The Caribbean in a nutshell

I've finally completed editing and updating posts about our 14-day cruise through the Caribbean. Follow the links below to relive this incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience.

In case you're curious, here's a link to a post I published about the cabin on our cruise ship, the Silver Shadow, along with a few details about the boat itself.

DATE	PORT	COUNTRY
10 Jan	Flight from New York to Sint Maarten
10 Jan	La Samanna, Philipsburg	Saint Martin
11 Jan	Philipsburg	Sint Maarten
12 Jan	St. John’s	Antigua & Barbuda
13 Jan	Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas	US Virgin Islands
14 Jan	Little Bay	Montserrat
15 Jan	Castries	St. Lucia
16 Jan	Port Elizabeth, Bequia	St Vincent & Grenadines
17 Jan	Les Saintes	Guadeloupe
18 Jan	Philipsburg	Sint Maarten
19 Jan	Cruz Bay, St John	US Virgin Islands
20 Jan	Gustavia	St. Barthelemy
21 Jan	Roseau	Dominica
22 Jan	St George’s	Grenada
23 Jan	Trois Ilets	Martinique
24 Jan	Kingstown	St Vincent & Grenadines
25 Jan	Bridgetown	Barbados
25 Jan	Flight from Barbados to London

You can also use the following links to relive other destinations we visited on our round-the-world ticket. Watch this space as I progressively add new posts for each location. There's a lot of ground to cover!

• NYE at Cooks Beach in New Zealand
• Reliving old memories in New York
• Overnight hell in Frankfurt
• Record snowfall in Nuremberg
• Doing London the way we used to
• Exploring Sentosa Island in Singapore

The tale of two hotels

Our recent trip to New York wasn’t all colourful sights and sounds. During our stay, two hotels unexpectedly made me pause for thought. Each reminded me how precious life is, and how important it is to live each day to the full.

On our first night in town, Garry and I took a short detour to walk past the Casablanca Hotel. Thirteen years ago, I stayed here with Mum and Dad during our whirlwind visit to the Big Apple. The hotel was less than 100 metres from Times Square, making it easier for Dad to take in its dazzling billboards and energetic vibe.

Our detour was well timed. The following day, we paused to remember the anniversary of Dad’s death. Dad loved New York and was delighted he got to tick it off his bucket list, barely three months before he died. Mum was also grateful for the experience. Although she'd have loved to visit a few of the city's museums if we'd had more time. It was sad to reflect that in the intervening years, Mum has also passed away.

On our final night in Manhattan, Garry and I walked past Hotel Edison on our way home from the theatre. I stayed here as an exchange student while on a High School Arts Club trip to New York City in 1983. As students, we attended the ballet at the Lincoln Centre, watched La Cage aux Folles at the Palace Theatre, toured the Met and MOMA, and visited the United Nations.

It was a cathartic moment standing there and reflecting on my life’s journey. The 18-year-old version of me had stood here with his whole life stretching out before him, wondering where life would take him. Now, 42 years later, the 60-year-old version of me was standing here looking back, wondering, “Have I used my time wisely? Would 18-year-old me be proud?”

It’s a humble experience to have a venue like this symbolically bookending my life’s journey. It’s also a timely reminder to make the most of my remaining years. I think I’ve done OK. If I have any doubt, reading through this blog tells a different story.

Barbados in a day

We’ve finished our time in the Caribbean on a high note. Several months ago, I booked a private tour of Barbados with Mike’s Maxi Taxi Tours. Michael met us outside the cruise ship terminal at about 9:45am. For the next 7.5 hours, he took us from one end of the island to the other and back again while telling the story of the family and their African slave heritage.

 

Highlights today include a stop at Rihanna’s childhood home, followed by a drive-by of the Grammy-winning singer’s new digs at One Sandy Lane. Her original home felt more like a shrine to royalty than a real home. This is definitely one island nation that's enormously proud of its greatest musical export.

As we've travelled through the Caribbean, we've learned that former British colonies are typically divided into districts called parishes. Barbados is no different. It consists of eleven such districts, each with its own head church. St. James Parish Church in Holetown is the island's oldest parish. It was established in 1628 near the site where English settlers first landed. Today's magnificent parish church is a stone structure, built on the site of the island's first church back in 1675. We caught a brief glimpse inside but couldn't enter as a Sunday service was in progress.

Mike then drove us to the island's northernmost tip for a tour of the Animal Flower Caves. This natural phenomenon was carved by wild seas that relentlessly pound the island’s northern and eastern coast. The animal flowers it takes its name from are, in fact, delicate sea anemones living in the cave's tidal waters. Visitors can swim in the cave. However, the Atlantic coast seas aren't warm, so we gave that idea a miss.

We drove through the island’s sugar cane fields past chattel homes that once housed the emancipated slaves. While Jim Crow Laws never took hold here, an equally oppressive local landowner ordinance required plantation workers to move their homes every three years. Hence, these early structures were both small and cleverly segmented for easy transportation.

We then toured one of the island’s lovingly restored Plantation Owner homes called St Nicholas Abbey. Curiously, the complex has never been a religious facility. The home still distils and bottles its own prestigious brand of rum. We stumbled upon a staff member in a building near the estate's rum barrel warehouse diligently filling and capping their fancy bottles.

I'm so glad we added this attraction to our itinerary. The Abbey wasn't included in the tour I originally booked, but Mike agreed to slot it in for us. The old homestead gave a good sense of colonial life during the island's colonial plantation era, offering a stark contrast to the numerous demountable homes we'd driven past. 

Mike made a stop at Cherry Hill for a stunning view of the island’s stormy east coast, and again at the Morgan Lewis Windmill. Since 2013, the Morgan Lewis Sugar Mill has featured on the reverse of the Barbados two-dollar banknote. How times have changed. It’s the last of 506 windmills that once crushed cane around the island. Unfortunately, it was closed, so we had to satisfy ourselves with a view from the car park.

According to Mike, there's only one sugar mill still processing cane in Barbados. In 1721, a survey by William Mayo recorded 320 windmills and 870 sugar estates. By 1895, the industry was rapidly modernising, with 102 steam-driven mills supplementing around 338 remaining windmills.

Lunch was a simple affair, just fish and chips. That is, Flying Fish and chips. Yes, read that correctly. Flying Fish is a rather delicate fish and tastes a lot like sole or flounder. Another first for me.

Our tour finished with a wander along the beach in Bathsheba, a location renowned for its eye-catching “mushroom rocks”. Our flight to Heathrow departed on time (although a brief but intense rainstorm delayed our walk across the tarmac to board our plane).

 

Garry and I slept like babies on the flight to London. We’re now resting in the lounge before boarding our flight to Frankfurt this afternoon. The Caribbean was everything we’d hoped for and then some. The colonial history alone was genuinely eye-opening. 

It’s hard to imagine the great powers of Europe that now drive the European Union were once bitter rivals constantly doing battle throughout the Caribbean. Our guide reminded us today that St Lucia changed hands seven times between the French and the British before gaining independence in 1979.

A final dip in the Caribbean

Our penultimate island is done and dusted. Tomorrow morning, we’ll disembark in Barbados. Today we’ve been exploring St Vincent, the largest island in the St Vincent and the Grenadines archipelago. Our cruise boat docked in Kingston, the nation’s capital, shortly after 7:00am.

For our final excursion, I booked a catamaran snorkelling tour up the island’s west coast. I had a vision of us sailing silently through blue sapphire water and swimming among coral-fringed reefs. However, the reality was somewhat different. There were no sails or an internal cabin to be seen. Instead, our boat was a massive fibreglass structure carrying somewhere close to 80 people in rows of moulded white fibreglass seating.

We spent the morning cruising along the coast as far as the fishing village of Keartons. The village is famous for the film, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). In the film, Jack Sparrow docks at the village wharf after passing a rock arch offshore near the northern entrance of Wallilabou Bay. For movie buffs, you can spot the natural sea arch nine minutes into the film. Three corpses are seen hanging from it during a gruesome establishing shot. I've also posted a couple of screenshots here.

I was disappointed that we didn't dock briefly at Keartons. It would've been nice to take a stroll along its compact palm-shaded waterfront and soak up its atmosphere. We've learned that these large group tours keep their formal stops to a bare minimum. No doubt it's a convenient, but rather lazy, form of crowd control. This limitation has proven to be one of the unexpected downfalls of booking an all-inclusive cruise. Many of the complementary options have tended towards large-group formats.

After viewing the arch from both sides, our catamaran backtracked down the coast in search of a sheltered snorkelling spot. The beach that the boat normally visits was plagued by swarms of tiny translucent white jellyfish. As a result, we ended up anchoring in a small bay called Byahaut. Sections of this bay were also filled with tiny white jellyfish, which we did our best to avoid.

Sadly, the snorkelling was rather naff. Mainly barren rocks with a few colourful parrot fish feasting in their crevices. However, the water was warm and staying afloat was effortless thanks to the buoyancy vests we were given. I eventually gave up snorkelling and flipped onto my back to relax and enjoy the warm tropical sun. It was a wonderful way to finish my last swim in the Caribbean.

Generous portions and refills of more local rum punch were doled out for an hour-long journey back to the wharf. Garry and I spent our time with a drink in hand, leaning against the railing, with the wind in our hair and the sun on our faces. It was bliss.

After lunch onboard our cruise ship, we ventured back into town to soak in the “colourful” atmosphere of Kingston’s weekend markets. These were easily the largest markets we’ve encountered on our cruise. Every man, woman and child had their stall set up in the street, including a few “umbrella bars” selling cold beers.

At times, there appeared to be no designated market zone. People set up shop on any footpath anywhere in town. Some merchants simply swung open a side door on their minivan, mounted a few shelves and waited for shoppers to arrive. We’ve come to appreciate that these chaotic streetscapes have a beauty all their own. And, as Garry discovered, there’s some great BBQ meat on offer.

During our walk through town, we passed St Mary’s Cathedral and its neighbouring cream-coloured Kingstown Anglican Church. I’ve seen photos of St Mary’s online. The black-stone building bears more than passing resemblance to a Gothic castle, while inside, a dramatic altar features a statue of Christ on the cross framed by a radiant baby-blue arch. Unfortunately, the church was locked. However, I successfully captured a glimpse of its stunning altar through a crack in the front door.

This evening, we’ve capped off two incredible weeks hosting a farewell dinner with friends we’ve made on board. Eric and Veronica come from Minneapolis (on the left below), while Paul and Wendy are from regional Ontario, Canada. Garry and I have met them most nights for a nightcap before bed and have dined with each couple on other occasions. I think they’ve become our role models for making the best of our retirement.