~ the Equinox Adventures ~
3/3/2010
Wow! I guess I have a bit catch up on. But before I do, let me tell you that it is mostly sunny here in Barbados, with a high of 87F. Gorgeous day for sailing, with calm rolling seas, and a nice little wind. I also have to tell you that below our windown on the pier, there is a steel drum band playing "Dancing Queen" - its not so much that I like the song so much, but rather that it seems to fit here. Life is good. Here is the morning view. But, let's get you caught up on yesterday's grand adventure!
When we last left, we were headed up to get a bite before heading out on our "3 Hour Tour..." (how come I always seem to find 3 hour tours?). The harbor in St Lucia is really pretty, although there are some coastal defense ships (that's what I am calling them!) tied up.
But it really was like something out of a storybook.
And all I could think was that I could have been on a Pirate Ship all day long.
Well, it didn't happen. So we went out and found the spot for our tour. When we got there, we were the only passengers, so we figured, hey, this might not be too bad. Wrong. There was someone else taking the people who found the first girl, brought them to a mini-van, and sent them merrily on their way when the bus was full. We filled the bus we were on, so right after we got on, off we went. And here was my view for the entire trip!
The drive thru town to get to the mountains was crowded, and like most islands in the Caribbean - very tight with plenty of traffic. But we saw some of the highlights, including this tree that dated back some 400 or more years. It even has a name - for one of the two nobel laureates born on the island.
Once out of town, we started up the mountain. Here is the ship just before I lost sight of it in the harbor below.
Now, do you remember Mr Toad's Wild Ride as a kid? Bump that up a couple of orders of magnitude, and put it on steroids, and you will begin to understand what it was like on this trip. Switchbacks, tight turns, and almost enough room for 2 cars to go past eachother in opposite directions was the order of the day. Our tour guide was pretty good. He was originally from Ghana, but settled in St Lucia to be with his wife (who he subsequently divorced, but he stayed - his two sons are now in NYC, and one just enlisted with the US Marines. Yeah, plenty of time to chat. Ask me about their National Healthcare Scheme one day!). We did stop a banana plantation, and saw how they were grown. This is a valley with a bunch of banana trees growing in it.
We stopped at some women who were selling handmade reversible dolls (flip them upsidedown, and the doll is now upright with a different outfit on. They are kind of cute. My mother bought a pair of them for Allie and Hannah (the granddaughters). We also stopped at a fishing village. I bought a tee shirt at one of the stalls ($10 - cheaper than Buffett concert shirts! And thicker!). There was a guy with a fish they caught, and we were talking to him about how they catch the fish, and how the old guy was fixing his net. I took a couple of pictures, and gave him a couple of bucks. The island overall is quite poor. I figure I spend more than that for a drink on the ship - and its not like we don't drink on these cruises. Here they are, in their world debuts!
We drove over another mountain, and got to the city of Soufries, which lays at the foot of the Grand Pitons. Here they are with and without the city.
And just Soufries. Next time I take a boat to Soufries!
Next we headed over to a plantation for a tour. They had some really pretty flowers in bloom.
One of the things I found interesting were the bathrooms in this place. A series of cottages with a men's and lady's room in both the front and back. There had to be like 4 or 5 of these cottages! Sorry, but it is my blog, and the things I find interesting get put in it!
They had a replica Carribe settlement. They had a kitchen, main meeting house (it has a bar in it - makes me wonder of authenticity!), and sleeping hut. Here is the kitchen - an no, there is no stove (I looked).
This is the Master's house for the plantation, and apparently it is still used by the people who own the plantation (and let the historical group do tours in it) when they come in from Martenique - once every couple of months.
This is the view from the manor house overlooking the bay. And there are some really nice breezes coming up from the ocean, too.
THe really interesting part of the tour surrounded cocoa. They have cocoa plants on the property, and make their own cocoa cigars, powder, lotions, vinegar, soap, etc. It all starts in the Cocoa House (I am not claiming it is an original name or anything!)
In there they cracked up a pod. It has a whole bunch of seeds in it. We got to taste the slimy coating for the seeds - strangely citric. They take the seeds, and ferment them in the slime (I forget for how long), then when ready, put them on these huge rolling tables to dry in the sun for a number of weeks. When they are done drying, they get out into a metal cauldron, and a guy does the "traditional cocoa dance" on them. Didn't really understand why they did that (may have to look it up when I get home - no sense wasting internet minutes on the ship on that).
Once they are done dancing, they take a bunch of seeds, and put them in a big mortar and pestal, and pound the beejivas out of them, making a sticky paste that they roll into "cigars." You can use this to make hot chocolate, or just eat. All those gourmet chocolates, with their high percentage of cocoa - well, this stuff is 100% cocoa - no additives!
I bought one of the cigars for Calli - the only true chocolate freak in my world. Here is the recipe for hot chocolate made from it.
Then we found out about coconuts and what they could do with it, we ll as some other fruit of the plantation (like the bread fruit that our guide was holding) I bought a little bag of the cocnut candy they make there - think primitive macaroons.
Then we left to go to this famous waterfall they have. This was to be the swim stop. It turned out to be a pretty scenic stop, but the lake/pond/puddle at the foot of the falls was not worth getting wet in for a few minutes, and being wet for the rest of the trip. But it was cool because of the falls there. But for those of you who have seen this, Bash Bish is a far more impressive waterfall.
For those of you with sharp eyes, you might have noticed my mother and Joe in the lower right side of the picture. They look like this.
A woman who was there set them up in this pose, which I snapped as well (I love to steal other people's shots while they are counting to 3).
There were also pretty flowers there, too! This one is a Mimosa flower, I think they said - I just wanted to know where the champagne was! Then we headed back along the road by which we came (I was really hoping that there was a more direct road - no such luck). And since we were running behind, we drove even faster than we did on the way out!
We did stop at one spot to get a drink (my mother bought an ice cream) that overlooked an inlet that looked like the perfect place to pull into on your yacht and stay for dinner or the night. It was so pretty. It was a shame I wasn't on the water!
We had one last stop before we got back to the ship to see an overlook of a spot that was in the Pirates of the Caribbean. Actually, there apparently is a ship that they used to make the movie plying these waters and taking tourists out for rides. Alas, I wasn't taking that tour, either! Then we finally got back to the ship - at 3:30!!! We were starving (you notice no mention of real food in these writings), so we went and had a hamburger, fries, and onion rings on Deck 14 overlooking the pool. It was fabulous!
Oh, and we ran into Mike & Deb as we walked thru the ship - sort of. They were taking the line dance lesson on Deck 4. Interesting, I have to say. Then we went to the show. It was their version of Circ du Solei, and I have to say, it was pretty amazing. Some of the acts were not as strong as what you would find at a real Circ show, but they had at least 7 specialty acts in their troope of performers, and that is pretty much unheard of on a cruise ship. They had strength acts, rope acts, and amazing juggler, and you have to consider that they are doing it on a moving stage. It was fabulous and got a well deserved standing ovation. My gripe with the show was, like some of the Circ shows, they didn't have a story (even a thin storyline) to pull thru the different acts. They just pretty much did their thing, with no comic relief. It makes for a better show, I think. But if you are onthe ship and have a chance to see it, don't miss out! Of course, the night was not over yet - oh no! One thing we discovered yesterday was that my mother had booked an excursion (I was under the impression she hadn't picked one) for Barbados (today). We had tried to get on her excursion, but all the ship's excursions were sold out. So after the show, we went to the internet (and CruiseCritic.com) to see what they recommended on the boards. We found one that sounded good, and I sent out an email. We had talked to Mike & Deb about going out together, and they wanted to know what we found. So, the late night comedy show was their version of the Newly Wed Game. So we met them up there to talk about what we had found. And the game was really funny. They had an older couple who had been married only 5 years, one married 17 years, one 32 years, and the last couple - 50 years. It was really funny to see what they said to the questions (they guys allseemed to know their wife's bra size!). It was the couple married 32 years who won by a single point over the couple married 50 years. That, of course, brings us to today! When we got up, I checked to see if we had heard from the tour operator I had emailed last night (at 10pm). No luck. They had a phone number, so at 8am I called. As it turned out, they were completely booked. The lady I was talking to was kind enough to ask what I was looking for, so I told her we wanted to snorkel, and one of the big attractions here in Barbados is that there are places to swim with sea turtles, so it would be nice if we could do that, too. Just so you know, we just pulled out of Barbados - beautiful calm seas out this evening. The lady told me to call her back in 5 minutes. I gave her 8 (why rush things). She gave me the number of a guy who could take us out for a 3 hour tour doing exactly what we wanted to do. So I called. We arranged a time and place to meet, I called Mike & Deb and told them of our new plans. And off we went! The catamaran we went out on was the El Tigre (I actually thought he had said L.T. Grey was the ship on the phone). We were slated to go out to a shipwreck to snorkel (an old cargo ship that went down in the 60s, I think they said), then to the turtle beach, and then get dropped off to drive back to the boat.
Everything went without a hitch, which you wouldn't expect for something this last minute. We got on her, and headed out past the bay.
Mike is the guy in the hat standing up in this shot. He is bringing me a drink. Good guy, huh?
If you ever wondered what it looked like as a cargo ship beared down on a catamaran, here is the view (minus the anchor chain of the cargo ship, of course).
Then we had a great downwind run to the turtle beach (turned out we were going to do that first).
It was so good to be back at sea in a small boat! I sat on the beam forward of the trampoline, and loved every minute of it! A gentle following sea (we were running about 10-15 knots - wind power alone - and were going just a little faster than the seas were running, so it was a very gentle, smooth ride).
There were quite a few people at the snorkeling site, which probably kept some of the turtles away. Luckily, there were some brave souls that came up, including one huge one - who stay deep enough that I couldn't shoot him. Oh well, the one I did get to shoot came out nice!
The second stop was a snorkel on a wreck - old cargo ship that went down in shallow waters.
There were tons of fish (especially when the crew tossed pieces of rolls over the side, close to the swimmers.
There was also a very nice coral area to explore - nothing too exciting, but pretty enough (the problem with having snorkeled at quite a few sites around the Caribbean - you get fussy!). Then the boat sailed into an adjoining beach (like right onto the beach), dropped over a set of stairs, and we walked down off the boat, to an awaiting van for the ride back to the ship. Once we got back, it was up to the Burger Bar where we ate after coming back yesterday - burgers fries and onion rings ended a pretty good excursion. Now it is time to get ready for dinner at Murano - the steak house specialty joint - to celebrate Deb's birthday! See you all later! Keep Smiling!!!
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Of course, this means that dinner was less than 3 hours aways, which we ate, since we are on a cruise ship after all, and meals are served every 40-50 minutes here!
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