Next morning up and showered early as there are said to be whales to be seen at this time of the year when the ship pulls into Samana, Dominican Republic. Nup - nothing to see but a very early breakfast. Gather in the lounge for my whale watching tour.
Onto a flat bottom boat for 36 eager sightseers. What did happen on this tour was:
- Incredibly rough seas
- A lot of spray over the boat
- Half the people chucking up
- Not enough bags for people to chuck into
Some information:
- There are 40,000 to 60,000 humpback whales in the world
- They come down from Canada to reproduce for just 2 months of the year
- Half of the whales have been identified – this is done by using the black and white marking on the tails which is unique like a fingerprint
- They don’t eat for half the year
- Dominican Republic has a population of 10 million of which 3 million live in the capital Santo Domingo. The second largest Dominican Population is in New York – 1 million.
- Main income is tourism, cacao and the production of 10% of the world’s nickel
- Average income is $US150 per month
- Dominican Republic is half of an island of which Haiti is the other half. 3 million of Haiti’s population live in the Dominican Republic and provide a very productive part of the workforce.
Anyway after three hours on this horror trip we are dropped on a lovely island beach where I sit for an hour getting a bit of sun. I then have one of my toughest negotiations to get a 30 minute massage which was awesomely good. A 48 year old woman with 5 grandchildren.
I head back to the ship and another hour in the Jacuzzi before watching a really great musician playing the Mandolin as well as various world flutes including Ireland, Norway and Slovakia. His medley from Fiddler on the Roof on the mandolin was outstanding.
The first disappointing meal in La Cucina Italian Restaurant but I will forgive one meal as all the others were excellent.
A short spiel at the Casino (small win) and off to bed ready for swimming with dolphins in Tortola tomorrow.
I have a stretch of six stops in a row on this cruise followed by 2 days at sea before Miami.
Wednesday and a day I am most looking forward to – “Swimming with Dolphins”. I get my usual reason to wake up – Telstra advising that overseas calls and data can be expensive. While my phone is on silent I hear it vibrating on the desktop.
Early breakfast – well 09:00 and a two hour walk around Tortola before my 12:00 tour. The supermarket was fascinating – bread (frozen) $US5.45, Milk $US2.70 for one litre and everything so expensive - of course – absolutely everything is imported. The population of the British Version Island is 30,000 and the minimum wage is $5 per hour or around $11,000 per annum.
Back to the ship to join the tour and off to the dolphin park which consists of 5 or 6 large pools with one or two dolphins each. The company that operates this facility seems to have another 6 to 8 around the Caribbean and Mexico.
One amazing thing about Tortola is that the cars are all left hand drive and they drive on the left side of the road meaning that the driver is always adjacent to the footpath – truly bizzare.
A short (7 min) intro, photo time (yawn) and a lifejacket and into the tank where we get kissed, kiss a dolphin shake hands and get pulled along by a dolphin. I agree to take photos of Alberto, a guy I have met at dinner from Italy and he to take pictures of me using my waterproof camera in return. A truly amazing experience that is hard to capture on film but here are some shots.
Shower off afterwards and have a poor lunch using wi-fi on my iPad before returning to the ship for the third shower of the day and a pre-dinner rest. I decide on my first meal in the main dining room and it is excellent - smoked salmon tartar and some other nice dishes.
Nine o’clock and I head off to what was a remarkable sleight of hand magic show. It was done by a magician sitting at a table with a video camera showing all of his tricks on a screen the size of a movie screen or maybe even bigger. I must say this guy was G-O-O-D. He had appeared in Las Vegas at the MGM and Venetian but the combination of his patter and the tricks were a-m-a-z-i-n-g.
A good night of sleep and I wake and shower to see us pulling up at St Maarten or if you are on the French side St Martin. Albi from yesterday had not booked any tours so we decided to share the cost of a car and drive around the island. It is split between a French Colony and Dutch Colony and they couldn’t be different. Dutch take dollars EVERYWHERE while French only take Euros. On the Dutch side everybody is friendly while on the French side everybody is well…French.
Albi and I are a good combination as he drags me from beach to beach and I drag him from shop to shop. The French side is very expensive while perfume, jewellery and alcohol is amazingly cheap on the Dutch side. Absolut plain $A11.50 a litre and Dewars 18 year Scotch $A48.50 a litre – a little too far to schlep though.
We visited: Maho Beach where the airport runway is across the road from the beach with a warning that aircraft thrust can cause physical harm and death; Marigot, the capital of French side; Grand Kays Beach; Oriental Beach, Dawn Beach and finished up in Philipsburg to shop (no damage) and return the car and watch the beautiful sunset as we left port heading for Antigua.
Dinner at the Steakhouse was made for me. Just ordered four appetisers Prawn Cocktail, crab cakes, Portobello mushrooms with crab and oysters. Just delightful! Then went with some friends to the comedy show which was musingly so lame “My wife ran away with my boyfriend two years ago and gee I miss him so much” yawn – which is what I did yawn and off to bed.
Next morning the weather is delightful as we pull into Antigua where I go for a 45 minute walk around what is a small town before my tour which comprises highlights and a lobster lunch which was pretty darn good. From one of the lookouts we can see Montserrat which is a volcanic island just 28kms away. We also spent an hour at Turner’s Beach Bar where I wet my feet and chilled at the bar in the most beautiful combination of sun sand sea one could imagine – more than I can say for the bar but it was part of the tour.
The highlights mainly comprise lookouts over the beautiful oceans that surround the islands 365 beaches while lunch at Nelson’s Dockyard is excellent. It is the only still operating 18th Century dockyard. Antigua is the home of an annual yacht race and moored at the Dockyard are amazing yachts and $50m+ boats of the rich and famous which come from all parts of the world. I spoke to an Aussie crewman of probably the largest cruising boat there who said it comes from the Netherlands and takes 18 days to reach Antigua. There was space underneath with room for maybe five or more cars to be driven onto the boat.
Antigua is totally dependent on tourism and cruise ships and is still quite rustic with a lot of agriculture – mangoes, pineapples, cocoa, bananas, some of which they do export. However like most of the islands they are very dependent on imports to survive.
The ship leaves at 16:00 as it is a stretch to make Barbados in time arriving at 10:00 the next morning. I sleep for a few hours because of which I miss the Shabbat Service which I always go to on ships to meet people and I am really annoyed. Dinner in the main dining room with some Americans from Missouri and Tennessee – quite interesting and a guy from Idaho who is a hunting guide as in takes people to shoot animals.
No show for me tonight as I am pretty tired to turn in around 21:30 falling asleep not long after.
Next morning we arrive at Barbados (on what we find out is a public holiday), an island of 300,000 inhabitants. No tour organised as nothing appealed and I had been here before.
Albi and I again agree to share a car which we rent on the wharf. Off past Sandy Lane for our first beach stop. The water is an amazing colour and so inviting but the beach and I continue our torrid love affair. We drive up the West side and then down the East side which is very rough indeed as the Atlantic Ocean creates wild surf and currents according to the signage along the coast.
We head inland and to the wildlife sanctuary which I had previously visited but enjoyed for a second time. We head down south for a beachside lunch and then…..Yes Kids I found it….. the 350 year old Nidhe Israel Synagogue right in the centre of Bridgetown the capital. Last time we looked for this we wound up at the Mosque with a taxi driver that had no idea what a Synagogue was. There are currently 84 Jews in Barbados of which 8 are black. The original community of 800 came from the Portuguese Inquisition in Brazil. On High Holidays 40 of them gather at “the other Synagogue”
The Synagogue rebuilt at various points due to hurricanes is quite beautiful in a Moorish style. The Bahai faith guide was exceptionally knowledgeable about the Synagogue, religion and community even knowing the names of Jewish Families who had changed their names. He himself had traced his family back to 1086 and the change from Judaism during the Spanish inquisition. All very interesting even to Albi. A bit about Albi, he is a 25 year old Masters Student in
International Relations specialising in Human Rights. He is politically worldly and we have had many robust discussions about religion, politics, and fundamentalism. He is trying to get a three month internship in Saudi Arabia with the Foreign Ministry after which he hopes to do a PhD in London.
A quick walk around the wharf and back to the ship for dinner at the French Bistro - most of which was excellent. I then go to a hypontism show which was very good fun followed by a quick spiel (profitable) and sleep.
Some Pics...
Hope all is well
Love to all
D
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