rocky cliffs. The turquoise of the water perfectly framed the meeting of sky, land, and water.

We made a small detour through a cute bay call Marigot Bay. It is a double-necked bay that is the most protected bay in The Caribbean. It has the largest mangrove swamp of any on the island. For me the most interesting thing about the bay was the fact that the original Dr. Doolittle movie was filmed here. I’ll have to find it somewhere and watch it again. It’s been a while since Sam and I watched it.

We tried one bay with a name which translates to the Bay of Pigs for swimming but the water was too rough. It wasn’t safe. By this time I had vetoed the idea of swimming. Maybe if we had done it according to schedule as the last thing of the excursion, I would have gone in. I didn’t want to spend the rest of the day wet or try to dry off and change in some tiny little bathroom on the catamaran.

We motored on down the coast and finally came to a calm stretch of water. The captain made the decision that this would be our swimming area. Frankly, I’m not sure I would have wanted to swim here. There was a whole slew of plastic bottles bobbing in the water. I had to wonder what other kind of trash was floating around in there as well. But that didn’t stop a good number of people from jumping in. They seemed to have a good time and enjoyed splashing around.

They had a good 30-40 minutes in the water before we raised anchor and continued down the coast to Soufrière which is a French town. The name translates to “sulfur in the air.” It was the first French settlement on the island. You also had great views of the Pitons from the seaside town.

I’ve mentioned the Pitons twice. They are two mountains that rear up 2000 ft in the air from the ocean. The peaks are roughly 150,000 years old and are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. “Superman 2” was filmed at the Pitons. These days they are the symbol of the island. You can’t come here without visiting the Pitons. We got to see them from the sea and from land. The sea view was the best. They very much reminded me of Hawaii.

Although we had a great view of them from the catamaran, my pictures didn’t turn out that great. The day had turned overcast so the mountains were dark. But still you can get an idea of how magnificent they are. Although it looks like they are right next to each other, their bases are separated by 2.5 miles. Each rocky peak is covered with rainforests that are home to the endangered St. Lucia parrot.

We got off the catamaran in Soufrière where we picked up our bus driver Chester and our guide Candida. We drove through the town on our way to the famous Botanical Gardens where we spent the next 45 minutes.

The Diamond Botanical Gardens, Mineral Baths, and Waterfalls is a portion of the 2,000 acres of land that King Louis XIV gave to three brothers by the name of Devaux in 1713. He gave them this land grant in recognition of their service to the crown. Nice gift! People say that as a child Napoleon’s wife Josephine bathed here in the baths while visiting her father’s plantation here.

In 1928 the owner of the estate and the baths excavated the site and restored two of the 12 original baths that had been destroyed during the French Revolution. The baths are fed by the original spring. In 1983 when the owner Mr. Boulay died, his daughter became the manager of the property and began restoring it and planting the gardens.

The gardens were beautiful. There was color everywhere from the hot pink cattails to red coffee beans to pink ginger and yellow bird of paradise. Short retaining walls were made around the plants using the husks of coconuts. I thought that was very resourceful. One of the most intriguing plants was the wax flower otherwise known as the red torch ginger. I also quite liked the shell ginger. Then there was the sexy pink heliconia as well as the red bee hive ginger.

Eventually we made our way to the tiny falls in the park. They run different colors depending on which mineral happens to be coloring the water on a particular day. Today the water was whitish because the water was filled with calcium. Doug had a little issue at the falls. He moved off of the path to get out of the way of some people and slipped. He caught himself with his hand on the ground so he never completely fell. However, Candida was concerned. He was perfectly fine but she insisted on filling out a report. I could understand her point of view. She wanted to cover herself. I don’t blame her. But he was perfectly fine, just irritated at all of the red tape caused by a little slip.

After the falls we saw banana trees with bunches of bananas. Each tree grows one bunch. On several of them you could see the large bloom hanging down from the bananas. We even saw a bird. Honestly, we haven’t seen many critters of any type. This bird was a thrush, I believe she said. It was small, black with orange beneath its head and a touch of red by its eyes. He was a pretty little thing. We also saw fish tail palms loaded with the “fish tail” blooms. They were neat to see.

We wrapped up our visit with a few minutes in the gift shop and then we boarded our bus for a trip to a plantation where we were having lunch and seeing a tiny replica of a Carib village. The plantation—Morne Coubaril Estate—has been in the Devaux family for more than two centuries. The family came to St. Lucia when sugarcane plantations in Martinique stopped doing so well. The planters came to St. Lucia because the land was mostly unoccupied and they began clearing it. Three brothers came and got a concession of land in the Soufriere Valley which was the most fertile part of the island. The land was eventually split between the three brothers and these days only this plantation remains in the family.

Originally it was a coffee plantation but then it gradually made the transition to sugarcane. Today they still grow coffee as well as cocoa. Since cocoa required shade, they grow amongst the cocoa plants mango, copra, and other fruits. They also have a good crop of banana and coconut. These days bananas have replaced sugarcane as the cash crop of the island.

Andre was our guide at the plantation. He took us first to the few huts that represented a Carib village. The tiny kitchen hut was built of bambo with fronds making up the roof. This style of construction allowed smoke to escape the building. The bar and cocoa house was a shingled affair. This is where the tribe would hold meetings and people would congregate. The bedroom building was a unique structure. The roof reminded me of a thatched roof while the sides had a duo style construction. The top portion was woven bamboo, some wood, and fronds making it relatively waterproof while the lower portion was faced with fronds over the woven bamboo. The interior was divided into two tiny rooms with the rear room the bedroom. A tiny table filled the front room. It was an interesting grouping of buildings.

From the Carib “village” we made our way to the mill where we got acquainted with Noel the donkey. It was Noel’s job to turn the grindstones. She got paid handsomely. She would make two circuits and then refuse to budge until she was “paid” with a couple of pieces of sugarcane. As we had walked to the mill, she had treated us to a “song of her people.” I do love hearing donkeys bray :-). This mill worked like all of the others we had seen on various trips. The one novelty was actually seeing the donkey move the grindstones. That was the best part for me. I know some in the group were feeling sorry for Noel. Somehow I don’t think she was overworked. She looked fat and sassy from all of the sugarcane she got paid. And she only had to turn the grindstones when tourists were there to watch.

From the mill we went to the coconut station. A young man was demonstrating how to peel the husk off of coconuts. He used a piece of rebar stuck in the ground to do it. It had to be back-breaking work. They had a huge pile of husks and shells off to the side that they kept and used as mulch. We learned that the unsprouted coconuts have the milk and the meat that we are use to. However, the sprouted coconuts have a unique texture to the meat. It is soft and spongy like a marshmallow. He opened one up and let us have a taste. We also sampled the milk and the unsprouted coconut meat.

We took a quick tour of the cocoa area of the plantation as well. The young man inside the building explained the drying process to us and then actually demonstrated the “polishing” of the cocoa beans. He poured a mixture of water and syrup from green cocoa pods and cocoa nuts into a huge pot. Then he shuffled his rubber-booted feet around the seeds. Now I know the beans still had the shells on but I wasn’t convinced I wanted to eat cocoa that had been schmooshed around with boots that had been walking around the building. It just didn’t strike me as sanitary. Of course, I have to laugh at myself when I think that polishing the beans barefoot is more sanitary!

On our way to the lunch area, we passed by the old plantation house. It wasn’t as fancy as I would have expected. It was two stories with a wrap-around porch on both levels. I would have loved to see the inside but that wasn’t on the tour. We also got a glimpse of the old truck that they use to haul people and produce in. I can’t remember how many hours Andre told us it took them to drive to Soufrieres in it. It was a melange of colors from blue to red, yellow, and green.

Lunch was tasty local dishes. We had choices of chicken, beef, and fish. I went with the chicken and a taste of the beef. We had some kind of coconut thing for dessert. Not being a fan of coconut, it wasn’t my favorite but I did give it a try. We also had the usual choices of rice, potato salad, regular salad, and pickled vegetables. It wasn’t fantastic but it was filling.

After one last pit stop at the toilets, we were back on the road. Our group was actually in one bus and a van. Poor Candida was trying to keep track of us all and people kept forgetting what vehicle they were riding in. We finally got everybody in the correct place and then began making our way towards the port of Castries. We were going part of the way in the two vehicle caravan and then we were meeting up with a bigger bus and the whole group was going the remainder of the way in it. Weird setup but what can I say.

Along the way we stopped for a scenic photo of Soufrieres with the Pitons in the background. It wasn’t quite as gloomy so the mountains showed up a bit better. However, the best view of them was from the water. Here we could only see a partial view. It was still a great though.

Candida shared with us as we drove that the national tree is the calabash. You can’t eat the fruit but you can dry it and make bowls out of it. Bamboo is the national plant. It grows like crazy. We saw bamboo everywhere.

Sour oranges are used here for making marmalade, just like in Portugal and Spain. They grow taro here as well which is a starchy root. In Hawaii they make poi out of taro. Golden apples are not edible when green, however, you make juice out of them then. When they are completely ripe, they are good for eating. They also have soursop here. We heard about it on a few of the other islands as well. It is a green, spiny plant that has white pulp on the interior. The meat from this fruit is thought to help slow down the growth of cancer cells.

The island has 119 species of fern. I really wasn’t surprised by that statistic. I saw ferns literally everywhere from tiny ones to huge tree ferns. The island gets between 150-160 inches of rainfall a year. The bulk of the water for the island comes from the Edmund Rainforest. That is also where the national bird—the Amazonia parrot—makes its home. That makes sense as their habitat is the rainforest canopy. This particular island is heavily Catholic. I believe she said that 60% of the population is Catholic. You can always tell if a plantation is catholic if it has a monument to the Virgin Mary. Morne Coubaril had one.

We switched over to Andrew and his larger (it wasn’t all that much larger) bus for the final leg back to the port. By then we were all getting tired. We had been going strong all day long. Riding on the bus was starting to put me to sleep but I hung in there. I learned that the St. Lucia flag is blue for the sea and sky, white for the European culture, black for African culture, and yellow for the sun. The two triangle shapes represent the Pitons.

We also learned a bit about bananas. You only get one group of bananas per plant. Before they ripen, the workers encase them in blue bags to slow down the ripening process as well as to protect them from insects and birds. After the bunch of bananas is harvested, the plant is chopped down. Two of the five sucker plants that have sprung up around the mother plant are left to grow. The other three are removed. I remember replanting some of them in Egypt. It takes a full 9-12 months to grow a bunch of bananas. The second largest plantation on the island is actually a cooperative of a bunch of small farmers. Altogether they have around 1600 trees.

Eventually we made it back to the dock and I dragged myself aboard the Marina. I was tired and my head was dangerously filled with an overload of information. It felt good to get back to the cabin and just relax for a while.

We had dinner at the Grand Dining Room and it was fine. To be honest, I’m beginning to get tired of the fancy sauces and presentations. It was all delicious but I can only eat so much fancy food. I’m just not use to such a rich diet at home.

The show tonight, however, was spectacular! I admit it, I like the big cruise ships for the shows :-). And tonight’s did not disappoint. The entertainer was singer Jesse Hamilton, Jr. who comes from a musical family. I believe one of his parents sings opera, the other one does something musical, his sister plays various musical instruments….He comes by his talent honestly. When he came out and sang his first number and held the last note forever and a day with no loss in volume, I was blown away. I knew it was going to be an amazing performance. Although the title of the show was “Generations of Soul” the songs weren’t necessarily soul music. They were just songs that had influenced him and his family over the years. He sang a little bit of everything. He was part singer, part comedian, and all entertainer. He has truly honed his craft and presented a great piece of entertainment. And I liked how he was a generous performer as well. He gave so much credit to the cruise band. It was nice to see. Of course he had to do a medley of songs from”The Lion King.” He had been Simba on Broadway. He had just gotten a part on “Ain’t Misbehavin’” when he got word that the show had closed. Such are the vicissitudes of musical theater.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed his performance, loved the songs he sang, and enjoyed his stories about his family. I was just sorry when his hour had run out. I was bummed until John the cruise director announced that Jesse would perform one more time before the end of the cruise. Yea!!!!!

Back in the room, I got ready for bed and mentally counted down the four days we have left. Tomorrow we land on the island of Guadalupe. We have a very short day there with our second to last excursion. St. Kitts comes the day after, followed by two days at sea. After our full day today, I was ready for a more laid-back day on Guadalupe tomorrow.

DAY 9: ST. VINCENT: WANDERING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES

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Oh, heavens, I am tired today! I had no clue when we signed up for the rainforest hike that we would be climbing up a mountain! Oy vey! Those six months of no cardiovascular workouts have definitely caught up with me. I don’t think I’ve worked this hard since we climbed Kilimanjaro. But I digress 🙂

It was another early start so we had Brandon bring breakfast to the room. Then we hustled off to the lounge to wait for our turn to disembark. On the pier in the capital city of Kingston, we met Elroy who was our guide for the outing and Lenny who was our driver. As we drove to the rainforest, Elroy clued us in about his island of St. Vincent. The country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is made up of 32 island, twelve of which are Grenadine islands. Five of the islands are uninhabited and are a marine park. Some of the best snorkeling in the Caribbean is in those waters. The islands have a grand total of 110,000 people living on them. In 2007 there were only 30,000 so they have really had a population boom in the last twenty years. They islands also have 30,000 cars, most of which are imports from Japan.

Columbus was the first European to see the islands. I’m not sure there is an island around here he wasn’t the first to see :-). He named the main island after St. Vincent of Saragossa whose feast day was the day Columbus spotted the island in 1498. The Grenadines were named after the Spanish city of Granada but were given the diminutive name in order to distinguish them. The natives who lived here at the time were the Karlinagos who named it Youloumain, in honour of Youlouca, the spirit of the rainbows who they believed inhabited the island. There were also the Garifuna people also known as the Black Caribs. They aggressively prevented the English and Dutch from claiming the islands. But it was the French who were finally able to colonize it in 1719. The French brought with them enslaved Africans to work their plantations.

In 1763 the British captured the island from the French. They also brought over slaves to work on their plantations. However, the Black Caribs went to war with them. Thus began the First Carib War. It lasted from 1772 to 1773. In 1770 the French regained control and then the British got it back in 1783. There was a second Carib War and it was finally ended in 1797. The Black Caribs were exiled to Roatán, Honduras, Belize and Baliceaux in the Grenadines.

The island remained under British control for the next few centuries. Finally on October 27, 1979, St. Vincent and the Grenadines gained full independence. The country decided to remain within the Commonwealth of Nations, therefore, King Charles is their monarch. The country is represented locally by a Governor-General.

Elroy was clearly very proud of his country and his island. As he told us about it, you could literally hear the pride in his voice. It was nice to see. He described how the Japanese built the bus terminal and the locals call it Little Tokyo although there are no Japanese there. The country also gets a good deal of financial aid from China. I’ve discovered this year that China has its fingers in many a “pie” across the globe. They are very involved in Africa as well as the islands of the West Indies.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines doesn’t have an army but it does have a large police force. It is the smallest country to get a seat on the UN Security Council which is amazing. Thirty years ago the island had traffic lights but no longer. There was nobody on the island who could repair them so eventually they stopped working.

The first church built on the island was a Methodist Church in 1790. However, the leading church of the country is the Anglican Church, followed by the Methodist. The Methodist, Anglican, and Catholic churches all have church schools as well in Kingston.

The biggest holiday on the island takes place in June/July. It’s Carnival. Obviously NOT the same Carnival celebrated in Brazil since that takes place before Easter. The celebration begins in the rural portion of the island and comes to its finale in Kingston.

Johnny Depp apparently got in trouble on the island while he was here filming one of the Pirates movies. Disney had him lodged in the swankiest hotel on the island—Young Island Hotel. He imbibed lots and lots of rum and in three or four days, had trashed his room which didn’t make the hotel very happy. Disney ended up having to send a yacht here for him to stay on as he had worn out his welcome. What a punishment, trash a hotel and you are sentenced to stay on a luxury yacht! I can see why Disney had kicked him out of the Pirates franchise.

Although there are beaches all around the island, it isn’t safe to swim on the east side. The waters and currents there are too dangerous. So if you want to swim on St. Vincent, swim on the west side. And if you want really STRONG rum, go to the distillery in Georgetown. The distillery there is reputed to have the strongest rum in the world. Maybe that’s where Depp got his rum from. The names of villages and towns on the west side are all French while on the East side they are English. The country is Christian but they have diversity in religion as well as ethnicity. The Prime Minister is actually of Portuguese descent.

Elroy was quite proud of the fact that Georgetown now has a dialysis center. It’s the first on the island. Before this one was built, getting diagnosed with kidney disease and needing dialysis was a death sentence. Now it isn’t. People can come here and be taken care of. They also had the best children’s hospital in the Caribbean. It was all free of charge.

The island is volcanic and the volcano has blown its top many times. The last eruption was in 2021. They had to evacuate 20,000 people. Ash fell as far away as Barbados. This time it was just ash. The last time the eruption had lava was in 1902 and 1600 people were killed. The vast majority of those killed were Carib people as the lava flowed to the side of the island where they lived and they were trapped.

Most people speak English as well as creole. Kids have to wear uniforms to school, even the pre-school kiddos. Education is the priority of the country. Their goal is to have one person from every family with a university degree by 2030. They believe that education is truly the only way out of poverty. The island didn’t always have equal opportunity when it came to secondary education. Many students couldn’t afford to go on to the university. Now the government steps in and helps those good students who will be successful. These days they have 1200 students studying around the world. And they are working on a one-student-one-computer initiative to bring education into the 21st century. It’s very impressive what they are trying to achieve.

Elroy was quite proud of the airport as well. It is a new international airport (2017). The prime minister had to gather up a coalition of countries to help build it. Most people thought it would never happen. The prime minister proved the naysayers wrong. He got Cuba to contribute. They were actually the main contributor. Mexico supplied the concrete. Over 240 homes had to be relocated. Relics were discovered while construction was going on. So they had to pull in archeological experts from Argentina to documents and safely move the relics. The relics are now in a museum in Kingston. Wow! After hearing all of that, I understood why Elroy was so proud. What an accomplishment.

Most of the Grenadine islands are pristine. They are just beginning to develop them. Of course the difficult part is achieving a good balance between conserving the beauty of the island and developing the islands. We’ll just have to wait and see how they do on that front.

Things have been changing on the islands. There has been a great deal of movement from rural areas to urban areas. People are trying to make a living and the city is where they can do that. However, the government is trying to stop that trend and make it sustainable for people to stay in the rural areas. The country is also one of the most improved technologically in the Caribbean. Currently they have more cell phones than people: 110,000 people and 170,000 active cell phones.

Most people own their homes. They are built out of concrete block mostly. That staves off the termites as well as giving them some protection in hurricanes. The downside is that they have to import the concrete. Although they do own their homes, mostly it is the children and the grandchildren that will end up actually paying for them. Of course they will also ultimately end up owning the house.

Like the other islands we have visited, the wildlife here is almost non-existent. They have possum, the West Indian fruit eating bats, armadillos, iguanas, and some type of rat. And that is it. The iguanas live in the coastal areas. So there was no chance we would see one in the rainforest. Darn! They do have a few snakes here but they are all non-venomous. People were killing them because of superstitions but then they started having a boom in the rat population. They hadn’t realize that the snakes ate the rats thus helping the villagers out. I think now they are leaving the snakes alone.

We were on a roll learning about St. Vincent but we were fixing to learn more. We had arrived at the rainforest—Vermont Nature Trail and the Queens’ Commonwealth Canopy. This trail traverses a piece of the St. Vincent Parrot Wildlife Reserve which was established in 1991. They created this reserve to protect the habitat of the St. Vincent Parrot otherwise known as the Amazona guildingii which is their national bird. The reserve also protects the production of potable water for the people of the island and the Grenadines.

As Elroy began our hike, he stopped to tell us that Prince Harry had come here in 2016 and he had given him a 30 minute tour. That just proved to me that I wasn’t the only one who thought Elroy was a great guide. Obviously some bigwigs did as well.

As we walked, Elroy shared some properties of the plants we were seeing as we walked. Lemongrass can be used as an insect repellant. You can make a tea out of fever grass and it will get rid of your fever. You can make a tea with dried cinnamon leaves. You can also grind up the dried leaves and bake with them. This one blew me away—in ancient Egypt they used allspice in the mummifying process!

There are two types of frogs and they eat insects. However, children are afraid of them and kill them. There is some superstition about the frogs. So they either run away from the frogs or kill them.

The main river from which the island derives its drinking water starts here in the reserve. In order to safeguard it, farmers are not allowed to farm close to it. They have to stay a certain distance away. It does protect the water but it doesn’t make the farmers very happy.

At one point the forest was all but destroyed. The villagers use to come into it and chop down the trees. They would use the wood to make charcoal. They would also clear the land for farming. The forest all but vanished until the move was made to reclaim it. Their efforts have been quite successful.

The first portion of the trail while Elroy talked with us was easy. It was flattish and relatively smooth. However, it wasn’t long before all of that changed. Once we hit the rainforest proper, the uphill slog began. Nobody had told me we would be climbing a mountain today. I wasn’t sure I would be physically fit enough to manage it. However, at least I wasn’t wearing a dress and flip flop type sandals like one lady. Good grief! What had she been thinking when she dressed today! Everybody else was in hiking shoes or sturdy tennis shoes.

As we entered the forest, the canopy closed around us. We crossed a couple of bridges with small creeks flowing beneath them. Everything was green and lush. Soon the trail turned muddy and we began the stairs. They weren’t true stairs but rather huge steps carved out of the dirt and supported by logs. Roots grew on them and rocks pebbled them making each step hazardous. I had to keep a close eye on where I was stepping. I didn’t want to trip on a root. Nor did I want to step on a rock that would bend my left foot around. I was trying to keep it as flat as possible to protect the break area.

The steps themselves were just plain hard. They were extra tall so it took a great deal of effort to hoist my foot up each one. And in an effort to spare pressure on my left foot, my right leg was doing all of the work. I was concentrating so hard on what I was doing that a parrot could have landed on me and I wouldn’t have noticed. I was whipped when I made it to the top of the section. I was definitely breathing hard. I was hoping that we were almost done but I was doomed to disappointment. Elroy announced that this was really our only rest break. We had a lot further to go. Our goal was the parrot lookout and it was WAY up the mountain.

I’m sure the forest around us was beautiful. Frankly, I tried to look and enjoy it, but it was so hard. I was really afraid of tripping, falling, and re-breaking my foot. I think it’s going to take me a while to get over that fear. The trail itself was filled with rocks, roots, and bushes guaranteed to catch the unwary. I did snap photos of the mushrooms growing on a log segment of one step. It was a huge mushroom. There was also a quirky tree branch that we had to duck under as it twisted around over the path. That was cool.

Elroy pointed out things along the way but he was way up ahead of us. I could hear what he was saying but I didn’t know what he was pointing at. I know there was a termite mounds and a 200 or 2,000 year old tree (I was huffing and puffing too hard to hear what he said very well much less remember it. And forget about taking notes on this trail). He also begin telling us about the parrots here in the forest. They are very shy and stay in the forest. They mate for life. If they hatch three eggs, the parents only feed to two healthiest and let the third one die. Survival of the fittest as they can’t afford to feed three. They live down in the heart of a tree and keep coming back to the same nest every year. Before the parrots were protected, parrot hunters would come here and capture the birds and sell them for thousands of dollars. The birds returning to the same nest made the hunters’ job easier. Once they found the nest, each year they could lie in wait for the babies to be born and grow big enough to leave their parents and survive. Then they would nab them.

At one point in our upward trek, we heard a tremendous squawking. Two parrots had left their tree and were flying. They always squawk when they begin to fly. A couple of people in our group spotted them but I didn’t. I wiped the sweat off my face and continued up the giant steps. Several minutes later there was more squawking. This time I did see the parrots, three of them. They were in the distance though so all I could really see were three birds flying. It was impossible to make out any details without binoculars.

Not a minute too soon we finally reached the the parrot lookout platform. Thank goodness! I really don’t think I could have made it much further. Why is it so hard to get into shape and yet so easy to get out of it? A question for the ages :-). Anyway, I had made it and I was proud of myself. Even the lady in the dress and flip flops made it although we had to wait a good while for her.

Although it was the parrot lookout, we didn’t see anymore parrots and definitely none close up. That was disappointing but not unexpected. At least I had seem them in the distance. And I felt good that I had conquered the climb. It’s the most strenuous thing I’ve done since my foot came out of the boot. That made me feel good as well. I felt like I had accomplished something.

And the forest really was incredible. You just can’t believe how green and dense a rainforest is. And this one was very different from Daintree in Australia. There everything was spiked and poisonous. I was afraid to touch anything. I don’t think anything here was poisonous unless you ate it.

After a nice break, we began the long hike down. At least it was downhill and not as difficult as I was afraid it would be. My right leg was going to be talking to me though as it was taking the brunt of the pressure. By the time we reached the bottom, my left foot was aching a bit at the break. I figured I had pushed my foot as far as I should for one day. Back at the ship I was taking the elevator instead of the stairs for the remainder of today at least.

From the jungle of vegetation, we walked out into the sunshine. The goats that had been grazing in the bushes were now out in the open where I could take their picture. They were so cute! A couple of cows were grazing on the hill. And over the fence I saw a man busily working on his fields. The scene was so different from what we had just experienced in the rainforest. What a juxtaposition of sights.

At the Visitors’ Center Elroy treated us to some of his home-made rum punch. It was the best I’ve had on this trip. You could tell it had been specially blended. It was pretty potent, too. While we dried out sweat and recuperated, I spotted several geckos (I think they were geckos) on the tree next to the table. They were very interested in seeing what we were doing. A couple of them were brave enough to jump on top of the table with us. They had striking blue rings around their eyes. They were beautiful, but then I like lizards 🙂

We made one last visit to the toilet facilities, then we all loaded up and headed back to Kingston. The countryside on the drive back was very similar to everywhere else we have visited. You would be driving through dense vegetation and then all of a sudden a village would appear out of the growth. Some had tumbled down shacks for buildings while others were in fair condition and painted an array of bright pastel colors. The villages were like rainbows in a sea of green.

Back in town we drove through the streets and I did my best to get pictures of the two gothic appearing churches that I had seen on the way out of town. Their structures were so different from the rest of town that they really stuck out. I was disappointed that we took a different route and I only caught glimpses of their bell towers.

Back on the pier we said goodby to Elroy and Lenny and then made our way back to the ship. Doug did have to stop in several shops trying to find a keychain with the flag on it. All of a sudden he has to get flags of the places we go:-) Back onboard, we took the elevator up to our deck. I don’t think I could have climbed to the 11th deck to save my life. We grabbed some lunch and then chilled.

Tonight we had reservations for the Red Ginger so I had to get dressed up. I can’t say that it was strictly Asian food but it did have that flavor to the choices. Doug got lamb and I got teriyaki steak. Both meals were excellent. However, the gentleman sitting at the table in front of us got the lamb as well and he didn’t touch it. I’m not sure what the problem was.

The show tonight was good but not my favorite. The performing cast did songs sung by the great Peggy Lee. I know she was before my time but I only recognized one song. I thought I would know more. The cast did a great job though and it was an enjoyable evening.

Before crashing and burning, I had to get all of my things ready for our outing tomorrow on St. Lucia. It was going to be a long one with a catamaran ride and ocean swim. I wanted to have everything set tonight so I wouldn’t have to get up earlier tomorrow. After today’s expenditure of energy, I was going to need all of the sleep I could get to be ready for tomorrow’s fun times 🙂

DAY 8: GRENADA: WANDERING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES

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I don’t even know where to begin with today. It was a marathon with a seven hour excursion. We saw ALL of Grenada. It was a fabulous day but boy, am I tired!

The long excursion meant an early wake-up. I was very thankful of being able to eat breakfast in the cabin. It gave me extra time to try to wake-up. I am by no stretch of the imaginations a morning person. However, usually by the time we head down to the lounge, I am ready for the day.

Here is a little background information on the beautiful island of Grenada. It is a mere 90 miles from the north coast of South America. It is only 21 X 12 miles so it’s small with a population of 95,000 people. The country itself is made up of three islands—Grenada, Carriacou, and Petite Martinique. You have to get to the other two islands via ferry. Grenada is split into six parishes which are named for saints. The capital is St. George’s which is where we docked this morning. Although it was a British island and is now a member of the Commonwealth, all of the villages have French names. However, the Grenadians stick to the British code of law. If you want to study law, you have to go to England to do it.

Tourism is the main source of income for the country. Agriculture comes in second. Grenada is known as the “Spice Island.” However, they also grow avocado, bananas, mangos, carrots, nutmeg, coco beans, etc. It wouldn’t be an island in the West Indies if it didn’t have a rum distillery :-). The island also has coco bean plantations. Sugarcane use to be king here but when the bottom fell out of the market, the cane plantations turned to other crops.

The history of the island follows closely the history of the other islands we have visited. The peaceful Arawaks from South American lived here until the fierce Caribs came up from South American and chased them off the island. Those who didn’t leave, the Caribs killed. Columbus is believed to have “seen” this island on his third voyage in 1498 and named it Concepción. Because of the ferocity of the Caribs, nobody really tried to settle the island until 1649 when the French began colonizing. Over the next century, the island passed back and forth between France and Britain 15 times! Both countries wanted the beautifully protected harbor on the island. In 1783 it went back to Britain and stayed there until the island got its independence in 1974.

We met our driver/guide Nick (or St. Nick as he enjoyed being called) on the pier and he loaded us up in his small bus. We are getting use to these tiny vehicles. Doug and I have learned which seats to avoid if we can. Never sit in the front seats because you literally have no leg room. The double seats really only fit one person comfortably. If we have to share one, I’m usually on the aisle and my left cheek hangs off. The single seats on the left side of the bus are the best choice.

We discovered quickly that Nick was a talker. He didn’t like silence on his bus. If he wasn’t talking, he was singing. He was quite the character but he knew his stuff. As he drove us to our first stop of the day—a rum distillery—he explained about his island. Education is prized here. Their only natural resource on the island are the people. Because of that, Grenadians want to make sure their children are educated. I wish more of our parents felt that way. Anyway, their system here is a bit different. First the kids go to kindergarten. Then they go to primary school. In sixth grade they are in high school. What we consider 11th and 12th grade in high school is what they term college. Then secondary school is the university. In college they can chose a vocational track or an academic one to prepare for university. Right now the kids are on Christmas vacation. They got out last week and go back the first week in January. So they get about a month off.

Grenada is very diverse religiously. They have all different churches and types of religion. They are very accepting of other people’s beliefs. Nick was proud of their international airport as well. He told us a few times that we could fly back to the island and he would take us on a private tour of the things we didn’t see today. He’s on FaceBook 🙂

Grenada’s national food is oildown. It’s made from breadfruit, green bananas, plantains, callaloo (similar to spinach), and meat. It is all cooked in coconut milk with some turmeric added to it. You simmer it for 90 minutes and then it’s ready.

Hurricanes have taken their toll here. In 2004 Ivan hit the island and killed 39 people. That one came to Florida as well. 2004 was a rough year for us as we had four major hurricanes rip us up. Anyway, Ivan hit them and then six months later Emily bashed them about. Luckily since then, the hurricanes have left them pretty much alone.

The country has a coke bottling plant as well as four chocolate factories. None of the factories make milk chocolate. The Grenada dove is the national bird and it is only found here. The island has 42 beaches and six of them have black sand. Louis Hamilton the British race car drive has ties to Grenada. His grandfather is from here. The eastern side of the island is the Atlantic side while the west side is the Caribbean side. St. Andrews Parish produces the most agriculture. All of their cars come from Japan, both new and used. And gas is around $8 per gallon.

Nick’s spiel took us up to our stopping point at the rum distillery. Grenada Rum Distillers, LTD produces Grenada’s No. 1 rum. The buildings use to house a sugar mill built in 1935 but when that became a losing proposition in 1990, they turned it into a distillery. They had always made a little rum on the side anyway. Andia was our guide and she walked us through the distillery. For some reason, we were all required to wear hard hats. I noticed that she didn’t wear hers. Outside we saw the turntable which is where the cane was sorted out from the other junk deposited with it. Once that process was done, the cane then went through a tunnel with 21 knives that sliced the long pieces of sugar cane into smaller ones. Not a place you would accidentally want to get pulled into! I won’t repeat all of the process but it was a much more modern process than what we had seen in Puerto Rico. Here they used centrifuges to separate the sugar from the molasses. Their power for the distillery was steam generated. They got the steam from burning the cane leftovers.

Grenada Rum Distillers, LTD Interior machinery

When it was a big sugar mill, they employed 150 people. The distillery only needs 50 employees. However, most people in the vicinity can say that their grandparents worked there at one time or an other. So the place has close ties to the community. People even come here to burn papers they don’t need anymore. It’s their version of shredding.

The distillery no longer makes its own molasses for rum production. They import it. They also sell some of it. First they make sure that the buyer is really a farmer. Farmers use it to mix with grain for their farm animals. They are carefully about their buyers because they don’t want to sell it to people making the island version of moonshine. That would cut into their profits.

The distillery has three working fermenters. Here they ferment the molasses for 72 hours. After that it is sent to distillation. At this point it is only 9% alcohol. As it ages, it gains in potency. They produce 25 different types of rum as well as ethanol for making hand sanitizer. Several of their rums have won international awards.

Of course after our tour we got to taste a little dribble of rum. It was nice but I really don’t fancy drinking at 9:30 AM. Despite that we ended up buying two more bottles. One was little though. I just liked the name—Old Grog. Although this was our third distillery tour, it was quite different from the others. I think at this point, I have a fairly decent understanding of the process. I don’t think I need to see any more distilleries 🙂

We were then off and running to our next stop which was Fort Frederick. It was one of four forts built on Richmond Hill. The French built the forts to keep the British from retaking the island. The other three were Fort Matthews, Fort Adolphus, and Fort Lucas. Four years after beginning the forts, the island was handed over to the British in the Treaty of Versailles. In the end the British had to complete the forts.

These forts had a different construction. Instead of building them so that the canons faced seaward, they were built so the canons faced inland. The Brits had learned their lesson in 1779 when the French had retaken the island by invading inland. They had landed up higher on the western coast and had marched inland to take the town. As a result, when the Brits finished the forts, they made them backward facing.

These days Fort Frederick is a historical site while Adolphus below is a prison. It’s a prison with a gorgeous view out over St. George’s and the bay. We could see the ruins of Matthews off to the right of Frederick. Although there wasn’t much to see at Frederick, the view was marvelous. You could see all the way out to our ship and down into the town. It was a sea of red roofs that we’ve observed all over the West Indies. Out on a tip of land jutting out into the water, was the point where another fort was located. Although we couldn’t see Fort George itself, our guide here at Frederick assured us it was there. It was the first fort built here and was constructed in 1706. An interesting fact we learned about Frederick is that no shot was never fired from it. It could hold up to 1000 soldiers and had a huge cistern system. Fort Matthews was used at one time as an asylum. Eventually they had to close it down. I can’t imagine that the conditions were very good. Fort Adolphus originally housed a hospital. It is now the prison.

We didn’t spend a great deal of time at the fort. Just enough to get a bit of history and the flavor of it. Mostly I think the stop was for taking pictures of the view. We had a 360 degree killer view up there. Even if the fort hadn’t been interesting, it would have been worth the visit for the view alone.

Back in our bus, we bumped along the narrow, hair-pin roads to our next stop on our all-day tour. Grenada is a volcanic island like so many of the others. In the center there is a lake that had developed in the old volcano crater. That’s where we were going—up to an extinct volcano where hopefully, we would see some Mona monkeys as well as have a chance to buy some spices from Nick’s cousin :-).

We drove up the mountain through the verdant jungle. The roads were filled with potholes. Nick said he had a PhD—he was a pot hole dodger. In his job he had to be. And some of those pot holes were really deep. He did a great job avoiding them. Fortunately there wasn’t a great deal of traffic on the roads. As narrow as they were, it would have been a bit nerve-racking.

It took a while to get to the park we were heading for. As he drove Nick regaled us with more trivia about his home. You can get 15 different types of spices on the island from mace to bay leaves. All grow here naturally although I don’t know if they were all native to the island or not. At one point we drove passed a combo cemetery and parking lot. I saw several motorcycles parked right next to tombs. They don’t seem to bury people in the ground here—maybe because there is too much rain. I should have asked. Anyway, it was a curious sight.

New Hampshire is the largest village close to St. George’s. Bamboo is used for just about everything as it grows like crazy here. The fishermen use it to build fishing pots. Construction workers use it to build scaffolding. Women use it to make mats, hats, coasters, etc.. It grows amazingly fast at 3 cm a day. Anybody can go out and chop it down to use. It’s a great free resource for the locals.

The island has only two main hospitals but it does have a medical station in each village. The doctor and nurse will visit a village on a specific day. The next day they are off to a different village. They do have private hospitals but those cost money. The public ones are free. You just have to be able to wait to get services. Ambulance services are strategically placed around the island as there are so few of them. The same is true about the fire department.

On all of the islands the houses are built on tall stilts. I’m sure that’s to keep the rains from the rainy season out. I’m sure the villages run with water when they are getting the monsoon rains during the wet season. Remember, most of these places get around 150 inches during the rainy season. That’s a lot of water. I’d build my house on stilts, too. Not to mention the flood waters from tropical storms and hurricanes.

Eventually we arrived at the Grand Etang Forest Reserve. It was established in 1906 so it’s been around for a while. It covers 3,816 acres which for an island this size, is big. It is one of the few protected forests in the region. It contains some of the oldest plants of their kind such as the Grand Etang fern. Inside the reserve you find the source of the Great River which is one of the largest rivers on the island. It drains into the Atlantic Ocean. The reserve also has three of the highest peaks on the island. There is the Southeast Mountain which is 2,260 ft., Mount Sinai which is 2,267 ft., and Mount Qua Qua which is 2,339 ft.

The reserve was my best shot to see some animals here. There isn’t a great deal of wildlife on any of the islands. But here I might see the nine banded armadillo, Mona monkeys, possum, and the endemic frog. I didn’t care about the frog but I would have liked to have seen the others.

When we arrived, the only animals I saw were a few cows out grazing on the tall grass and some goats staked out by the bushes. That was literally it. I did see Nick’s cousin. She was sitting at her little shop. Nick also pointed out the “fat man” who would be giving us our free drink after we had seen all we wanted to see here.

Doug and I made the short hike up to the Visitors’ Center. From there you got the best view of the lake. The Grand Etang Crater Lake was formed by volcanic activity that happened between 15,000 and 25,000 years ago. The lake itself is 36 acres. During the dry season, they pull water out of the lake to help supply St. George.

The lake was a dark pool bounded by green on all sides. You couldn’t get a good look at the whole thing. You could only glimpse a portion of the lake in the distance. If we had had the time, I would have liked to have hiked over to it. But we only had about thirty minutes here to see the lake, use the facilities, buy our spices from Nick’s cousin, and enjoy our free drink. So we took in the view, hit the toilet, bought some spices, and enjoyed some rum punch. Supposedly the “fat man” doctored it up with nutmeg but you couldn’t prove it by me. It tasted more like Hawaiian Punch with rum added to it.

Before we left the park, I did get to see a couple of Mona monkeys. Nick had lured them out of the trees with a banana. There was a big one and a little one. They had different looking faces with big, staring amber eyes. And boy, did they want that banana. There was another local there as well and he was basically taunting the monkeys by acting like he was going to give them a chunk. Then he wouldn’t. I didn’t like that. Actually, I didn’t like them luring the monkeys out of the tree with food either even though I wanted to see them. I don’t think you should treat wild animals that way. And the one guy’s shenanigans eventually caused a short monkey fight. There was one chunk of banana left to be had and they both wanted it. They fought over it. The little monkey had to jump away but in the end he got the piece of banana.

After the monkeys, it was time to mosey on. We had more of Grenada to see and things to learn. We were off to a cocoa plantation. That was right up my alley. I love chocolate. But first we had more miles to drive through the countryside of Grenada. And it was a colorful drive from the deep green of the forest to the pinks, oranges, and blues of the homes we drove by. And there were sprinklings of red from red ginger blossoms as well as the red of ripe coffee beans.

We arrived at Belmont Estates just in time for our tour with Kelley. He was great. He knew so much about the cocoa bean process and had a great way of explaining it. From him I learned that there is such a thing as cocoa tea. It is not the same thing as hot chocolate but it is suppose to be good for you. Cocoa tea is made with cocoa, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, with milk, and water.

Here they grow a hybrid cocoa bean that comes from Trinidad and Tobago. The cocoa bean tree requires shade so here at Belmont they grow them with mangos and other trees that will be taller and give the required shade. October through April is the best time for the beans. Sand flies (finally learned a use for them) pollinate the flowers. When the bean pods turn yellow they are ripe and it is time to harvest them. It takes about four months to go from flower to yellow pod. One pod contains about 70 beans. When you crack open the pod, the beans are individually enveloped in a white pulp casing. People here like to take these pieces of pulp and seed and suck on them. They have a very citrusy flavor, not a chocolate flavor. After they get all of the pulpy beans out of the pods, they place them in “sweat” boxes to begin the drying process. To keep the heat in to speed up the process, they cover the beans with banana leaves and burlap bags. Every two days they churn the seed mixture around to make sure everything dries out evenly. The pulp starts turning into a liquid that seeps down into a tray in the bottom. Belmont doesn’t collect the liquid. The beans stay in the sweat boxes for six days. After that the beans are collected and put in big drying racks outside in the sun. Every half hour for six to eight days, somebody has to walk through the beans and stir them around to prevent rot and mold from accumulating on the beans.

In order to export the beans internationally, the beans, still in the husk, need to be polished. This, too, is done the old fashioned way. They place the beans in a huge, flat-bottomed copper pot and mix them with the pulp liquid from green pods and water. That makes a syrupy concoction. Then women “dance” in the bowls for an an hour and a half to polish the shells. They do it to the beat of drums while imbibing “jungle juice” otherwise know as rum punch. This last bit Kelley might have added for local color :-).

To get the chocolate powder, they roast the beans in the shells, usually done on sand so as to not burn the beans as well as trying to roast together beans of similar sizes for the same reason. After roasting, they shell the beans to get the nibs which they then grind for 36 hours which turns the nibs into a liquid substance. They press the liquid and remove the fats and oils (this is where you get your cocoa butter) and then they age the chocolate in molds for three months. At the end of that time, they break up the bars of chocolate and temper it by heating. If you ever open a chocolate bar and it has white on it or it is crumbly, that means it has not been tempered properly. They remold the chocolate after tempering into bars. The bars are then each individually wrapped by hand. Actually, the entire process is done the old way and by hand.

Of course our tour ended in the shop where we got to taste four different chocolates. Two were white chocolate and two were dark chocolate. I don’t like white chocolate at all. I’ve never considered it real chocolate. However, today I learned why possibly I dislike it. Real white chocolate must contain cocoa butter. The white chocolate made in the U.S. does not. However, what we tasted today did. I’m still not a big fan but this was definitely better, especially the white chocolate with ginger. That was nice. We also tried a dark chocolate with ginger, cinnamon and other spices. It was good as well. We ended up buying four bars (you got a discount if you bought four).

We had had our dessert so now it was time for lunch:-) The restaurant area was out in the open with lovely views of the plantation. I was surprised at how crowded it was. We hadn’t seen many people on our tour. Doug and I were a bit late getting to our table as we made a pit stop at the toilet. As soon as we sat down the servers brought us a fruit juice of some kind (no rum) and water. We had a choice of split pea soup or callaloo soup. Doug and I went with the latter as it was something different. Plus I dislike pea soup. The callaloo had a different flavor to it but it was tasty. Many people got the split pea and it didn’t look like pea soup at all. It had an orangish color rather than green. The main course was a buffet. You could chose from chicken, fish, rice, salads, etc. I think the chicken was some type of jerk chicken. It was good. I liked the black beans as well. For dessert you could chose chocolate cake, cherry cake, or chocolate ice cream. Most everybody at the table went for the ice cream or cherry cake. I was the only person who got the chocolate cake. Afterall, we were at a chocolate plantation! My cake was great. Doug said his cherry cake was just okay.

Stuffed to the gills, we waddled around outside while waiting for everybody to take a toilet break. I was excited to see the parrot that Kelley had been talking to during our tour. The parrot had quite the vocabulary and talked up a storm. However, with us he was rather closed-mouthed. We could barely get him to say anything. We were strangers. We never got a great look at him because he stayed behind the green leaves of the tree enclosed in his cage. I did manage to get a blurry photo of him.

Our time at the plantation completed, we made our way back to the bus to continue our adventures for the day. We were going to take in some views and visit a nutmeg factory. First Nick drove us to the northern portion of the island to Duquesne Bay where we could get a glimpse of the northern islands. He went above and beyond the call of duty so we could get a photo of them. He drove off onto this tiny, rock-bound spit of land. Because of that, we were able to get pictures of Union, Carriacou, Diamond, Ile de Ronde and Ile de Camille islands. Colorful boats filled the water next to us with the northern islands in the background. It was picture perfect. We weren’t sure Nick was going to be able to turn the bus around once we were ready to leave. It was that narrow. With the help of a man there watching his children swim, Nick managed. We gave him a round of applause.

From there he drove us straight to the nutmeg factory. We had already learned a little bit about nutmeg but we were about to get seriously educated at the GCNA Nutmeg Factory and Museum. However, on the way, I enjoyed seeing laundry spread out over the abundant bushes to dry in the sun. And I had to laugh when I saw a sign on a building that said “Tar’s Grocery and Bar.” That’s my kind of grocery store🤪. We also learned that sorel blossoms make a great drink. Nick also told us that when slavery was abolished, the slaves working a particularly plantation were given a piece of it for their own. That seemed fair although I’m sure the plantation owners didn’t see it that way.

It took miles of driving over curvy, potholed roads before we reached the town with the nutmeg factory. We pulled into the GCNA and proceeded to get an education on all things nutmeg. I was shocked to find out that the island lost 90% of its nutmeg trees when Hurricane Ivan hit. That had to have been devastating to the industry. In typical island fashion, they bent to the task of rebuilding.

Did you know that nutmeg trees were actually discovered in 1512 on the Banda Islands of the Moluccas? Me either. Then in 1782 Sir Joseph Banks who was the botanical advisor to King George III, introduced the Banda nutmeg species to Hempstead estate on St. David. In 1824 the nutmeg came to Grenada and was first planted on Belvedere Estate in 1843 on a trial basis. The first commercial plantations were established in 1858 and by 1865 Grenada’s nutmegs were world wide. GCNA was formed in 1947. That’s a snapshot of the history of nutmeg in the islands.

There are actually three types of nutmeg: Banda, Malayan, and Papua. Malayan nutmeg came to Grenada after Hurricane Janet. It takes a shorter amount of time to bear fruit, only 4 to 5 years. The Papua nutmeg is very rich in oil. Interesting enough, a nutmeg tree can be either male or female.

After the farmers have harvest their nutmegs, they crack open the pods which contain both the nutmeg seed and the red aril or mace. Yes, mace, that spice we also use in cooking. It is a part of the nutmeg pod. It’s actually red and covers the seed inside the pod. The analogy our guide used is that the seed is a lady wearing a red dress (mace) sitting in a yellow boat (the pod). The farmer dries the mace and sells it as well as the nutmeg seed.

The red mace surrounding the nutmeg seed

After getting all of the seeds from his nutmeg crop, the farmer will deliver the seeds undried. This is the green stage of the process. At the nutmeg factory they are emptied into sorting trays and spread out on wooden pallets. The pallets are then inspected by hand to remove germinated, broken, damaged, or rotten seeds. The acceptable nutmegs are sacked up and then weighed. The weight is then recorded in the farmers log. Then they are issued a receipt for payment. Depending on how much the payment is, they will either receive cash or check.

Next comes drying. The nutmegs are placed on drying shelves and turned daily with a rake or a spade. This keeps them all drying at the same rate and staves off rot and mold. The seeds are air dried for up to 8 weeks. After six weeks the nutmegs are inspected for quality by cutting sample seeds and testing for the percentage of moisture. It needs to be less than 10%. Finally the dried seeds are bagged and stored for further processing.

Next comes water flotation. This is one method of grading the seeds They pour some seeds into the water. The light seeds float to the top while the heavy ones sink. These are the seeds with the most oil. . The workers use a basket to remove the different grades from the water.

In a side note, heavy nutmegs are used to make cakes, eggnogs, rum punch, and ice cream. Light nutmegs are used to preserve aftershave, massage cream, and nutmeg oil. I had no clue! After the flotation grading, the seeds are dried once again.

Finally the seeds are sorted manually. They are inspected for cracks, pinholes, and broken seeds. Perfect seeds can be shipped as sound, unassisted nutmegs. These can be further sorted based on size. They are then bagged by size and sent all over the world.

It was quite interesting but after going through a rum factory and a cocoa bean factory, I was a bit factoried out :-). It had been a long day and I was starting to run out of steam. Plus my head was about to explode from all of the new knowledge shoved into it.

Thanks goodness that ended our day. We still had a good drive to get back to the ship but no more knowledge to cram into my head. I could stare out of the window and just enough the scenery. I loved seeing the modest churches, the ramshackle villages, the bright colors of the better constructed homes, and the glimpses of black sand beaches. The black sand wasn’t as black as the black sand beach on the island of Hawaii but it was definitely a darker gray.

We made it back to port around 4 PM. It had been a whirlwind day but so worth it. I was ready to get a bath and collapse for a while. We chilled out until dinner time and then headed down to the Grand Dining Room. We had a good meal and lovely conversation with the couple we ate with our very first night on board. How crazy of a coincidence was that! Out of 1200 people, we were eating with the same couple. It was a fun meal though and then Doug and I headed back to the room.

Tonight there really wasn’t a true show. We weren’t leaving Grenada until 10:30 so instead of a show, the ship had a dance party out by the pool. Neither of us were in the mood for that. We just wanted to get in our jammies and relax. And we did.

Tomorrow our next island is St. Vincent. We were going to be hiking in the rainforest. I was looking forward to it. The last time I had hiked a rainforest was in Australia and it had been fabulous. Hopefully this one will be just as great.

DAY 7: BARBADOS: WANDERING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES

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What a relaxing day it turned out to be! The way it began, I wasn’t too sure how the day was going to go. Honestly, I had fretted about snorkeling today for a bit. It wasn’t the snorkeling that worried me,. I’ve snorkeled many times over the years. It was the weight I have gained over the last few years because of menopause. I hate the extra weight and it makes me extremely self-conscious. I didn’t even bring a swimsuit. Instead, I brought some exercise capris and a long-sleeve performance shirt to try to hide my bulk. I felt like I was going to stick out like a sore thumb. I know I shouldn’t have let it bother me, but it did.

Things didn’t improve when we went down to the Marina Lounge to wait for our excursion. Here in Barbados we were docked but there were several other ships here as well. It was a turnover day for some of them and traffic was heavy and the pier exceedingly narrow. The port authorities were running shuttles to carry passengers back and forth because it wasn’t safe for them to walk with all of the vehicle traffic.

What this meant for us was a long wait. The cruise people wanted to keep our group together so we had to wait until there was a shuttle that would hold all of us. However, people just walking off of the ship were getting first dibs on the shuttles. That was making the people who paid good money for an excursion wait. It was a bad situation that just ticked Doug off to no end.

An hour after we were suppose to meet our bus, we finally had a shuttle to take us to the terminal. Doug was fuming the entire time. My nerves were stretched to the snapping point. I was thrilled to finally get squished like a sardine into the shuttle. All of the seats that we didn’t fill were given to the folks walking off of the ship. That seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

Once at the terminal we gathered around our bus driver and he squished us into another tiny vehicle. It was my day for being a sardine, obviously :-). During our short ride to the catamaran, I learned that Barbados has 365 churches. There is one for every day of the week.

To be honest, I really didn’t learn a great deal about Barbados today. I didn’t take a single note. It was nice to be able to relax and enjoy without worrying about recording everything our guide was telling us. However, I have done some research because the teacher in me just can’t let it go :-). This is what I learned….

Barbados is in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies. It is the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. Unlike some of its volcanic neighbors, Barbados is a coral-limestone island. That is probably why compared to the other nearby islands, it is so flat. The island is 21 miles long and up to 14 miles wide. It has a population if nearly 300,000. Eleven parishes make up Barbados, most of them are named after saints which I have learned is typical of this region. The capital and largest city on the island is Bridgetown. The city contains about one-third of the country’s population and is the financial and convention center of the Caribbean region.

The Spanish were the first Europeans to “discover” the island. However, it was basically uninhabited when the British landed there in 1625. The first British settlement was established in 1627 near what is now Holetown. The settlement consisted of 80 settlers and 10 indentured servants. Some people believe that Africans were also among the first settlers. On 30 November 1966, Barbados became an independent state and member of the Commonwealth with Elizabeth II as Queen of Barbados. On 30 November 2021, Barbados transitioned to a republic within the Commonwealth.

An interesting fact that our driver touched on and that I also discovered while researching, was that George Washington supposedly visited Barbados in 1751. People believe that this was his only trip outside of the United States. There is a large yellow building that is called the George Washington House.

Here are some other interesting facts. Most people here speak English as they were an English colony. However, Bajan Dialect is what people use in their everyday life. It is used by over 90% of the population. It does not have a standardized written form. I think it must be very similar to creole or “Dialect” from Antigua.

Barbados did seem more advanced than the last few island we have been on, not that we saw a great lot of the island itself. I was surprised to learn that it is one of the 83 high income economies in the world. However, a good percentage of Barbadians live in poverty. I think that is true on all of these islands. Just driving around you can see that.

Here is an interesting story about how Bridgetown got its name. I learned about it in the daily bulletin that Oceania gives us every day. They put out a nice summary of the history and facts on whatever place you are visiting that day. Anyway, when the British arrived they found traces of a primitive bridge constructed over a swampy area which was in the center of Bridgetown. People believe this bridge was built by the Arawak people who have been indigenous to several of the islands we have visited so far. When the British discovered it, they began calling the area Indian Bridge. In 1654 the Brits built a new bridge and called the area The Town of Saint Michael. Later it was changed to Bridgetown. It has remained Bridgetown ever since. And now you know the rest of the story. But what about the Arawak people? Experts believe they were chased off of the island by the Caribs. And thus ends the daily history and culture lesson :-). The remainder of the day was NOT filled with learning and discovery, but water and sun.

It was actually a short ride to the pier where we caught our catamaran. Of course first we had to sign the mandatory waiver stating that we wouldn’t hold them responsible if anything bad happened to us on the boat. Once we had signed on the dotted line, we had to strip off our shoes and then board the boat. We were fortunate that all that onboard were the people on our bus so it was a small group.

We made ourselves comfy on the forward section. There isn’t a great deal of traditional seating on small catamarans. I put on sunscreen because I knew I would burn to a crisp as it was a lovely sunny day. Captain Sam informed us that because the waters were too rough where they had originally planned to take us, we were heading to a bay that was already crowded with other boats. Joy. But it was out of everybody’s hands. Mother Nature isn’t to be argued with.

While we motored over to the bay, one of the crew handed out snorkels, masks, and vests. We hadn’t even thought to bring our own. Usually we do although mine is 40 years old. I think its time for a new mask and snorkel :-). I stripped my pants off to reveal my exercise pants. I noticed another older lady was wearing a hot pink jogging outfit to snorkel in. Suddenly I didn’t feel so self-conscious. Everybody was wearing and doing their own thing. I started to relax finally.

After we arrived and anchored in place, the guys lowered the half steps so we could get into the water. A couple of them actually went in with us which I liked. Their job, other than to keep an eye on us, was to alert us to green sea turtles and spotted sting rays. We had already seen the rays from the boat. The water was so clear that we could see all the way down to the bottom of the bay. It was beautiful. However, without any coral or much sea grass, I was dubious about how much sea life we would actually see.

Doug went into the water first. I was a few people after him. As soon as I hit the water, I spit in my mask which is the best way to prevent it from fogging up. I swished my spit around, rinsed it out, and put the mask on. As soon as I started swimming over to Doug, I felt a sudden burning sensation in my left foot. Hmmm….maybe it was just salt water getting into a tiny scratch I didn’t know I had? A few minutes later I saw a jelly fish and I had my answer. One of them had obviously nailed me. After that, I kept my eyes peeled for more of them.

Now, I’m not great guns at snorkeling but I have done it enough to be relaxed about it. I know I won’t sink. I know I won’t drown. I don’t worry about sharks. Today I don’t know what was wrong with me. After I got stung, I had a tiny panic attack. I was choking on water in my snorkel that I couldn’t seem to get out. My mask got water in it so I had water in my nose. I was starting to flail about. I got vertical in the water and tried to calm myself down. So I had gotten stung by a jelly fish. No big deal. I just had to be careful to avoid them. I put my face back in the water and started panicking again. Oy vey! I was starting to get really angry with myself. Once again I went vertical and tried to calm down my breathing. Finally, I was settled enough that I could put my face in the water and actually begin to snorkel. I still had issues but at least I was calmer. It was several minutes before I could actually begin to enjoy what I was doing.

And it WAS enjoyable. We saw several green sea turtles on the bottom eating algae. They seemed oblivious to our presence. Being in the water with the spotted rays was awesome as well. They stayed well below us near the bottom. With the water as clear as it was, I had no clue as to how deep the water was. I just know that it was much deeper than it looked. I only had a passing thought about Steve Irwin dying from being impaled in the heart by a sting ray barb. These rays were not interested in us at all. I was interested in them though. I loved watching them burrow their noses into the sand at the bottom looking for food. It was exciting swimming with them for the first time and being able to observe their behavior.

We were told to keep a respectful distance from the turtle but that was easier said than done. I tried but other people snorkeling smacked me in the face with their hands and feet trying to get to the turtle as I was trying to move back. I know your vision is limited in the masks but some of these people were just oblivious to anybody and anything. They heard “turtle” and were single-focused on seeing it. Nothing else mattered. They would smack you in the face and not even look back. Ah, the joys of snorkeling with a big group of people. But that makes it sound worse than it was. I stayed away from the clusters as much as I could. I saw plenty of turtles on my own.

Although they were nowhere as colorful as fish in Hawaii, we did see fish here as well. Mostly they were silver although I did see one with black stripes. I also saw a weird looking one that might have been a sheepshead. I swam through a small school of needle nose fish which was exciting. They are nifty to see. I’m not sure what the big schools of silver fish were that kept looping around. I swam through them several times.

We were only in the water 25 minutes or so when Captain Sam gave the order for us to come in so we could head to snorkel spot #2. I was close to the boat when my left hand started burning fiercely. It had to have been another jelly fish. I didn’t see one but something sure stung my hand. I wasn’t so worried this time because I had heard Jeb from the crew tell somebody that the jelly fish weren’t dangerous here. That had made me feel less panicky when I saw more. And really, I only saw a few of them. Anyway, I made it to the boat and up the stairs which was challenging since I still had my mask on. I couldn’t see the steps at all (and they were weird partial steps). I made it up though. I made a mental note to take the mask off next time before trying to get onto the boat.

While we were motoring to the new spot I happened to glance down at my left foot. It had a decent size reddish purple mark on the spot where it had been burning in the water. Sure enough, it hadn’t been my imagination. I HAD gotten stung by a jelly. My hand never got a mark on it but as much as it stung, it had to have gotten hit as well. It was obviously not my day for water sports so I decided to forgo snorkeling at the sunken ship. At the rate I was going, I probably would have gotten a toe bitten off by a barracuda!

Doug went in without me and I stayed on the catamaran reading. There were several people that hadn’t gone in the water at all so I had company. It was nice sitting on the boat with a good book. There was a breeze so it wasn’t too hot and the rocking of the catamaran was soothing. Too soon the others were called back on the boat for lunch. Darn! I was really enjoying my book!

Lunch was quite good which was a pleasant surprise considering we were out on a boat with no real facilities for meals. I’m sure it was pre-cooked and they just heated it up. It was very tasty. I got the chicken and a few small slices of steak. I skipped the fish. They had salad as well as a fancy Mac and cheese, potato salad, etc. Maybe it was just being out on the water but it was all delicious. Or maybe it was the rum punch. Since we were finished snorkeling, we could now indulge in the alcoholic beverage of our choice. When in the islands, drink rum punch 🙂

I was quite happy to find out that after lunch we weren’t going straight back to the pier. We were sailing along the coast for as far as we could before we had to turn around. We should have been able to go quite a bit further but we had an hour less on our excursion because we were late due to the shuttle mess getting off of the ship. Be that as it may, I was happy to see some of the island.

I expected the ship to go whipping along but we went at more of an ambling pace. That may be the law since we weren’t that far off of shore. There was no real wind so even they put the sail up, it was the motor that was propelling us along. It was nice seeing the buildings along the shore but I just enjoyed the ride and feeling the waves beneath me and the wind in my face.

All too soon we had to turn back and head to the pier. It was a nice ride while it lasted. And all of the guys onboard had been really great. Back at the pier we did some shopping. I found a dress I liked and Doug found a keychain with the flag on it. Our buying for the day was complete.

Back on the ship it felt great to wash the salt off of my skin. I had started feeling like the dried cod we saw all over Lisbon. By the time we went to dinner, I was feeling human once again. Tonight we were back in the Grand Dining Room. We ate with a lovely couple from Canada. We had a great time visiting with them. He was actually British. She was Canadian. For six years they lived in England before moving to Canada with their kids. The conversation flowed like the food. I don’t even remember what I ate. It was good but I was too busy listening to our new friends to pay much attention. I was truly sad when it was time to head to the show.

Levent the magician/comedian was back tonight with his final show. He was more about magic tonight and less about comedy although he was still quite funny. He put a camera on his hands and did some close up sleight of hand tricks. He developed that technique during COVID. That way he could still do it and people watch it while staying a healthy distance apart. It was a great idea. He also did the trick with the metal rings as well as rope and knot tricks. He got two men from the audience involved in that. It was funny and fascinating. I still can’t figure out how he did some of his tricks.

After a relaxing day today, tomorrow it’s back to taking notes and learning. We have a seven hour excursion in Grenada. I think we are going to see just about everything possible on that island. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we have a great guide and a good group to explore with. So far it has all been really great.

DAY 6: DOMINICA: WANDERING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES

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Another day, another island :-). That’s the way these cruises are. Most of the islands are so tiny that you can easily hit the highlights in just a few hours. Others, like Puerto Rico, truly need a few days to really see the place. There are pros and cons to all types of travel.

“Dominica” is pronounced differently than I thought. The emphasis is on the first syllable like when you say Dominican Republic. The island itself is itty bitty coming in at 29 X 16 miles. It is sandwiched in between the two French islands of Guadalupe and Martinique. It is also a volcanic island and has active volcanoes. Seismic sensors are placed all around the island.

Throughout its history both the British and the French have fought over this island country. It changed ownership between them four times. Finally in 1978 it gained its independence although it is a member of the British Commonwealth. The following year the island was devastated by Hurricane David. The little country had to grow up fast.

Their indigenous people are also the Caribs. The Caribs are very peaceful and make all kinds of handcrafted goods. They have a chief and even have a representative in their parliamentary. Most of them live on the east side of the island. Descriptively, they have a yellowish cast to their skin tone as well as a more flat face and almond-shaped eyes. Or so we were told 🙂

The Island has around 70,000 people so it isn’t hugely populated. Their primary language is English but they speak their version of creole as well. Agriculture is the main industry. They export out a lot of bananas. Fishing is also big on the coast. Of course tourism is another large source of income. Today there were three cruise ships docked at Woodbridge Port counting us and another one in the harbor at the capital. That’s a lot of tourists coming into one small island for the day.

There is some industry on the island. However, that is confined to the flat areas which there isn’t a great lot of. The residential areas are on the hillsides. As member of the Commonwealth, they drive on the left side of the road. Gasoline is expensive at $7/imperial gallon. I THINK that is a bit more than a regular gallon.

Getting to the pier today was different from all of our other days. Today we had to tender in as we were anchored in the bay and not at a pier like the other ships in port. The tenders they used were a couple of their enclosed emergency vehicles. I much prefer open-air tenders to these things. Once we got loaded into the cramped thing, it was bouncing around so much that the wall right next to my head smashed into something and a huge paint chip flew off right in front of my face! It was a bit of an adrenaline rush. I was glad when we pushed off and were motoring towards shore.

Our transportation to and from the pier in Dominica

Our guide for the excursion today was Josie. Another lady in our group was calling her Jessie so I don’t know which one of us misunderstood what she said her name was :-). Sometimes the accents make it difficult to understand clearly what is being said. All you can do is try.

Anyway, she loaded us into our tiny bus. We again were last to board (I’m not sure why we keep being last but somehow we manage) and this time the only seats left were behind the driver where you had no leg room at all. I was glad our excursion was only three and a half hours. That’s about as long as my knees would hold up being jammed up. I told myself that it was just all a part of the adventure 🙂

Today we were going to see a good deal of nature which was fine by me. I prefer that to spending all of my time in cities or towns. The first place we were going to this morning was the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Emerald Pond—a lush waterfall in the rainforest of the island.

Lush has been the best way to describe all of these islands. You can’t believe how much plant growth there is. It is literally a jungle and the tiny villages are hacked out of it. It doesn’t take long for an abandoned building to be overtaken by Mother Nature.

One curious thing I noticed here was that the street lights were wind-powered! I’ve never seen anything quite like it. After Hurricane Maria blew through in 2017 and devastated the island, they rebuilt using this type of lighting. It’s a great idea if you get enough wind to make the lights work.

During our travels we discovered that they have 20 different species of mango and 200 species of ferns. The giant tree fern is the most prevalent. Really, you felt like you were driving through Jurassic Park. Bamboo also grows everywhere. It isn’t native to the island. However, it does help fight soil erosion and fishermen use it for making their fish pots. So it is a helpful invasive plant.

Animals-wise, they don’t have much. They have four species of non-poisonous snakes and I believe she said pigs. There is nothing large or dangerous here. They do have nine species of lizards as well as over 150 species of birds. The Sisserou parrot is their national bird. It is found way up on the mountain. It is only found here in Dominica and is one of two parrot species on the island.

And speaking of mountains, the tallest one—Morne Diablotins—is 1,447 m. There is a national park on the second tallest mountain. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage site. Another wonder of the island is the hot spring called Boiling Lake. It is the second largest hot springs in the world. Because this is a volcanic island, there is a plethora of hot springs that people can enjoy a good soak in—if they can stand the stench of sulfur!

The island also has a national hiking trail called the Waitukubuli National Trail. It is the longest hike in the Eastern Caribbean. It runs from north to south. Of course, like any trail, you can do it all in one go or break it up and do it one section at a time.

As you would expect with a rainforest, the island gets a good deal of rain annually. They average 50-60 inches on the coast while some areas in the interior get as much as 350! Being in the tropics, they have their share of hurricanes. David destroyed 75% of the island when he hit in the 1970s. Then in 2015 Tropical Storm Erika gave them fits. But it was Maria who hit in the middle of the night and lasted for more than 8 hours that did the greatest amount of damage. She caused massive flooding and then mudslides as the mountains got saturated with water. The lucky people only went a few months without power and water. Others went for a year without electricity. Fortunately, there are so many fresh springs on the island that getting water was no problem.

I wasn’t surprised when Josie told us that just about all of “Pirates of the Caribbean 2” was filmed here. Some of the Carib natives were in it. Now I need to go home and watch it again. If I remember correctly, it was a bit different. The first movie is my favorite.

After thirty or so minutes of driving, we reached the park with the Emerald Pond which is a UNESCO site. Josie got us all tickets while we used the facilities. Then she pointed us in the correct direction for the trail and we took off. The hike wasn’t too bad. But it was a hike. The path wasn’t concrete like in some of our parks. It was fairly well maintained and nothing too bad. There were a good bit of steps, however, so if you didn’t think you could manage them, you could stop at one of the two viewpoints.

To be honest, I didn’t find the waterfall or the pond at the bottom of it all that impressive. I mean it’s really hard to beat Iguazu Falls in Brazil or Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Those are impressive. This was a long, slender rush of water. The “pond” at the foot of it was more turquoise than green. Maybe the emerald part of the name came from the fact that it was surrounded by forest. I don’t know.

Don’t get me wrong. It was pretty, just not spectacular. I couldn’t quite understand why it was a UNESCO site. Despite that, I enjoyed the hike down there and got photos of Doug with his hand dipping into the spring water. Then we made the trek uphill back to the Visitors’ Center. We actually took a different route going back. It was a bit longer but it had fewer stairs so I liked that. Plus we had a view of the tallest mountain AND of the Atlantic Ocean. Both peeked between ferns and trees.

We wandered through the venders’ stalls while waiting for everybody else to make it back up. Doug was on a mission to find a map or flag of the country for a Christmas ornament. If he had his way, our tree would be one big flag! I personally like variety.

Back in the bus we drove more through Dominica which is called “The Nature Island of the Caribbean.” Our next stop was a refreshment one. We all got a coupon for a free drink at a small establishment in the rainforest. I made a bad choice. I thought I was getting a beer but it ended up being a ginger beer. Now, I enjoy a good ginger beer but this particular one was a shanti and just too sugary for me. I like my ginger beer to have a little bite to it. I fell in love with Bunderburg Ginger beer in Australia. But this one was free so I couldn’t complain. I did chose it afterall. Doug picked an actual beer called Kubuli. It was a lager. I took a sip after my ginger beer. Yuck! The two didn’t mix well at all!

After this refreshment pit stop we made tracks to our next stop which was at Trafalgar Falls. These were a set of two falls. It was a short hike to get to these as well. Only one tiny section was a bit rugged. Doug left me eating his dust as he motored up the trail. These days I try to be very careful. I do NOT want to spend any more time in my boot. However, my new walking shoes with instep support seem to be doing the job. My foot is doing really well. No discomfort at all. But because I am careful, I am slower than I use to be and can’t keep up with his pace. Actually, I can never keep up with his pace :-).

By the time I arrived (I got stuck behind some people even slower than me), he was ready to go. There really wasn’t a great deal to see. The falls were pretty but nothing spectacular or unusual. It was nice to get out of the bus though and do some hiking in nature. The surroundings were lovely. I was fascinated with the growth of moss and plants on rocks. It just amazed me to see these tiny and delicate plants thriving on something inhospitable like rock. These plants created their own little micro world.

Back at the Visitors’ Center Doug finally found his flag. I looked at the summery dresses that were so colorful and cheerful. I wanted to get one but I was afraid it would fall apart in the wash. So all we ended up with was a pin with the flag on it. We did get a picture of a new kind of local beer—Carib. We didn’t drink it but we did see it.

We had one last stop for the day and it was for a scenic overlook at the bay where we were docked. To get there we had to drive back to Roseau which is the port city and the capital of the country. Driving in the city was hair-raising. The streets were narrow and vehicles parked on both sides of the road. If the cars hadn’t pushed their side mirrors flush against the vehicle, we would have taken some of them off! I did get some video of the drive. It was adrenalin-inducing.

To get the the overlook we had to drive through the back portion of the Botanical Gardens. I wish we could have seen the front portion of it. It looked quite nice. I think these gardens are suppose to be the best in the Caribbean. From what we saw, they did look quite nice.

The view from the viewpoint, however, was gorgeous. We could look down on the town as well as see the Marina docked out in the bay. We also got a great look at the cricket pitch in the middle of the city. We had a few minutes to admire the view and then we headed back to the terminal.

We had perfect timing for the tender. We only had to wait a couple of minutes. We packed in like sardines and motored our way out to the ship. We had enough time to grab lunch at the Terrace Cafe before it closed. I got a salad but then went for some comfort food as well. I couldn’t resist a couple of small slices of roast beef as well as a tiny scoop of mashed potatoes. That’s my kind of comfort food 🙂

I was all hot and sweaty from hiking so I got cleaned up and we enjoyed a glass of wine before dinner. We brought six bottles with us. We needed to drink them! We couldn’t tarry too long though because tonight we had 6:30 reservations at the French speciality restaurant Jacques. We had heard that the meals really get drawn out so we had Brandon change our time from 7:30 to 6:30. We didn’t want to miss the show.

I can’t say I was impressed with Jacques. It was fine but nothing special. I did enjoy my escargot. It was nicely coated with butter and garlic. I got a prime rib which was fine. There was nothing about it that made it “French” though. At least it didn’t have any heavy French sauce on it. That stuff is terrible for my weight and cholesterol not that the prime rib was good for it 🙂

The meal went quicker than we had heard it would. I was grateful for that. We had plenty of time to get to the show. It was worth all of the trouble we went to to make sure we could see it. Tonight they had comedian Darrell Joyce. He was from Atlanta and an African-American. He was hysterically funny. However, I did feel that one of his bits went a tad too far. Several people in the audience obviously didn’t enjoy it and walked out. I felt at times he was pandering to the “white, angry” crowd. Many of the things he said were absolutely true but he put them rather harshly. Mostly his stuff was funny and I enjoyed it.

Tomorrow we have the return of Levent the magician/comedian as well as a day in Barbados. Our excursion tomorrow will be quite different as we are spending several hours on a catamarans snorkeling. It should be a fun and relaxing day.

DAY 3: PUERTO PLATA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: WANDERING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES

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The Dominican Republic—our first top on this 14-day cruise of the West Indies. We are bookending our year with this country. We were here in January and now we are here again in December. It’s an interesting little country so I am very glad that I’ve gotten to see it.

I did the history of the DR back in January so I’ll give give a brief summary of the country and whatever new tidbits we learned today. We docked at Puerto Plata which means Silver (puerto) Port (plata). Puerto Plata is technically the name of the province. The city itself is named San Felipe. The country has 32 provinces and one district. Santo Domingo is the capital of the country.

The main language of the country is Spanish. The Haitians speak a type of creole which is a mix of Spanish and French. Baseball rather than soccer is the favorite sport. They have several players in the U.S. doing quite well.

DR shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti which occupies the western portion of the island. The two countries couldn’t be more different. Haiti originally was a place of witchcraft and voodoo while the Dominican Republic has always been Christian. However, these days Haiti is becoming more and more Christian. My mother-in-law Joyce has made many a trip to Haiti with her church to help out one of the orphanages there. Haiti suffers horribly from poverty and a lack of education. There are five million Haitian refugees currently in DR. Plus DR opens up the border two days a week to Haiti so the people can cross the border to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. They can’t manage to grow any food over in their country. It’s a sad situation.

The Dominican Republic has both public and private hospitals. The public ones may be free but you will have to wait forever to get helped. This is where the 5 million Haitians in the country go for medical care and anybody who can’t afford the private hospitals. As a result the public hospitals are jammed with people needing health care. However, the private hospitals charge you for every little thing. So neither one is the perfect choice.

In 1822 DR managed to wrest control of the country away from Spain. During the conflict, Spain burned the town of San Felipe down to the ground. Most of the buildings there today are from the rebuild afterwards. They rebuilt most buildings in the neoclassic or Victorian styles. After gaining their freedom from Spain, they lost it to Haiti for a while. They regained it and then lost it to Spain once again. Finally the DR became independent from Spain for the last time in 1865. In the early 1900s they went through a period of time under the dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo who ruled until the 1960s. The country managed to get rid of him and went through some turmoil until they finally made the move to a representative democracy in 1978. And that is your smidgeon of background information about the country we explored today.

We didn’t have to meet for our excursion until 9:15 so we didn’t require a crack of dawn wake-up. We did arrange to have breakfast brought to the room between 7:30 and 8 AM. Brandon got here around 7:40. We both had omelets and fresh fruit. It was much easier eating in our room than fighting the crowd at the buffet breakfast or waiting for an hour in the main dining room. We ate and had more than enough time to finish getting ready for our excursion for the day.

We arrived in the Marina Lounge several minutes early and had to wait for the cruise people to announce our group which was a historical and cultural tour of Puerto Plata. Last time we had gone into the countryside and it had been wonderful. I kept my fingers crossed that today would be as good. When they finally announced our tour, Doug grabbed our bus assignments and we were off. We exited the ship and then had a long walk to reach our excursion meeting point. My memory started coming back of what the port looked like, especially when I saw the giant gorilla. I had completely forgotten about it until I saw it this morning.

We met Victor who was our guide today. He seemed very peppy and colorful. Once everybody on the excursion had arrived, we made our way to the bus. Victor introduced our driver as Mad Max. He was actually a very good driver. To be honest, I didn’t have a good feeling about this excursion when Victor kept saying he was going to get us all drunk and then we would have a good time. It gave me a bad vibe about the whole thing. I wanted to tell him, “Wrong cruise line, Buddy. We aren’t Carnival.” I kept my mouth shut and hoped for the best. It was not to be.

Before learning anything about the country, we headed to a rum distillery for a rum tasting. Not what I wanted to do at 10 AM. I tried to stay positive. Rum is the national drink of the Dominican Republic. They have four different distilleries in the country. That’s a good lot of rum. Rum is distilled from sugarcane so obviously a good deal of cane is grown here. I believe Victor told us that Columbus actually brought the sugarcane to this area on his second voyage. The cane originally came from the Canary Islands.

The rum in the Dominican Republic has its own distinctive flavor. Some of the rum produce in the country is 150 proof and is meant to be mixed with some type of mixer. It should never be drank straight. Last time we learned a tiny bit about Brugal rum. In fact we brought a bottle of it home with us. Brugal is the largest distillery in the DR and 7th largest in the world. Bacardi is the largest distiller. I believe they are in Puerto Rico. I also learned that there is some type of rum in a blue porcelain bottle that tastes like cognac and sells for $200 in the U.S. I think I can do without that rum.

The distillery we were visiting today was Macorix and has been around since 1899. I’d never heard of it but obviously it was well-known here on the island. They produce over 3,000 barrels of rum a year. They age the rum in oak whiskey barrels from the U.S. At the warehouse we walked through a dark room with hundreds of barrels stacked up. You could smell the rum in the air. That was called “Angel Air” as the odor comes from the evaporation of the rum during the first year of fermentation. Around 12-15% of the rum is lost during this process. We were warned a couple of times not to light a match or turn on a light. The match I could understand. I didn’t know why the barrels had to be kept in the dark. We slowly made our way through the fermentation room and into the tasting area. It was still on the dark side but at least I could see more in here.

We tried eight, yes, eight different rums. Granted the young man didn’t give us very much of each but it was more than enough to give me a headache. The first rum was a four year-old rum. It burned and I can’t say I enjoyed it. We were informed that it was better for mixing with something else such as coke. Then we tried the eight year-old rum. What a difference between the two! This one was smooth as glass and warm going down. It was very nice. Doug doesn’t care for rum but he really liked this. Next we tried a spiced rum that had way too much vanilla in it for me. Our fourth shot was of a local drink containing rum, red wine, and “sticks” according to the young man. We’d tried it in January and those “sticks” were jungle herbs. It also contained cinnamon. This drink is called mamajuana. It had an earthy taste to it which wasn’t bad except I couldn’t get the taste of it out of my mouth for hours. Mamajuana is called Dominican viagra. Supposedly it is an aphrodisiac. I think drinking more of it would put me to sleep. There were three or so more rums to sample but they were flavored (apple, pineapple, and coconut). I had had enough so I skipped them. Plus I’m not into the flavored hard liquors.

No tour like this is complete until you spend time in the store. Doug bought a bottle of the 8 year-old rum to sip while sitting on our balcony. At that point, I was done with rum as my head was aching. I like rum but something about this stuff did not make my body happy. Or maybe it was the mamajuana. I’ll probably never know.

Shopping completed, we hopped back on the bus for our next “cultural” stop at a jewelry factory. Oy vey! On the way there we did learn a few things about the country and the area of the country we were in. Victor touched a bit on education. The country has both public and private schools. The maximum amount of students in a class in private schools is 20. However, in public school it isn’t uncommon to have at least 50 students in one class. Yikes! As an educator, I can’t even imagine having to cope with that many students at one time. But in the public schools education is free whereas you have to pay for private school.

Gas is about $6/gallon—sheesh! Victor told us that crime wasn’t an issue here. People put bars on their windows as a means of showing their status. They have 126 baseballs players. Their teams play in winter baseball leagues. They are currently refurbishing the baseball stadium. The two major teams are the Eagles and the Tigers. You have to pass a psych exam in order to get a gun license and it has to be renewed every year. That costs around $1000. So you really have to want a gun to jump through the hoops and pay the price. The average income for people in DR is around $800. However, just groceries run people $400. It’s tough. Victor didn’t mention what rent was like or how much it cost to buy a house. They don’t have welfare here or food stamps. Tourism is the biggest source of income but it took a big hit during COVID. It is gradually starting to come back. According to Victor, the DR is a Third World country but a rich one. They have gold, copper, silver, and even oil.

Part of our drive was along the ocean. Doug and I both recognized one of the beaches. We had walked on it in January. Out in the water just off of the beach was a tiny chunk of rock with a statue of Neptune on it. He was put there to guard the island from storms. Obviously he is doing his job because Victor said this part of the island never gets hit by a hurricane. Fiona affected the northern part of the island but not San Felipe. Neptune is also suppose to protect the area from sharks. They don’t get them here because they have so many bottle-nose dolphins in the area.

Looking out of the very tinted windows of the bus, I could see the waves were really rocking out there. The wind was obviously still kicking up. I was glad we weren’t snorkeling today. It wouldn’t be much fun especially since it was really overcast. It wasn’t suppose to rain but looking at the gloomy skies, I wasn’t so sure. I had brought my raincoat with me for just in case.

We left the beach behind and drove into the city. Victor began telling us about amber and a special stone found only here called larimar. It is a blue stone vaguely resembling turquoise but it is much harder than turquoise. It is actually the hardest of the semi-precious stones. DR only has one mine for it and they are having to go progressively deeper to find it.

It was about this time that I discovered that our second “cultural” learning and discovery was a jewelry factory making larimar and amber jewelry. Somehow I had a feeling this was going to be more about shopping than culture. I was absolutely correct although we did learn a few things about amber.

Probably the most interesting thing I learned was that the beginning scene in Jurassic Park I in the amber mine, was filmed here in the Dominican Republic. It was filmed on the other side of Mount Isabel de Torres. There are four amber mines on this portion of the island. The amber here can be blue but normally it is a dark brownish color. True amber fluoresces under UV lights. That’s one way to tell if it is truly amber or plastic. It also floats in salt water if it is real amber. Amber here in the DR is a whopping 50 million years old. We learned all of these facts courtesy of Juan at Carmen’s Gifts.

The first piece of larimar was discovered on the mountain back in 1974. Originally it could be found on the surface but now they have to go underground. These days the mine is 79 ft underground. The name “larimar” came from the man who found it. The Lari came from his daughter’s middle name. The “mar” came from the fact that it looked like the blue ocean thus the “mar.” Personally it looks more like the sky to me with clouds. None of what I saw was a dark enough blue for water except for the really shallow water. Blue is the predominate color although it does come in other colors. You can find bits of green as well as pink. Those colors are less frequent . The darker the blue, the better the piece of stone.

Of course after fifteen minutes of discussion about the two stones, it was time to hit the store. Several people in a group were buying. I was tempted but restrained myself. Their sales people were on the pushy side. Juan himself did his best to sell me a reversible ring (larimar on one side and amber on the other. You flip the ring portion to change the stone). It didn’t even come close to fitting my finger so he kept trying it on other fingers. He finally gave up.

I had enough after that and went outside to wait for everybody else. Doug was already out there. I’d seen a men’s room but no ladies’ room so Doug guarded the door while I made use of the facilities. Then we hopped on our bus which was guarded by the store’s security people. The last of our group to come out were the ones buying. We didn’t have to wait too long for them.

I was so happy when Victor told us that we were now heading to the old fort—Fortaleza San Felipe. We had seen it at a distance in January. Seeing it up close was one of the reasons we had chosen this excursion. Little did we know that it was merely a five minute photo stop! What the heck!

The fort was built in 1577 to protect the coast against pirates originally. However, it also protected them from the French and the Spanish. Three French frigates were sunk just off the coast here.

We got off the bus as quickly as possible in order to maximize our time. And wouldn’t you know, it started to drizzle. I felt several large drops hit me as I walked down towards the large statue of General Gregorio Luperon sitting on a horse. Luperon was the general who managed to get the Spanish out of the country. He had to leave the official army and then he led a militia to fight the Spaniards. They did so with only knives and machetes. It was an amazing feat. Of course, we had to get pictures of it. We did have a great view of the fort which was small but impressive. Doug and I both walked around it, getting more photos and a photo of our ship in the distance as well. As we headed back to the bus at the end of the five minutes, the rain drops began falling more quickly. I shoved my camcorder under my shirt and hustled my buns.

Fortunately the drizzle didn’t last long. By the time the bus reached the main plaza of the town, it had stopped and we were able to get out and enjoy a short stroll in the plaza and down one of the main streets. The plaza was all decorated for Christmas which is a huge celebration here. Santo Domingo’s big celebration is January 6th which is Kings’ Day as they call it in Spain. I particularly enjoyed the one building decorated like it was a giant present. Santa’s reindeer were in the square as well as a lovely gazebo which is always there. In the old days a band continuously played music for the people. These days it’s just canned music but it was pleasant. To one side were two statues of men. One was of Luperon. The other was Juan Duarte who led the country out from under the Haitians when they controlled the Dominican Republic. On the other side of the square was the main church with a nativity scene. The church was huge but not overly ornate. I just peeked inside and it was nicely simple with beautiful stain glass.

We slowly made our way (we had several people in the group who were mobility-challenged) to a short pink alleyway. This alley was a memorial to an Italian lady who came here with her family and built the first hotel. There was a statue of Bianca de Rainieri sitting on a bench just inside the pink alley. Her family arrived here in 1898 and opened the Hotel del Comercio which became one of the most famous hotels in the city. Later the name was changed to Hotel Europa and it was considered to be the best hotel of its time. The hotel sold in 1946 when Bianca died. She and her husband are now considered a pioneer family and a tourism promoter for the DR.

After that quick stop, we backed out of the alley and down to the next street which was one of the umbrella streets that have become so popular. Our bus picked us up here and we continued on to the Amber Museum. The museum was nothing fancy but we did see an astonishing array of things captured inside of amber to include one tiny lizard which is the mascot for the museum. That particular small piece of amber is worth half a million dollars and it is just a bit larger than my thumbnail. I’ve never seen such a tiny lizard. We also saw bits of flowers and leaves as well as silverfish and cockroaches in amber. It was an interesting way to spent twenty minutes.

The second half of the museum which we didn’t know about was a tobacco museum. That was less interesting to me. We saw stacks of tobacco leaves hung up to dry and one video showed workers rolling cigars. After a quick tour through this portion of the museum, we made our way through the gift shop and out to the bus. Our day of culture and history was completed.

On the bus Victor shared a few more facts with us about Puerto Plata and the country. Even though DR opened up their borders to the Haitians twice a week, the people from DR have to purchase a $150 visa to go to Haiti. The notorious Baby Doc was deposed as dictator in Haiti and he took most of the country’s money out of the country. He used it to buy himself a swanky palace to live in. Now he has the gall to want to come back and be president. And some Haitians want him to come back!

March is the time for humpback whales. They come here first to mate and then they came back here from Iceland and Greenland to give birth. Their gestation period is twelve months. The newborn whale weighs around a ton. Just a tiny thing! Each whale season sees about 2,000 whales in these waters with the males doing impressive displays to attract a female. One curious fact is that because whales must come up to breath, only half of their brain sleeps at a time. The other half stays awake so that even asleep, they will come up to the surface and get a new breath of air. Pretty amazing.

Victor and Mad Max drove us as far as they could and then we made the trek back through the tourist area of the port. We had bought our magnet, mug, and Christmas decoration in January so we didn’t feel the need to shop now. We made straight for the ship, dropped our stuff off in the cabin, and then dashed to Waves Grill to get some lunch. Waves was the only place open for lunch after 2 PM.

I had to get us a table in the Terrace Cafe right next door. Doug ordered our lunch. He got a grilled tuna sandwich while I went for the gold and got a Wagu burger. It was tasty and not overly large so I didn’t feel like I over ate. After lunch Doug was good and went to the gym. I tried to get caught up on my blog. Then we needed to get ready for our 5:45 party in Horizons. It was for first time Oceania cruisers. Hey, it was a chance for free alcohol!

We got there a bit early and got a seat up close so we could watch the band. They were quite good. Three of them could sing as well as play an instrument. The general manager as well as the Oceania Cruise Ambassador made a few remarks. Then we enjoyed the free champagne and the canapés.

At 6:30 we headed down to the Grand Dining Room for dinner. The line for it was already pretty long but we chatted with the couple behind us. And the line did move quickly. We shared a table with them and two ladies who were traveling together. We all got along really well enjoyed good conversations. Both of the ladies live at least part-time in Florida.

It took us 2.5 hours to eat dinner. Service is that slow. I guess that is the genteel way of eating. I would have been out of there in half that time :-). As it was, we had to hustle to make it to the 9:15 show. I’m glad we made it because Levent was a hoot. He was a comedian as well as a magician. How he shoved that dental floss and razor blades into his mouth and then pulled the floss out with the razors tied to it, I’ll never figure out. He has also been on a couple of the CW’s shows about magic. One is Penn and Teller’s show and I can’t remember the other one. Anyway, it was a fun way to end the day.

Tomorrow we are in Puerto Rico. Doug has been there with the military but it will be my first time. Our excursion tomorrow also includes a distillery. I’m going to get an overdose of rum, I think :-). Hopefully this excursion will have more substance to it than yesterday’s. We’ll just have to wait and see.

DAY 2: DAY AT SEA ON THE MARINA: WANDERING IN THE WEST INDIES

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I do enjoy days at sea when we are on a cruise. So many of our trips are hustle and bustle. Some times it’s just nice to slow down and just be. No rush to be anywhere. Just be. And since I was up late and we lost an hour due to time change, I was thrilled I didn’t have to get up before the crack of dawn 🙂

I had a leisurely wake-up and we went to breakfast in the Grand Dining Room. I’m glad we did it today for the first time and not when we were in a rush to get to an excursion. The service was very slow even though they weren’t busy at all. Everything just seemed to take forever and a year. Since we weren’t in a rush, it wasn’t a big deal, just a bit irritating. Maybe they have new crew who are a bit slower? Who knows. We have learned our lesson. On excursion days, we eat somewhere else. And since we are in a suite, we can actually have breakfast brought to our cabin. We’ve done that before and it works well. The menu is limited but that’s okay.

After breakfast Doug wanted to check out the Terrace Cafe for a possible breakfast location and I wanted to get a hand-crafted latte from the barista on Deck 14. I cheated and took the elevator to 12 where the cafe was. Doug took the stairs. The breakfast selections looked good and they had smoked salmon so it met Doug’s specifications :-). Basically you had the same choices as down in the Grand Dining Room. This place was just less formal and it was a buffet set up.

I did climb the one floor up to the barista with Doug. I keep forgetting that this ship doesn’t have Deck 13. It goes from 12 to 14. That messes me up all of the time. The barista was a busy man so I had to wait several minutes but eventually I got my latte. It was good and better yet, it was free. On Norwegian I always had to buy my lattes. Free is always good.

We digested for a bit and I drank my latte. Then we hit the fitness center. I am trying so hard to be good. Obviously there are a lot of people on this cruise trying to be good. The fitness center was full. I was lucky that one of the four elliptical machines was open. I jumped on it quickly and did twenty minutes. It faced outward towards the window so I had a nice ocean view. It actually was less painful than I thought it would be. Doug was still working out when I left so I let him know that I was going to hit the jogging track and walk a bit.

I have to say that I must be a speed demon when walking on a cruise ship. My watch told me I was averaging two minute miles! 🤪 I walk fast but I am not Superman. I’m not sure why it was so out of whack. The only thing I could think of was the watch calculates using GPS coordinates and the movement of the ship was throwing it off. I admit I enjoyed getting credit for walking over 7 miles in 20 minutes.

I felt better that I had exercised, not that endorphins ever kick in for me. I just felt good knowing that I did it even on vacation. I had earned some relaxing time. I relaxed by proof-reading blog posts. Yep, I’m just a glut for punishment today. I knew I would feel better when I got all caught up on that as well. It has been weighing on me.

Less than three hours after breakfast, we headed up to the Terrace Cafe for lunch. You definitely don’t go hungry on cruises. The cafe is a buffet so you can get as little or as much as you want. It was a happening place. It felt like everybody on the ship was eating lunch at the same as we were. Doug grabbed us a table outside while I perused the many choices and got what I wanted. Today they had a Mexican theme going on. I chose what they called a Mexican salad. It wasn’t really. All it was was salad with a bit of corn, cucumbers, and peppers. Then they put tomato chili dressing on it. I had hoped for guacamole but I didn’t see it.

I sat at the table and held down the fort while Doug got his food. He was more successful. He found the guacamole. He got his salad selections from a different location than I did. I obviously didn’t look around good enough. It was sufficient though. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t just eaten oatmeal and bacon as well as half a pain au chocolate. Plus we were going to have high tea at 4 PM. I was saving up for a scone.

We about blew away while we were eating. I had to start before Doug got back with his food because my lettuce kept blowing out of my bowl. It was small enough. I didn’t have any to spare for the fish. I had noticed while walking that the wind was really strong. The top deck with some of the outdoor sports activities was closed due to strong winds. I definitely felt it while trying to keep napkins, straws, and salad from going overboard.

We both finished off our salads and enjoyed some fresh fruit for dessert. Then we made our way down the stairs to our cabin. It was only one flight. We’ve been trying to take the stairs as much as possible. This morning I just didn’t feel like going from Deck 5 to Deck 14 via the stairs. I have a hard enough time going from 5 to 11. I’ve got to get back into shape!

I spent the afternoon out on our balcony proof-reading and posting. It was quiet and peaceful and I could look out and see the ocean which was nice. The wind kept it from getting hot. The wind also coated everything with a fine mist which evaporated leaving behind a sheen of salt. The railing on our balcony was just covered with salt. So was my iPad. I’ve never had that happen on a cruise before. It’s amazing what the wind can do.

I did get quite a bit accomplished. I have two more days to proof and post for the Iberian Peninsula and then I’m done! That will be a load off of my mind. I rewarded myself by reading a new book. I was just getting involved in it when I realized it was time to get ready for high tea. I didn’t want to miss getting my scone.

We weren’t sure how dressy it was so I changed out of my T-shirt into a casual but nice shirt and wore my normal travel pants. We fit right in. Very few people were dressed up. Several ladies were there in their bathing suit coverups. I didn’t think you were suppose to do that but nobody said anything to them.

The lady violin players were there at high tea as well. They played background music. Only two of them were playing but they performed beautifully. They were part of the reason that I wanted to go to high tea. Them and the scones. At least the music was calorie free! I enjoyed the music but it was actually difficult to hear them well over the babbling of all of the voices.

We found an empty table and the servers were quick to bring around the tea selection box and the pots of hot water. After that we waited for a good long while for the food. One young lady brought around a tray of small sandwiches. Doug had a salmon one (he does love his salmon) and I had an egg salad sandwich. I was waiting patiently for my scone. I glanced around and they only had two carts going around with the pastries. The lounge area was full of people. Two carts was not enough. By this time we had been joined by another couple who are frequently fliers with Oceania. They love the high tea but said this one was not as well organized as all of the others they have been to. They were disappointed with the service.

The couple was very nice. This was their 20th cruise with Oceania and because it was their 20th, it was free. Wow! I wish OAT would give us a free trip for having gone on 20+ trips with them. They have also traveled with Norwegian and Royal Caribbean. They are obviously avid cruisers. We had a nice time talking with them and picking their brains about good trips to take with the company.

We had been there for well over half an hour before the dessert cart made it to our table. I got the last scone on the cart. I would have been a sad camper if there hadn’t been one. It was very good although none I’ve ever had has been better than the one I had in August in Botswana at the camp outside of Chobe National Park. That one was scrumptious. This one was worth waiting for though. We didn’t tarry much after I finished it off. The crew was getting Horizons ready for the Captains cocktail party which was starting in 45 minutes. Just as we were leaving, the cruise director made an announcement saying that everybody had to get out (he couched it in a much nicer way).

Back in the room I changed into a dress for the cocktail bash. I figured it would probably be a bit more formal. Plus I didn’t want to have to change yet again for dinner. Tonight we were eating at a Polo which is their steak speciality restaurant. We were hoping that Brandon had managed to change our dining times for all of our reservations from 8:30 to 7:30 so we wouldn’t miss the show. He was suppose to let us know if he was successful. Doug had called earlier and he didn’t come on duty today until 5 PM. So we had to wait until then before calling to see if he had worked his magic. He had. We had a message on the phone that he had managed to change all of our dining reservations. Yea!!!

At six we headed back up the stairs to Horizon again. We met the captain and the general manager of the ship. The captain is from Dubrovnik. He seemed very capable. We found seats and Doug rustled us up some champagne. We weren’t sure if it was self-serve or if they were bringing it around. We waited for several minutes but nobody came by and asked what we wanted. Doug finally got up and grabbed us a couple of glasses.

The Captain introduced his senior crew. It was an international group which always makes it interesting. Doug did notice that the name tags the crew wear don’t specify the country they come from. That’s different from all of the other cruises we’ve been on. It’s always interesting to know where the people working on the ship are from. The captain and the crew didn’t tarry. They had a ship to sail and restaurants to manage. One of the male singers came out and sang two songs. Then one of the girls sang a couple of songs. Both were so talented. I couldn’t wait to see the show tonight.

While we were at the cocktail party we met another couple who are frequent travelers with Oceania. I’m beginning to think that we are the only newcomers on the ship. I believe this couple has made 14 trips with them. They were both very nice. They told us about cruising down the Amazon and cruising from Cambodia to Vietnam with Oceania. Both sounded like wonderful trips.

We spent about 45 minutes at the cocktail party. I was ready to head to dinner. We got there a bit before our 7:30 reservation but the place was practically empty so we had no problem getting seated. It did beg the question though of why when we made our dinner reservations online, we couldn’t get them any earlier than 8:30. No reservation for a specialty restaurant was available before 8:30. Weird. Next time we’ll just wait until we are onboard to make our reservations.

Dinner was really great. I skipped the starter and the salad and just got New England clam chowder which I love. It wasn’t as creamy as I’m use to but it was very tasty. Once I got use to the texture, I really enjoyed it. Doug got Oysters Rockefeller and baked onion soup. Then he got surf ‘n turf for dinner while I went with prime rib which I love. Mine was perfectly cooked and so tender that it all but melted in my mouth. My asparagus and potatoes au gratin were great as well. I know Doug enjoyed his steak and lobster. I had planned to get my leftover prime rib boxed up for a midnight snack but when I asked for a box, the server told me that didn’t do that. At first I thought he was kidding but he wasn’t. I was a bit stunned. There was a good chunk of prime rib left. I hated to waste it but I couldn’t eat it. Maybe next time I’ll bring in a ziplock bag in my purse and sneak it out in that. But tonight I had to leave it behind. Sigh….no tasty midnight snack for me. It would have come in handy for tomorrow as well as we will be missing lunch because of our excursion which we don’t get fed on.

Anyway, I drowned my disappointment in a small slice of key lime pie. I do like key lime and so does Doug. We both ordered it. And we ate it with our new friends from high tea. They were eating in Polo as well and invited us to chat with them over dessert. So we moved over to their table. They were sitting with another gentlemen they had just met. He was from Atlanta and had been in the Navy. We had a nice time talking and then we all had to beat feet to the Marina Lounge for the show. I wasn’t about to miss that.

The show was wonderful. It was about the Brill Building in NYC where so much popular music from the 50s, 60s, and 70s came from. Artists like Sonny and Cher, Elvis, Madonna, the Righteous Brothers, the Shirelles….all of them sang songs from the Brill Building. I liked how they arranged the show. They introduced about the building and then went into little vignettes utilizing groups of songs. One section had three girls having a slumber party playing 45s on their record player. A singer would come out and sing the song they were playing. That was really cute. Another section was American Bandstand. There was an Elvis section, of course. One of the main male singers sang “Unchained Melody” and brought down the house. He was SO good. The show was cleverly arranged and the music great. I’ve seen more polished shows before but I really enjoyed this one. The singers and dancers are all so talented. AND they do it on a moving ship. Speaking of which, the ship really HAS been moving today. I could especially feel it up in Horizon.

The Grand Staircase decked out for the holidays

The show was a brilliant way to wrap up a good first day at sea. No more lazy days though for the next ten days. We will be in ports and out on excursions. Tomorrow we dock in the Dominican Republic. I had never been there until this year and as of tomorrow, I will have been there twice :-). We are doing a historical and cultural tour that is about three hours. We’ll be back in time for relaxing and hopefully yoga. Not to mention more eating and more shows!

DAY 1: EMBARKING ON THE OCEANIA SHIP THE MARINA: WANDERING IN THE WEST INDIES

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I haven’t even finished up my blog postings for the Iberian Peninsula and we are already embarking on a new trip! This year has just been a crazy one for travel. We had all of those trips cancelled the last two years because of COVID. Now they are catching us with us :-). I think we have been gone more than we’ve been home this year :-). However, we are ending the year as we started it, with a cruise. In January we did a part of the Caribbean we hadn’t been to yet. This time we are on a two week cruise to the West Indies. We are trying out a new cruise line. Usually we go with Norwegian but this time we are going with their cousin company Oceania. I believe it is their more upscale cruise line. Anyway, we are trying it out to see how well we like it. Their ships do go to some wonderful places. they are just more expensive.

Originally we had planned to spend last night in Miami (that’s where the ship is docked) so we wouldn’t have to make a five hour drive this morning. We had the hotel booked. Then we discovered last week that we had a show at the Straz which is Tampa’s performing arts center. We had missed the first show of the season—“Six”— because we were in Spain. I didn’t want to miss “Hades Town” as well. After Doug found out that the hotel was going to charge us $35 for parking there overnight and didn’t have a shuttle to the port, we decided to drive in this morning.

We were both all packed up Friday for the most part. We had to get it all done because we had Joyce over Friday night to decorate our Christmas tree. She spent the night and then we all went to the show yesterday afternoon. It was well worth staying and seeing. It was based on the Greek myth of Orpheus. The dancing and the singing were fabulous. It made for an enjoyable day. Of course then I had to go home and finish up packing, do laundry, etc. 🙂

Our boarding time today was 12:30 PM so we decided to leave home at 7 AM. That would give us plenty of time. The drive to Miami wouldn’t be bad, just long. It was getting to the port and then to the right terminal that might prove to be problematic. And so it was. We got off right at 7 and stopped for a latte at Starbucks. I definitely needed a caffeine fix as my insomnia has been bad this last week. I worked on my very last blog posting for Spain and Portugal (and finished it—yes!) while Doug drove.

It was smooth sailing until we hit Miami. I was glad we were driving on I95 South because the north lane was blocked off. Cars were backed up forever. We looked at each other and decided we would find a different way home when we drive back to Tampa in two weeks. I certainly didn’t want to get stuck in that mess. However, the traffic was getting heavy our way as well which was surprising for a Sunday morning but we were in Miami.

Thank goodness for Apple Maps! Okay, SIRI did tell us one time that two lanes turned left and only one did. Doug had to scoot over one lane really quick. But she saved our bacon down at the port. The signage there was horrible. We were suppose to go to Terminal J. After Terminal E, the signs were nonexistent. SIRI got us to where we needed to be. It was a convoluted route to have to take but we finally made it to the parking area. It all took a while so we were glad we had left early.

By the time we got to the terminal itself, we were only 30 minutes early. We decided to see if they would let us check in. We went through security just fine and went up to check-in where there was a huge line. Sigh. A young lady checked our boarding passes and sent us to a different line. Nobody was in ours and we walked right up. We got some looks from the people who had been waiting in that long line. I felt bad but we paid for this privilege by getting a suite.

We zipped through check-in and soon had our room cards and a dandy red paper bracelet for our wrists. We were set to board. Nobody said a thing about us being early. Yea! We headed on board and were escorted to our emergency station. We had already watched the safety video before we left home. We just had to check in here so they would know we knew where our station was. After that we were free to do whatever we wanted. Although they had told us that our room wouldn’t be ready until 1 PM, we decided to head there anyway. We wanted to drop off our carryons so we wouldn’t have to haul them to lunch. We found our room with no trouble and it appeared to be done. We left our bags and then headed to Deck 12 to grab some lunch. I hadn’t eaten anything this morning so I was starving.

We found an outdoor dining area where you could get burgers, sandwiches, or a small number of entrees. Doug and I both got the teriyaki salmon. I really wanted a hot dog (my guilty pleasure) but I am going to TRY to be good on this trip. I didn’t even order the fries or the chips. I got a salad instead. However, when they brought my meal, it came with fries and cole slaw. I ignored the slaw and tried to only eat a few fries. I have a hard time time not eating potato’s when they are sitting in front of me. However, I was good and vetoed ice cream for myself when Doug went and got some.

We wandered around the ship a bit after lunch just trying to get the lay of the land. It’s much bigger than the Corinthian we were just on but not nearly as large as the Norwegian Escape we were on in January. The Marina holds about 1200 passengers. That’s not too bad. We’re not sure exactly how many are on board.

We found the library right off the bat. I always have to find it. It was scattered all down one side of Deck14 but it was nicely done. It was a decent size library for a ship. I loved the nooks and crannies and comfy seating. It was right next to the Internet Cafe so we stopped there and had the nice young man get our phones connected to the ship’s WiFi. Fortunately WIFI is free for us and is unlimited. We just can’t stream anything. However, only one device can be connected using the account at one time. We have to pay if we want a second account. I figure we can share.

We found the fitness center and strolled through it. It was quite nice and had a few elliptical machines. I’ve been doing that instead of running. My foot doesn’t need the pounding. I don’t want to re-break it. The elliptical is better for it, just boring as sin. I figure I’ll do that on days at sea. Then walking up and down a million sets of stairs a day will give me a good workout on the other days plus walking around on port days.

Back in the room we unpacked our carryons. While we were doing that our two suitcases came so we got that unpacked as well. Our suite which is really just a nice size room (big for a cruise ship) has a good walk-in closet. Again, large for a cruise ship but not for a house these days. It was nice to be able to hang everything up and have enough drawers to stash things in. Unpacking wasn’t a challenge for a change. Even better was knowing that I wouldn’t have to pack up for 13 more days:-)

Because we are in a suite, we have a butler (aren’t we all fancy!). Brandon came by and explained the amenities of the cabin. Mostly it was to tell me the only place I could plug in the blow dryer without blowing a fuse. My hair is 1/3”. I don’t use a blow dryer so it will stay in the drawer. I can use that outlet for something much more important :-). He also took four of Doug’s nice shirts to be pressed. The most important thing he did was promise to make our dining reservations for us. We can eat at the speciality restaurants onboard for four dinners. We had made reservations at home but the earliest we could get was 8:30 PM. When we found out that the nightly show started at 9:15, we knew that wouldn’t work. He was going to change it for us to 7:30 if he could. That would hopefully give us enough time. The rest of the nights we can eat in the main dining room and there are no reservations there so we can just walk in whenever.

Now I have to admit that I was very nervous about this cruise. It seemed too fancy and I’m not a fancy person. I don’t mind dressing up occasionally but not every night. For me wearing closed toed shoes is dressed up. Here the dress code at night is “elegant country club casual.” What the heck is that?! One of my friends told me it was like Julia Sugarbaker on the TV show “Designing Women.” I was afraid she had hit the nail on the head. I had to go out and buy a couple of pairs of nice pants and get some nice blouses as well as a nice pair of flats to wear. I was tempted to wear my new walking shoes and explain that I was recuperating from a broken foot and needed proper support for it. It wouldn’t be a lie. I did find some flats on sale that should work. I hope!

Around five o’clock we went out onto our balcony. It’s nice except there is a large overhang from the deck above us. It blocks our view up. That’s okay. I don’t generally look up that much when I’m at sea. It was nice sitting out there although we were still docked and the view wasn’t all that fabulous. We watched the cats prowling around the dock area. We also had a complimentary bottle of champagne that we enjoyed while waiting to sail at 6 PM. Darkness had fallen by the time the ship slipped its mooring. We were off at last.

We watched for a few minutes and then headed back inside to dress for dinner. I didn’t feel like a dress tonight so I wore one of my two nice pairs of pants and a blouse I had gotten for our Spain trip. Doug was spiffy in his dress shirt and sports jacket. We soon found out that we were both overdressed although he more so than me. Most of the men wore very casual sports shirts (not T-shirts though) and casual pants. Nobody had on a sports coat but him. The ladies mostly wore capris and sports-type blouses although the women tended to be more dressed up than the men. I felt better as I wasn’t as under-dressed as I was afraid I would be. Doug immediately peeled off his sports coat.

You could tell that the people on this ship are a bit older. I haven’t seen a single child onboard. At 6:30 there was already a line waiting to be seated at the Grand Dining Room. We sat with another older couple and they said they were eating much later than they usually do. They eat dinner around 5 PM. I’ve also seen a good many walkers and canes. Gray hair is the norm on this ship 🙂

We had the choice to share a table or eat at a table for two but Doug went with sharing so we could meet people. That was fine. They were a nice couple, just different. They have done six Oceania cruises. In fact they have done this one before; however, this time they don’t plan on getting off of the ship! They just want to relax and sail. To each their own.

Dinner was good although I wouldn’t say it was great. Oceania is known for their fine dining. I just expected a bit more. Their food selections were all great. I just didn’t think my meal tasted any different than other places I’ve eaten. Which is not to say that it was bad. It wasn’t. It was tasty. I guess I just expected something a bit more elevated in taste. Of course what do I expect when I order herb-crusted roasted chicken and rosemary potatoes :-). The chocolate brownie was excellent though.

At nine we headed to the Marina Lounge for the first show of the trip. I always love the shows on cruises. They are one of my favorite things. I had a feeling that the shows here were going to be a bit scaled down. The stage wasn’t large at all. However, the performing troop did an excellent job. They sang and danced an opening number. Then John the cruise director took over. He did the typical “Where is everybody from” bit. We have a good many people who are from other countries. Several from Great Britain, a couple from the Netherlands, a lady from Iran, Canadians… There was more variety than I expected. However, the vast majority of the passengers are Americans.

The entertainment crew then came back out and introduced themselves. The Assistant Cruise Director is a young man from Tampa. That was fun. Several were from Great Britain. The main male singer is from Cape Town. There were a couple of U.S. performers as well as a male dancer from Ukraine. He got thunderous applause as did the trombone player who was also Ukrainian.

John then introduced a trio of young ladies who play the violin. They were absolutely phenomenal! The piece they played was an amalgam of various classic and pop songs. It was creative and fun and they played the devil out of it. They play every day at high tea so we are definitely going to have to go and listen to them.

Next up was the lead male singer from Cape Town. He had a lovely voice, very smooth and polished. He sang a couple of songs. One was an older song. The second song was my favorite from “Dear Evan Hansen.” He sang “You Will be Found.” While he sang, one of the dancers did a modern dance to it. Both were wonderful. Then two female singers came out. One was from England and her parents were onboard! So she belted out “All That Jazz” and then the two of them sang her mother’s favorite song from “Wicked”—“For Good.” That happens to be my favorite song as well. It always makes me cry. When I edited the end-of-the-year video for our 8th graders I liked to use that song. It seemed appropriate. Anyway, the two young ladies were wonderful and I did cry 🙂

That basically wrapped up the show. It wasn’t very long but it was entertaining. I look forward to their first real show tomorrow night. It will have a good deal of singing and dancing which I always enjoy. One of the shows is going to be broadway based. I can’t wait for that one!

Not being ones for partying into the wee morning hours, we headed back to the cabin after the show. I tried to get some hot water from the lounge on our deck but the young man told me to come back in ten minutes. He was cleaning the machine. It was one of those that does coffee as well as espresso, cappuccinos, and lattes. They clean it every night about this time. Bad timing for me but I can’t fault them. This is probably the best time for them.

That gave me time to floss the old teeth and wash my face. I couldn’t get in my jammies though. I figured they would frown on me trotting down the hallway in pjs. I went back later and got my hot water. I was thrilled to discover that they had Truvia. I won’t have to use mine that I always pack. They also have the tea I like so I can put that away as well. I can save them for our trip to the Antarctic Circle in February.

I spent a bit of time fighting with the WiFi after I got my tea made and all comfy in bed. It was not cooperating. The young man had said that the WiFi on the last trip had been problematic. So far it’s not working well on this trip. It was working okay on my phone but not my iPad. It kept giving me an error message. However, at times it would then put me on the Internet. It was extremely inconsistent. I sent Sam a couple of photos several times because I kept getting messages that they hadn’t gone through. She finally texted me that she had gotten one of them four times. Oy vey! At least she got ‘em. Right now it won’t connect at all so I’m not sure how great this free WiFi is going to be. I’d be really ticked off if I was paying for it. But I’m not so it’s all good. I have no problems unplugging for a while. Life isn’t meant to be spent in front of a screen.

We have a relaxing day ahead of us tomorrow. We have our first day at sea. As usual there are all kinds of activities planned although I didn’t see a yoga class on the schedule. That was disappointing. But they do have three lectures we can attend as well as a trivia game. Or maybe we’ll just sit on our balcony and read all day. Whatever we decide, it should be nice.

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Tales from the Trail

World Travel and Adventures

Category Archives: 2022 West Indies Cruise

DAY 10: ST. LUCIA: WANDERING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES

DAY 9: ST. VINCENT: WANDERING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES

DAY 8: GRENADA: WANDERING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES

DAY 7: BARBADOS: WANDERING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES

DAY 6: DOMINICA: WANDERING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES

DAY 3: PUERTO PLATA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: WANDERING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES

DAY 2: DAY AT SEA ON THE MARINA: WANDERING IN THE WEST INDIES

DAY 1: EMBARKING ON THE OCEANIA SHIP THE MARINA: WANDERING IN THE WEST INDIES