St. Lucia

Wednesday, May 13, 2015
St. Lucia

St. Lucia was the most beautiful island we visited.  It was lush and green and probably the best kept.  The roads were better maintained and it just seemed like the economy was a little better on this island.  We went zip lining in St. Lucia.  Our group had to split into two different times but we happened to run into each other as we were getting our equipment on and right as they were coming down from finishing their excursion.  So we got this fun shot of all of the zip liners even though we really went at two separate times.  We all got to wear these really special hairnets under our helmets that made the experience feel especially glamorous.  

Mel and Leah were the guides for the Gariety/Uncle Dave's fam/Natalie group.  We sang them songs while we zipped from place to place.  They each had their own theme song:  "Candy Girl" and "You are my Sunshine."

Watching St. Lucia go by as we left dock that evening.  Mom and Dad had beautiful views from their balcony room.  If I ever do another cruise, I think it might be worth paying for a balcony.

Antigua

Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Antigua

On Antigua, there was a beautiful old cathedral/church that you could see from the ship.  We didn't have much planned for that day, but I just wanted to walk up to the church and then maybe find a beach.  (There are more beaches on Antigua than there are days in a year!)

So we headed out intending to walk up to the church.  I think there were 12 of us in our group, and a group that big doesn't move very fast.  We kept getting bombarded every five seconds by people who wanted to drive us to the church and anywhere else we wanted to go.  But I just really wanted to walk!  But then my Aunt took a spill stepping up onto the sidewalk, and there was a big scene and it became very apparent that a group as big as ours wasn't walking anywhere.  So one of the more persistent taxi drivers who was there for Aunt's fall said he'd be right back with his taxi and he'd drive us there.

So we jumped in another taxi.  This one was not quite as awesome as Jah Flicks.  Here's Reed in the back of our super old van taxi.  Neil was our driver on this island and he was very concerned about Aunt Suzi and made sure she had plenty of hands to hold so as to avoid another catastrophe.

Here is church we saw from the boat.  When we got up there, we discovered it was being renovated.  There was scaffolding everywhere and they had gutted the interior.  Still, it was beautiful.

Here's what you get when the taxi driver takes a shot for you.  We kept saying, "Is the tower in there?"  But nope, it wasn't in there.  Plenty of stairs, though.

Chivalrous young men helping Aunt Suzi

And in the end we made it to a beautiful beach, and enjoyed the water for a good long while.  Beautiful white sands, turquoise water and warm caribbean winds.  What a lovely afternoon!

 Farewell, Antigua!

St. Kitts

Monday, May 11, 2015

St. Kitts

On St. Kitts, the green monkey population is higher than the human population.  So what I wanted to see on St. Kitts was a monkey.  When our stateroom attendant Michael asked what we were doing on the island that day, I him I just wanted to see some monkeys.  He got a funny/knowing look on his face and said, "Oh you will see monkeys.  They are waiting for you at the dock."

I was imagining little green monkeys hanging from trees and me getting out my zoom lens and catching some cool pictures of them.  I didn't expect 7 guys with dressed-up, diaper-wearing monkeys waiting for suckers like us to get off the boat so they could put monkeys all over us and then charge the guys $10 for taking pictures of their monkey laden ladies.  My guys had gone ahead to find us a taxi for the day, so when the guy was telling me I owed him $10, I said, "I don't have any cash--my husband is up ahead, I don't even see him."  Then he started yelling, "Who gonna pay fo dis lady?  Hey, who gonna pay fo dis lady??"  One of my bros-in-law threw some money at him so I didn't get kidnapped and held for ransom somewhere, I guess.  So yep, we saw some green monkeys.  Kind of.  

Arthur found a guy who would drive us around wherever we wanted to go for the day for $18 a person, which seemed fair enough, especially since we could all fit in his "taxi" together and it turns out that driving on St. Kitts is a risky business.  Glad one of our guys wasn't driving a rental car like we had originally planned to do.  James, aka "Jah Flicks" was our friendly St. Kitts taxi driver and we loved him.  If you ever go to St. Kitts, ask for Jah Flicks.  Everyone on the island knew him and would honk and wave and call out, "Hey, Jah Flicks!" as he drove us around.  

He showed us the white egret's nesting site, and the bottle tree, and the "Moh-mon church," since we asked about it.   He took us to these cool sugar mill/rum distillery ruins from the 1800's to do explore the ruins and walk through the rainforest for a bit.  I was really hoping to see some monkeys but we were probably way too loud.  Instead, we climbed some vines, and jump roped with vines and took pictures.  Then he showed us Romney Manor which had some beautiful gardens and a tree that was over 400 years old.  We took pictures of trees and flowers and a cool bell tower.  Then he took us to a few different beaches.  We stayed at the last one for a little bit.  Until Dallin discovered a sting ray swimming around and that scared me out of the water, so I just lay on the beach for awhile getting sand blown on me.  As we were leaving, someone spotted three white mountain goats climbing up a cliff, so I busted out my zoom lens to get a better look! (Yes! got to use my zoom lens.)

We didn't see any green monkeys in the wild anywhere on the island except on our way back to the boat.  Two big ones were just hanging out on the side of the road as we sped by on the opposite side of the street that I'm used to driving on.  We just saw them for a couple of seconds--too short to get a picture of them, but I saw them!  And that deserves a big fat check mark on my one thing I wanted to see on St. Kitts.

the 400 year old tree

A view of the Atlantic Ocean on the left and Caribbean Sea on the right.  Pretty cool.