This is a great time of year to be visiting the Caribbean - at least that's what most of the PR blurbs say. Instead of my usual - making my own way - I'm going the tourist way and taking a cruise. I've wanted to explore Caribbean islands for ages but its not the simplist of options when you hate sailing as much as I do.

Island hopping by plane becomes expensive and I'm guessing it would be a hassle at airports. So I'm doing what I never imagined I would - joining a massive P&O cruise ship (the Ventura) in Barbados and cruising to:

St Vincent - Dominica  - St Lucia - Antigua - St Kitts - Gran Turk – Tortola - Barbados.

I have just one day on each of the nine islands, which is obviously insufficient to glean anything really meaningful about the island but what I hope to do is find one special thing about each island. Although that one thing might just be - great beach bar nine times over.

I've already ruled out almost everything that's offered on the usual tourist excursion menus - driving around the island in a minibus, the church, the ruins of an old colonial fortification, shopping, a heritage whatever, and one rum distillery should be more than enough for anyone.

So it looks like my island exploration might involve - getting in a taxi and saying "take me to the best beach bar on the island".

If anyone has been to any of these islands & has any useful suggestion I would love to hear them?

I hav'nt posted much recently - because I hav'nt been travelling much during the middle of the year. I've been working on a book & catching up with other work.

I did manage manage a visit to Portugal earlier this month & this is a picture of a wonderful old windmill just outside the town of Silves in the Algarve.

The Algarve had unbelievably good sunny weather during early November - better than anywhere else in Europe.