January 13  Martinique

Another lovely day in the Caribbean.  Had breakfast at "our" table (funny how quickly we fall into a habit of dining at the same place for a meal!) and then talked about what we would do that day.

My research indicated that we could have a nice walk from the ship into town.  But we quickly changed plans when Dr Greg Wheeler, geologist extraordinaire and enrichment lecturer, asked David and I if we would like to share a cab with him and friend Lisa to go to Mt Pelee and of course, we said "yes."

We were among the first off the ship and after negotiating with Jean, a great cab driver, we took off.  Poor Jean, he really wanted to show us the lovely sights of his island, but we weren't interested in rum making, or tropical gardens (Greg is from California and we've a place in south Florida so gardens weren't something unusual for us) so we kept saying "non" and directed him to St Pierre, the home of Mt Pelee!

Sacre Coeur de Balata

 Black sand beaches

 Two crabs fighting

 Crab hiding

Everything in Martinique is French (duh) including the Euro so we could not purchase tickets for admission into a museum.  We were directed to a bank with an ATM that would vend Euros but by that time we pretty much just wanted to walk around.  A couple of  people in our group wondered if tourism was so great that they could afford to only accept Euros but hey, their country, their rules.

St Pierre was known as the "Paris of the West Indies" and was a prosperous small, beautiful town.  In 1902 the town was engulfed by the eruption of Mt Pelee and  the entire population of 30,000 quickly died....except for one person.

We investigated the ruins of the original town and found the jail cell still standing which protected the sole survivor of 30,000 who were killed by Pelee's eruption in 1902.   Greg had a picture in his presentation of the survivor who went on to work for Barnum & Bailey so naturally we had to take Greg's picture in the same pose.  

 Evidently the man was jailed originally for cutting a friend with a cutlass.  Shortly before he completed his sentence, he left his cell, went into town and danced and drank and at sunrise the next day reported back to the jail where he was sentenced to a week of solitary confinement in the prison's dungeon.   When the volcano erupted he was protected from most of the heat and ash by the stone walls, and his tiny cell window faced toward the sea and away from the mountain.  He was seriously burned but by holding his breath he was able to avoid breathing in much of the gases .   He was later pardoned for his crimes. 

We walked black sand beaches, took pictures of crabs and boats, and tried to photograph the whole of Mt Pelee but the very top remained covered with clouds.   

What a lovely day with  terrific travel companions among great ruins...an awesome day for an old history teacher!      

cynthia

January 12 -- St. Lucia
Having learned our lesson, we scheduled a much shorter tour on the island of St. Lucia (actually, all of these shore excursions were booked months ago, so no learning was involved in this tour).  A short three hour tour was enough to see the island and some of the sights, and not a long tiring march.

To put the tourists into a spending mood, a steel drum band enlivened the bottom of the gangway.  We got onto our 20 passenger bus and visited a lovely old home with a great view of the harbor -- and you can see the great scenery that frequently surrounds our docked ship -- the container port.

We went to the Le Toc Battery, an old British fortification that became a local woman's passion.  She bought the place 40 years ago to prevent its destruction, and has restored it, provided pieces for its museum, and given tours in the time since.  It's the only one that you can tour on the island.

Here's a local doll, which is reversible.  Pull up the dress, turn the doll over, and you have a different outfit and a different head.  No feet, just two heads.

Volcanoes formed St. Lucia.  Here you can see some remains.

We went as far as the fishing village of Ansela Raye, with some interesting sights, then overlooked Marigot Bay where Oprah has a home.  She didn't invite us in.

After lunch back at the ship we wandered around the town. 

Just about the right amount of walking and touring today.
 

Grenada update

Meant to include the map to show how inclusive our tour of the island was.

January 11 -- Grenada

Fallen a bit behind, but we've been in port everyday since arriving in Grenada.  Grenada was a long day.  We had selected the Discover Grenada tour, which was 9 hours long.  Among our discoveries is that Grenada has main roads that are 1.5 lanes wide, are never straight for more than 100 meters and are always going uphill or downhill, usually at an extreme angle.  Fortunately the bus was small, holding about 20 people.  It's worth noting that later in the day as we were passing some schoolchildren, Cynthia remarked that we were driving pretty fast as we passed them.  A quick check of the GPS revealed that we were traveling at 20mph, although the engine was roaring, probably in 2nd gear.  Twenty mph seemed fast by that time.

In our wanderings we visiting Fort Frederick, high on the hill overlooking the harbor.  Although an impressive fort, it didn't do much good since the island changed hands 14 times -- 7 times to the British, 7 times to the French.  It seems that they enjoyed a good rum punch back in the day.

 

Next up Grand Etang National Park, and the lake within that serves as a water source for a portion of the island.  Even though rainy season had just ended, the lake didn't seem big enough to supply the population.  Sure enough, the guide told us that most homes had their own cistern to cover for the time the water gets shut off during the dry season.

Passing a Cuban-built military airport we saw the remains of a Soviet cargo plane left over after the US "intervention" on the island.  How the army could move around through the tropical rain forest on severe mountain slopes reminds me that going to war is a young man's job.

 

Next stop, rum distillery.  In much of the Caribbean they turn sugar cane into rum using age old equipment, in this case the oldest water wheel in the hemisphere (or something like that).  They grind & crush the sugar cane (and any arms and legs that get too close)  to get the juice out, then ferment and distill it into 75% (not proof) alcohol.  It comes out like "white lightning", and goes down just as smooth. 

 
Belmont Estates was the lunch stop, followd by a tour of the working cocoa farm.  Watching the young man move a basket at a time of cocoa beans to be dried (6000 pounds total) seemed pretty inefficient.  I asked him if they had a wheelbarrow (I saw one later being used for a different purpose) and he just smiled and kept loading baskets onto his shoulder.  

After several more scenic stops, including Concord Falls, we returned to the ship very tired and sweaty.  Even with all that time on the bus my Fitbit said 15K steps.  We slept well.

Dave

At Sea         Sun, Jan 10

Today was a busy day, despite the fact that it was supposed to be a day at sea, a day of leisure.

We were up and out walking the track at 6:30 this morning.  We weighed ourselves and discovered that....YAY...we hadn't gained any weight!  

We ate breakfast at Terraces on the back deck and it was a lovely, balmy morning. I visited the library, returned 3 books and acquired 2 more.  

We attended the enrichment lecture with Greg Wheeler on Caribbean Islands and human and wildlife inhabitants...excellent as usual.   

Lunch was in the main dining room and we went with chicken; I had a sweet and sour chicken with mixed greens salad and David had a teriyaki chicken wrap, but we yielded to temptation and went to Terraces for dessert so we could have tiny bites of more than 1!  The young women in the serving stations now just know to cut tiny slices for me and assure me that there are no calories....my kind of dessert!

Soon it was time to go to the photography lecture with David Smith, which was themed "get out of the automatic setting of your camera" which is good advice.   He showed us examples of how much better a picture is if you learn some basic settings.  He is going to give  some workshops where we bring our cameras and do some hands on learning.

Shortly after that, David decided that we should at least visit the Cupcake Teatime to see what creations the Chef and his staff had created as well as listen to the string quartet. 
Greg Wheeler, the enrichment lecturer was there and we began talking to him, then shared a table; he and I having coffee at tea time (sacrilege!) and I only had 1 tiny cupcake so I feel morally superior!    He was great to talk to and we three had many common interests and experiences.

Dinner at Terraces with a Caribbean Dinner Buffet...excellent entrees and sides and of course, dined al fresco.

David's laundry returned and it was beautifully done!  I told him not to get used to the underwear being neatly wrapped in tissue paper!

On to Grenada tomorrow...lots to see!         cynthia

January 9 -- Bonaire

Before completing the ABC's of the Caribbean, a few pictures from evening and night in Curacao.  Afternoon light on the pastel painted buildings along the waterway.  One building had a big sign, AFAS Software, with a large sailing vessel docked in front.  I wonder if there are cubes of programmers working away in there?  And is the sailboat the company car?

We were docked aimed out into the sea where we could ram the floating bridge if it didn't open for us.   At night the bridge has ribbons of light covering the walkway.

For the evening show in Curacao the Insignia celebrated Elvis' birthday with a deck party.  Nothing like the Oceania demographic of affluent 70-year olds to really party the night away.  I did enjoy a peanut butter - banana sandwich, but left when they held the Elvis impersonator contest.

In Bonaire we left the boat and immediately boarded the Mushi Mushi Catamaran for a sailing/snorkeling trip.  After sailing for 30 minutes we tied up over one of the many reefs.  I took an underwater camera and got a couple of pictures, but mostly it was blue, with coral and fish randomly placed.

Sailing back the wind picked up and really filled the sails.

After a quick lunch we went out and did our best to elevate the local economy.   The art shop was one beneficiary, as were several sidewalk vendors.  We didn't buy any flamingos (and apparently they run wild in large numbers on Bonaire, along with feral donkeys) but did enjoy this shop window.

We did feel safe in the harbor with the lighthouse and cannon guarding us.  Or threatening us if we didn't spend enough.  Or maybe it was aimed at the Carnival Dream moored nearby.  I can hope.

Dave

January 8 -- Curacao

Ho hum...another Caribbean island, another beautiful day.  Somewhat hot and humid during our walk around the city.  Lots of colorful things to be seen.  

The floating bridge is unique.  When they want to open the passage,  the bridge pivots around its western end and swings out of the way.  It looks like there's a BIG outboard motor on the eastern end that powers it around.

There were several big frigate birds circling around, wingspan of more than 3 feet.