Grand Turk

Docking next to an Oceania cruise ship

Our last port on this cruise is Grand Turk...one of the Turks & Caicos Islands said to be discovered by either Christopher Columbus or Ponce de Leon--that's up for debate. It was the original settlers of the islands, the Taino and Lucayan Indians, that left a rich heritage of seafaring, salt raking and farming. Bermudians came to Turks & Caicos to rake the salt and take it back to Bermuda as salt was a precious commodity in those days. The island of Grand Turk is only 7 miles long and 1.5 miles wide....and very flat, but the beaches are beautiful!

The ship docked at the Grand Turk Cruise Center, which has to be the nicest port we have seen. Walking off the ship, you can step on the beach (after going through the duty free shopping are--the only way out). We took a walk along the beach to Boaby Rock Point on the island, about 400 yards away. The point is known locally as the Conch Graveyard. Removing conch shells from the ocean is illegal in many places, but not here. That's because these shells are on the beach and have already been vacated by their occupants. There were shells of all sizes. Some were broken and eroded by the waves crashing ashore. Others were embedded in the rocks along the shoreline. But there were some in good shape for the beachcombers.

Conch shell

We headed back toward the pier and settled into a couple of lounge chairs with an umbrella right next to the water a little ways down from the cruise center. We spent a relaxing couple hours just people watching, sunbathing, and taking refreshing dips in the crystal clear waters. The Cruise Center area had hundreds of lounge chairs available plus the restaurant/bar at the Cruise Center had a swimming pool for those not wanting to deal with the beach sand.

Cruise Center beach chairs

Our view from the beach chairs

Our little spot on the sand

That's as far as we got while in Grand Turk. Never did make it to the town, Cockburn Town, just a short distance away. I think that John Glenn's capsule from his space launch in the 1960's is displayed somewhere around the town. Guess we'll catch that on another visit.

Sunday is a sea day as we make our way back to Fort Lauderdale, docking on Monday morning. We'll stay 3 days with our Florida daughter before heading back to Colorado.   It's been a wonderful vacation.

Santo Domingo

Today was our first visit to Santo Domingo, which was founded by Spaniards who wished to plant a permanent settlement along the southern coast of Hispaniola, the island the Dominican Republic shares with Haiti. This is the first settlement made by Christopher Columbus and the Spanish explorers in the New World. It has been declared a World Heritage Site. The "Colonial Zone" district dates back to the 1500s.

Our plan for the day included a ship's tour of the Colonial City and Tres Ojos, a national park which contains caves filled with stalactites, stalagmites, and lakes. It was a 4-hour tour that was very interesting. It was nice to have a guide explaining the history of the very old buildings. Our guide, Quirico was very knowledgable and I wish I could remember a fraction of all the information he gave us today. We had to endure the required shopping stop along the way, but that was a good time for a cold drink. The heat and humidity were both quite high today.

The caves of Tres Ojos

Columbus Lighthouse, where Columbus is buried...or not.  Spain claims to have his remains so there is a controversy

Sailaway and we are about to take a swim

Once back on the ship, we enjoyed a swim in one of the aft pools as the ship sailed from the harbor area.
The ship's internet has become the slowest thing I've ever experienced, so adios...
Tomorrow.....Grand Turk

St. Thomas, USVI

St. Thomas is a popular cruise port; I think we have been here on every Caribbean cruise we have taken. But we have never actually seen much of St. Thomas as we would always jump on the ferry to take us over to beautiful St. John for the day. This time, we decided to stay on St. Thomas and the plan was to go to one of the many beaches that people rave about; even after researching several of the popular beaches, we could not make a decision as to which was to go to. We headed off the ship and followed the signs to the taxis. The attendant hooked us up with Timotheus, who has an open air taxi, with benches that can seat about 25 people. He quoted us the price to go to any of the beaches. It's a standard price for all drivers.....$10 per person each way. In the next breath he said that for $5 extra, he would give us a tour of the island and then drop us off at the beach of our choice and pick us up later. We, along with 10 other cruise passengers, thought it was a great idea.

So off we went, through the busy downtown area and then up into the hills above the town. The streets are narrow and quiet away from the waterfront. He worked his way around the streets, stopping just before the end of one street at the top of a hill. He stopped the taxi, got out, and said to us: "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is where it gets interesting!" I think I heard some gulps from behind us and I'm sure everyone's eyes got as big as saucers. "Big Timmy" then broke into a big grin and proceeded to point out to us the exposed wall of the building we were parked next to. It is an original building from back in the early 1800's. The stones were held together with a concoction of molasses and sand, which was used as the mortar.

He turned out to be a great tour guide. We travelled all over, going to the highest point on the island, and stopping at overlooks and beaches, with our guide giving us a facts about the island and pointing out iguanas whenever he spotted one.

We were lucky to have Big Timmy as our guide today

Magan's Bay--on the list of the most beautiful beaches.

Coki Beach--the one to snorkel at

With the great tour that we received and the fact that we got to stop at Coki Beach and get our feet wet, we decided to head back to the port and do a little browsing of the shops in the big mall next to the ship. A quick run through those and we were back on the ship and secured deck chairs at the very aft (back) of the ship overlooking the bay. Before long the ship backed out, turned around and headed out to sea.

Back on ship enjoying the view of the harbor

Goodbye St. Thomas

Also in port today was the Ruby Princess. It docked over at the other port a few miles away. A little trivia about that ship: The "God parents" of the Ruby are Trista and Ryan Sutter of The Bachelorette fame. Just how does being the Bachelorette get you the great perk of being a ship's godparents???? I'm thinking they cruise free and in the best suite whenever they want!

Next port: Santo Domingo

St. Kitts

It's Wednesday and that means we're at St. Kitts. We've been here once before with the kids in 2007. At that time we did a 4-wheeler tour through the plantations and forest. Today we took a ship's tour, which was a catamaran sail along the coastline of St. Kitts and then over to the neighboring island of Nevis. We stopped to snorkle a bit in a protected cove on the coastline of St.Kitts. It was good. The water was warm and clear. Not too much in the way of fish but we did see a variety of coral interspersed with the rocks.

After snorkeling it was time for a BBQ lunch on the catamaran and then we sailed over to Nevis, the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton, one of America's founding fathers. The catamaran left us on a beach for awhile to lay on the sand and play in the waters. After the snorkeling, the beer and rum punch started flowing and by the time we were back in port, everyone seemed to be having a wonderful time moving and dancing to the Caribbean music.

After yesterday's rainy day, it was a welcome site to see blue sunny skies. That's one of the nice things about cruising....if the weather is lousy, just wait a day you will be in a new place.

Next port....St.Thomas.

A rainy day in St. Vincent

St. Vincent is an island that we had not visited before....and we can say that we really haven't visited it yet. We awoke to the ship just arriving in port and saw that it was raining...really pouring! We were hoping to hear from the captain that the forecast would be rain stopping very soon, but that was not the case.

Our plan for the day was a tour with Wayne, called Baleine Tours--a boat ride along the coastline of the island and then a hike into the rainforest to Baleine Falls. After disembarking the ship to meet the tour, we heard the locals say that the forecast was rain all day. We could barely see the hills as the rain clouds were so low. So, we decided to cancel the tour and go back on board. Many passengers did the
same thing. Looked like only the ship's excursions left the port area...cancelling would have meant a refund due. We headed for the covered pool area and secured 2 deck chairs for the remainder of the day.

It did rain all day, except for a brief time around noon where I could get a couple photos from the deck of the ship. Then, the rain started again and it was still raining when we left St. Vincent. A good thing about cruising is that tomorrow we will be in another port and hopefully the rain won't follow.

St. Vincent is one of the Caribbean's least traveled islands....it will still be new to us so guess we'll just have to return some day.

Next port...St. Kitts

Monday in Barbados

Accra Beach

This was our second visit to Barbados. On our first visit in 2009, we visited the Concorde Museum. Riding on the Concorde has always been on Terry's bucket list. Since that is no longer possible, visiting the museum and actually boarding the real thing, was great. This visit we booked a tour with Glory Tours. To our surprise as we expected to be in a group, we were given a private tour with Colin, a local taxi driver who also chauffeurs for Glory Tours. Our first stop was way across the island to the Harrison Caves. We learned that Barbados is the only island in the Southern Caribbean that is not of volcanic origin. The island was formed millions of years ago with ocean sediment that was eventually pushed up by the earth's plates. As a result of all this, about 500,000 years ago the caves were formed. They were used by runaway slaves in the 1600's and then pretty much forgotten until 1970 when 2 geologists came upon them. One of them was named Ole Sorensen, which caught my eye because my nephew's son shares the same name. Several years ago the Chinese invested in property and the result is a wonderful exhibit and tour of the caves. We rode in open cars and descended 160 feet below the surface to view waterfalls, lakes, and plenty of stalagtites and stalagmites. It was beautiful.

Stalagtite or stalagmite??

Next we headed over to Oistin's Beach where we ate lunch near the local fish market. Our guide, Colin, helped us choose a fish for lunch that wasn't too fishy and that choice was Flying Fish. Mac & Cheese is big with the locals so that was the sidedish. Terry did good in sampling the fish--it was actually pretty good. Next Colin took us through the fish market where the daily catches were being processed. One of the workers went to find some Flying Fish so we could see what we had just eaten. She held it up proudly for us to snap a couple photos. We followed Colin through the Oistin Fish Processing Center to the jetty (dock) where Colin had a bag of turtle food ready. Barbados is home to a healthy population of hawksbill and leatherback turtles. Once endangered by over fishing, these creatures are now protected and monitored throughout the island. In some areas, the local fishermen feed and care for them, scraping barnacles off their backs and making sure that their nesting area is safe. The turtles are sociable and tend to stay in the same area. Colin threw the bait in the water and we watched as the turtles came to the surface to feed. We thought we would be swimming with the turtles as we did on our first visit, but the area we were in just didn't lend itself to that, although Colin said we certainly could if we wanted to. We chose to just watch them from the dock.

Next on our tour was a stop at Accra Beach. Colin left us to relax on the beach for awhile. The water was warm, clear, and the sands white. We played in the water for awhile and it felt great. The sun shined bright and hot. There were enough clouds in the sky, as well as gentle breeze, to provide brief periods of respite...for which we were thankful. We left the beach about 1.5 hours later and Colin drove us back to the port, continuing to point out things of interest along the way.

Crystal clear water and white sand beach---ahh!

Here's a bit of trivia about Barbados (from the Princess Patter). This island was a popular tourist destination even back in the 18th century. It was fashionable to go to Barbados for one's health. George Washington accompanied his ill half-brother, Lawrence, to Barbados for a change of air. Unfortunately, during that visit, George contracted the smallpox that marked him for life. Go figure!!

The lion that stands guard over Barbados

Next port....St. Vincent, a new one for us!

Grenada - The spice isle

We are at the halfway point of the cruise. One more night and it will be a week since we boarded the Grand Princess. We can do nothing but accept the march of time and make sure we enjoy the rest of our time in the Caribbean at least as much as we have the days gone by. Today was Grenada - the largest spice-producing island in the Western Hemisphere. Shortly after 8:00 am we walked off the ship and into "the sauna". At least that's how hot and steamy it felt as we walked down the pier.

Fort George

We climbed the hill to Fort George and in a moment of weakness and feeling the heat and humidity, we succumbed to the offer of David, a taxi driver, to give us a 2-hour tour of the island. First time we have not had a tour guide or excursion prearranged and just winged it after arriving at the port. We have been to Grenada before on a cruise with our kids in 2007. At that time we did a ship's tour--river tubing. That was a lot of fun. We thought this time to just explore the port city of St. George a bit on foot and perhaps go to a beach later in the day. Plans changed when we opted for the taxi tour. Another couple from Toronto joined us on the tour. Grenada is one of the world's major producers of nutmeg, mace, clove, cinnamon and cocoa. Our guide pointed out the various spice trees on our drive. We drove through the hills and saw the impoverished living conditions of most of the residents of the island. We stopped at Annandale Falls, where local divers were stationed to jump off the top of the falls into the water below....securing $10-20 (their suggestion) a jump from anyone wanting to take a photo.

At Annandale Falls (a free photo!)

A drawback to this island is that all the locals are out to make a buck when a cruise ship is in port. Whenever we stopped, we were bombarded with ladies selling spices, men singing songs, and young ladies dressed in native clothes with baskets of fruit balancing on their heads--perfect for a photo, all with a price attached to it. It's their chance to make money, but all the selling got real old and when the tour ended at the local spice market near the port, we decided we had enough and worked our way back to the ship. The taxi tour was okay and gave us a glimpse of the outskirts of the city, but we didn't come back wowed by anything we saw.

Typical family home

While we were docked, another ship joined us at the port. A small ship called The World. According to what we heard, the cabins on this ship are privately owned. For a mere $1 million+, one can own their own cabin on the ship and sail around the world. Interesting concept for the rich, I guess.

The World ship

It's perfect weather for the MUTS....that's Movies Under The Stars. On Deck 14, a movie is shown throughout the day and evening. In the evenings special lounge chair covers and blankets are laid out to keep one comfortable watching the movie under the stars. We haven't done this yet but perhaps will before the end of the cruise. I hear popcorn is also available!

Next port--Barbados!