Steve and Cathy's Blog

Today we arrived around 8:00am in Kingstown, St. Vincent, and the first thing we notice is that the P&O ship Azura that left before we did in Grenada is docked alongside us.

I think this is pretty common during the tourist season, and I look forward to seeing more of them.  As you may recall, we watched yesterday as many of their passengers boarded the ship having had, apparently, a really, really good time at the pubs in Grenada.  Some of them had yelled over that they were heading for Aruba.  Imagine their surprise this morning.  Ah, well.  It’s all good when you’re cruising.

The nation is called St.Vincent and the Grenadines because there is a string of about two dozen islands that are part of the country that runs for about fifty miles in a southerly direction from the main island.  Seven of them are inhabited and are connected by ferries (a picture of three of them head up this post).  Sort of the way the islands of Casco Bay are connected to Portland, Maine.  St. Vincent is another island that was formed by volcanoes, as are many of the Lesser Antilles islands, formed where the Atlantic and Caribbean plates meet.  The French were the first European settlers, but the island’s colonial heritage is mostly British.

We are off on another bus tour, this time with another lovely lady whose name is Janelle.  It’s 9am in the morning, and we fight the daily commuter traffic as we head out of town.  Janelle points out a KFC restaurant, telling us that locally that is known as “Keep the Fat Coming.”  We also pass a huge tank full of molasses, from which Sunset Strong rum, the island’s signature rum, is made.  The city has three main streets running parallel with the shoreline in the harbor and each about a mile long.  Behind them the land begins to slope upwards rapidly into the hills.  Janelle tells us that the city is known as the “City of cobblestone and arches.”  Part of the city sits on land that is reclaimed, reclaimed by the Japanese years ago.

That reminds me to mention something I missed in the Grenada post.  In that country and some of the other island nations hereabouts, the governments have been pretty successful at playing off the major powers against each other.  In Grenada, the Chinese government donated an enormous soccer stadium so that Grenada would promote the idea of “One China,” obviously to downplay the existence of Taiwan as an independent nation.  On this island, the container harbor was built by the Italians – for whatever reason.

Other infrastructure has been given to one island or another in order to build support for certain positions in the United Nations General Assembly.  These relatively poor nations have been very canny in using their power to receive badly needed help from outside.

Okay, back to St. Vincent.  We are to make three stops today, and the first one is Fort Charlotte, a former British fort that stands 626 feet above the shoreline near the city and was built in 1806.  Interestingly, most of the cannons are pointed inland.  It turns out that the fort was built to protect the British from the native Caribs, who had become allied with the French, who were the first settlers.  The cannons were never fired, and British rule was never seriously threatened, but this huge fort, whose walls were built of native stone and floors built with ship ballast, is a monument to colonial times and the complicated politics of that era.

We leave Fort Charlotte for our next stop, the Botanic Gardens of St. Vincent.  On the way, Janelle tells us about breadfruit, which was actually brought to the island in the late 1700s by the infamous Captain Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame.  Breadfruit was brought to be grown on the islands primarily as food for slaves, and she tells us that it is still a primary food for the residents, particularly those with little income.  “You can never have enough breadfruit” the saying goes on St. Vincent, as the fruit is very versatile and can be turned into many dishes.  According to our guide, one breadfruit can feed a family of five, making it an inexpensive staple.

We arrive at the 20-acre Botanic Gardens, established in 1765 by General Robert Melville, this making it one of the first such gardens in the western hemisphere.  There are examples of hundreds of plants, trees and flowers, and we also get a view of the endangered Amazonia Parrot, the island’s national bird, that earned the distinction because its plumage are the colors of the national flag.

After this informative visit, we proceed on the “Leeward Highway”, which Janelle says is as flat is it gets on St. Vincent.  Of course, that simply means that the bus can actually achieve fourth gear occasionally, as it still seems plenty hilly to us tourists.  Our guide explains that this volcanic island is 133 square miles in size and has a population of 110,000 people.  It has a parliamentary governmental structure with a prime minister and legislature consisting of fifteen members.  The ruling party, the ILP (which means the Independent Labor Party, I think) rules with an 8-7 majority.  The island has been ruled by both the French and the English, and has been independent since 1979. Cricket is the national sport, and the country proudly has two citizens playing on the West Indies team.

Janelle also explains an ecological problem plaguing the Caribbean – and Florida as well: an invasion of lionfish.  Idiots bought the fish to put in their fish tanks, and then dumped the fish out into the water when they tired of dealing with an aquarium.  The fish are native to Indonesia or someplace in that area of the world, and have no natural predators here.  Thus they have become a real pest, to the point where there is an effort to sell the idea that they are good eating.  The one drawback is that they have a few poisonous quills, but apparently once these are removed, the fish is quite tasty.  The hope is to make it hip and trendy to eat the darn things in places like New York, driving the wholesale price up to the point where they will be commercially fished.

One other distressing subject that she introduces is a health issue.  The alarming statistic our guide reveals is that approximately 65% of the island has Type 2 Diabetes.  Health authorities attribute this to the sweet-rich diet of the native population, as well as some genetic predisposition due to the hundreds of years of a similar diet, which started back in the days when slaves were fed a sugar-laden diet.  Obviously there is an attempt to combat this severe problem, but it will be a long fight to change generations of eating habits and diet.

During this trip, Steve and Cathy sit in the back of the bus.  Somehow we haven’t gotten the knack of being the first ones on the bus at the beginning of the tour.  Today it is just as well, as we meet two delightful women, Margie from Deptford NJ and Paula from Plainview, Long Island who also found themselves in the rear seat.  Each of them were traveling alone on the ship, but met at an event specifically set up for people traveling singly to meet.  Now they’re traveling buddies.  Good job, Oceania Cruises.  We also chat with Mary Groves who Steve met earlier, another very interesting and intrepid traveler.

Our last stop is at beach bar at the southern end of the island, having passed through the Mesopotamia Valley where most of the island’s fruits, vegetables and spices are grown.  We also have the opportunity to chat for a few minutes with Peter Croyle, the person who conducts the Enrichment Lectures.  Peter is from a small town in Indiana, but for the past thirty-four years has been working on cruise ships presenting these lectures and presenting other interesting information to the guests.  He tells us he’s “homeless,” but admits that what he means is that he is rarely in his condo in Florida and gives it to his parents for their use during the winter.  He is going to be with us as far as Sydney, Australia, at which time he will fly home for a month, partly so that he and his dad can go to the Indy 500 as his father has been doing annually since 1949 and the two have been doing together since the 70s.  What a wonderful family tradition.  After that break, which includes a tasty rum punch, it’s back on board ship after a very interesting four-hour tour with the delightful Janelle.

Passing through the harbor tourist mall, again we pick up post cards to mail, have lunch on board and sack out.  The rest of the day is spent reading (and blogging), as well as waving to the Azura passengers once again as their ship departs.

Dinner follows, tonight in the Grand Dining Room, where Cathy still can’t get over the fact that Foie Gras its as plentiful on this ship as hamburgers in America.

To no surprise to anyone reading this blog, Steve and Cathy are asleep by nine.  Someday we should look into the entertainment, shouldn’t we?