Maho beach was pretty grim looking builders yard with piles of sand which was whipped up by the constant overflying of incoming aircraft. Mullet Bay, a few minutes walk further on was a lovely beach although it gradulally filled up with crowds & attracted catamaran excursions. It took over two hours to crawl back into Philipsburg in a public shared taxi that cost just $5US compared with the $9 charged by the port taxis.
Eight cruise ships all converged on St Martin today - there was not enough room for them all to berth & they landed upwards to 25,000 visitors on the island. Terminal approach roads had the look of the streets around a football ground on match day. The town of Philipsburg on the Dutch side was horrendously choked with nose to tail traffic at 8.30 in the morning. It took over an hour to crawl through sprawling tourist developments spilling for miles along the coast.
Maho beach was pretty grim looking builders yard with piles of sand which was whipped up by the constant overflying of incoming aircraft. Mullet Bay, a few minutes walk further on was a lovely beach although it gradulally filled up with crowds & attracted catamaran excursions. It took over two hours to crawl back into Philipsburg in a public shared taxi that cost just $5US compared with the $9 charged by the port taxis.
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The British Virgin island of Tortola is still an oversea territory & its capital Road Town is smarter than most island capitals we've seen. The much trumpeted Cane Garden Bay IS probably a lovely beach, if you could see any of it through the rows of packed sunbeds filled with cruise ship passengers. Just a few miles further south was Long Bay, a fabulously empty beach fringed with coconut palms & just one little hotel with a nice beachfront restaurant. There were more diving pelicans than people & the soft sand & warm water were a double joy after visiting Cane Garden Bay. Down at the island's tip was the smart & elegant Soper's Hole marina which could have been transported from one of America's northeast coastal islands - smart open fronted bars, boardwalk with little shops & a host of sailing boats bobbing in it's marina. Tortola is a very wealthy island, plenty of huge houses & little evidence of poverty. The Callwood Rum distillery is a rare historical treat that still works the way it did in the 1800s & it looks like it. Rubbish is a big problem on small islands & a group of ecologically minded individuals (GreenVI) recycle glass and make useful objects & gifts from waste.
Woke to a bank of sea fog & cloud cover as we steamed south towards the Virgin Islands. The ship is impeccably run, everywhere is pristine, cabins of course but also every public area. The food is excellent and available around the clock - which becomes more significant when at sea all day. Drinks are similar to prices at home & sometimes cheaper than on the islands.
Many of my expectations on this first ever cruise have been wrong. The quality, standards & service are easily hotel 4 star hotel standard & the food consistently exceeds all expectations. Hygiene standards are first class as passengers have to use hand cleaner when returning to the ship & before entering any restaurant. The passengers were an amazingly eclectic group from 25 stone, bald, tatooed hulks to genteel old ladies and families with young children, there were quite a few babies. The freedom to dine wherever you want was also a great surprise & vitally important because 'cruise bores' were a constant problem but there were plently of tables for two - the Ventura really does have every angle covered. Wow, Grand Turk is totally different from all the other islands - a coral reef as opposed to the usual volcanic origins of the others visited. The ship drew up alongside a splendid beach with a smart cruise terminal, but nothing else. The island capital Cockburn was on the other side of the island.
Most people flopped down as close to the ship as possible but further along towards Governor beach it was very quiet. Sat in front of Jack's Shack on powder soft sand, gently shelving into warm turquoise water - my best ever beach, beating Maldives, Seychelles & Fiji. A day at sea as we steam towards Grand Turk. A lazy day for some but many others every minute of the day is filled with onboard activities - live premiership football, competitions, deck games, line dancing, ice carving, quizzes, a talk on Nelson in the Caribbean, the Great Gatesby film and of course an endless stream of shopping, eating, drinking, gambling & an array of music & spa themed activities.
This evening is one of four Black Tie dining occasions & most people really make the effort. Nobody knows where the chunky eating machines go on these occasions but its suspected that they don't venture far from the all you can eat buffet on deck 15. 'Strictly' has made it onto the high seas so there's a Black Tie Ball where couples that have had ballroom lessons with Pam & Peter can show off their new skills. Less elegant passengers went to the Reggae evening or to the Karaoke evening in the Brit-styled pub. A bit more exploring today. The island capital, Basseterre is tidy & smart & well worth a stroll. Elvis Gumbs a taxi driver (https://www.facebook.com/elvis.gumbs1) gave us a tour of the island & drove to Bloody Point where it was a relief to find that it was not the British that conducted this massacre. An old sugarcane factory ruin was crumbling into the rainforest with more than a hint of Angkor Wat about it - at least after the tour buses had gone.
It's a prosperous island with a new international airport, many grand houses owned by sucessful islanders as well as decent public housing for others. The impressively huge 640 roomed Marriott hotel is bizarrely built on the northern Atlantic coast, a business mistake surely, as most visitors want to be on the better southern Caribbean Sea coast. I didnt see a soul on their beach. Compared to the Carambola Beach Club on Frigate Bay, which was built by a local guy & has a perfect Caribbean beach aspect - great restaurant, bar & beachside facilities but no accommodation - & was crowded. Further along on South Friars Bay is the wonderfully rustic Shipwreck bar & grill where I had conch fritters which I was expecting to be like sliced scallops but they looked like deep fried meatballs but with a spicy fish flavour & Brimstone hot sauce dip. The beach was not the best, being a bit narrow but sunbeds were a third of the price of elsewhere, St Kitts Stag beer was also cheaper. The little streets of Antigua's capital of St John's are regularly clogged with traffic & its not the islands highlight. It boasts 365 beaches (cf Malta's 365 chruches) so sun worshipers have many decisions to make. I opted for Dickenson's Bay which had plenty of upmarket & rustic beachside facilities. Crowds huddled around Sandles Resort but they thinned out nicely at both sides. Plenty of watersports were on the go but were not intrusive.
Another beach day, another lazy day of reading, swimming & assessing the beer at Sneaky Pete's beachside bar & rum punch made in a fresh coconut shell. St Lucia is a world away from the previous islands - the place & the people are distinctly more prosperous & therefore more friendly to visitors. Skipped past the capital Castries & took a taxi straight to Rodney Bay. What a fabulous beach, perfect coral sand, gently lapping warm water and some great beachside bars & restaurants. Swam, read & ate wonderful fish in the palm fringed Spinnaker restaurant. A perfect lazy day in the Caribbean.
Next morning we woke up in Dominica - the most mountainous of all the Caribbean islands with more rainforest & better waterfalls than anywhere else. It's also a good place for whale watching but has no great beaches.
The capital, Roseau had few charms, the pavements were broken up or non-existent so walking around was awkward & unpleasant. Did find a good bar in Harvey Street but the white faces attracted some persistent begging. Arrived in St Vincent's capital Kingstown, a fairly grubby place so decided on a beach day & took a water taxi from the dock to Villa beach. It was a decent boat taking 15 minutes around two headlands to the southern coast. Some misleading TripAdvisor reviews led me to expect a great beach but it was small & very narrow. The mixed coral & volcanic sand was good but the black streaks made it look like dirty oil stains, but it was'nt.
As more people arrived it got crowded & hawkers were rife but it was great to get beer on the beach but I was disappointed to miss out on the homemade roti that sold like hotcakes. Someone stopped to yell at me but failed to make his point as I had no idea what he was talking about. The weather was sunny & cloudy & then some light rain blew in followed by a torrential squall that emptied the beach - it seemed to come out of nowhere. The boat ride back was very misrable. |