Surprise and some Saints

Day 1 of our cruise started with room service delivering a late breakfast and then the ‘phone rang. “Hello Gavin this is Steve, I am in the Bursars office”!.... That was a surprise for all of us as Steve had told me point blank 18 months ago that they could not come (GFC etc). It turned out Steve had found a heavily discounted package 2 weeks before departure. So much for a trip to Connecticut to see friends. I am not sure any of us are going to be able to believe one another again! Here are the culprits a day or so later as we headed into Saint Thomas (they don’t look guilty do they?). After two days at sea we found ourselves in the warm Caribbean. The cruise is all about extremes of dressing and here we are suitably attired for our first shore excursion, a tour of St. Thomas and some shopping,

and here are the girls ready for dinner!

Although the QM2 master obviously knows these waters well we gained a pilot at each port.

At all the islands we had views of QM2. Compared to some of the other liners which were largely “party” vessels QM2 is very good looking. Our cabin was on the third row down and three from the front on the starboard side (OK the side in this photograph).

The islands we visited all had interesting history and gained independence over the last 50 years or so. Nonetheless they largely reflected their heritage. Our first island St Thomas is strongly tied to the USA. In keeping with all the other islands we visited traffic drove on the left. However as they imported their vehicles from the US all cars were left hand drive. On narrow streets these large vehicles required careful maneuvering. A strange experience. We had an enjoyable tour and did some shopping in the main town of Charlotte Amalie.

The following day found us at Saint Lucia. We had to take the tender into town as water depths were not sufficient for QM2. Our shore excursion was a trip down to hot springs near Soufriére (sulphur in the air) in the SW of the island. We travelled through some beautiful villages and coastline such as Marigot Bay which has been home to a few film sets (eg Blue Lagoon and Doctor Doolittle).

The trip included a visit to a garden where some local produce was on display including Nutmeg (essential for the local rum punch).

The island had been hit with a severe cyclone earlier in the year and one of the biggest slips had killed a family of four, two of whom had still not been found. The force of some of these slips can be gauged from the following picture. Add to this many house being de-roofed by the high winds and some appreciation of the devastation of a 24 hour event can be gained.

Most on this island were very religious (largely Catholic). Our visit to St Lucia was on Sunday and it was apparent that churches were well attended and the participants beautifully turned out in their best clothes despite largely being quite poor.

We then arrived at the wonderfully smelly (sulphur) springs and had a very hot bath. The water temperature was in the high 30ºC which was a challenge even for the bath loving Helen.

but eventually she persevered and took the plunge.

With all our aches and pains miraculously cured (but unfortunately not weight loss) we returned to the ship for a little more indulgence. The food on board was excellent and included in the ticket price. If you had the capacity you could have breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and just in case supper was available all night. We tended to stick with the main 3 meals and did not always have all of the 4 courses that were available.

On our return we stopped for a snack and punch at a local restaurant. This had spectacular views of the Pitons, Soufriére and the Caribbean Sea.
Our third island was Granada which again required a tender trip to get into town.

The main part of this visit was a hike through some gardens (over quite slippery ground) with a wonderful waterfall swim as the main highlight.

The water was fantastic albeit a little cold. It was very hard to swim right up to the fall due to the amount of water flowing. We could have spent a lot longer here but many of our group were all ready well up the return path by the time we had got in!
One of the locals appeared at the top of the fall, waived and then proceeded to do a backward flip down the fall. He repeated the trick in case we missed filming the first version. On the way out he had a mobile tipping box – and we gladly contributed to his living.

The town of St George's was a wonderful contrast of colours and full of activity.On the way back to the ship I again found it difficult not to photograph QM2 from a new angle.