[ Main Index] [ Previous Day ][ Next Day ] [ Photo Gallery ]
 |
Name: St. Vincent and the Grenadines Pronunciation: Saint VIN-cent and the GREN-a-dines Size: 150 Sq. Mi. Population: 110,000 Capital: Kingstown Affiliation: English (drive on the left) Independence: 1979 |
Excursion: Scenic Bequia
We got to sleep in this morning because we’re still underway. This is the longest stretch between islands on the tour. We’ve been underway since last night actually and the rocking of the boat made it a little bit hard to sleep so some extra time was nice.
Our first view of the Grenadines:
This morning we had the first talk by the ‘Caribbean Cultures’ guy (Bernard). I was looking forward to it, but he was all over the place. His slides were all 10-12 bullet points with black text on white background. No visuals at all. And his presentation was just a series of seemingly random scattered thoughts. There were a few interesting tidbits. Like Creole isn’t a specific language or culture. It really just means ‘local’. So there are many kinds of creole depending on where you are. It’s really just a mish mash of whatever cultures/ethnic groups were at the particular location – French, Spanish, Dutch, various African ethnic groups (not tribes – not a PC word), or the local indigenous people.
But all in all, it was very disappointing, especially when compared to Josh’s talk on coral the day before. It really seemed like he just hadn’t prepared and thought he’d wing it. But then didn’t wing it too well. He did make sure (multiple times over the course of his 3 talks) to let us know he had written a book and was working on another one.
We were allowed to visit the bridge today. I went up there with Joe. It’s pretty cool to see. And just a few guys running the show. We asked one if he could talk and he said no, he was busy navigating. Which pretty much meant making sure they didn’t run over one of the many sailboats plying these waters. It definitely would be ‘bad’ if our big ship were to run one down. It must be especially tricky navigating at night. I guess that’s what all the radar domes on the top of the ship are for. We stood quietly observing for 5 minutes or so, but not much was happening and when it did, it was in French, so I wandered back down to the room.
The excursion today is a tour of the area, called Biquia. The tour leaves at 1:05 (or so the schedule said). Lunch doesn’t open until 12:00. So it’s going to be a bit of a rush given nothing happens quickly in the restaurant. They’re still setting up as people start jostling for tables and getting in line. Marion and I found a spot but then we didn’t want to both go up to the buffet and have someone take it. So Marion went first. When she got back, the big line had formed. Nobody gets salad quickly. But we finished with a little time to spare. Enough to get all the sunscreen on and head back down.
But, it turns out we’re not leaving until 1:15. Only 10 minutes later but it would have been nice to know. Anyway, everyone is leaving at about the same time for all 3 tours. There’s a catamaran/snorkeling one but most people are going on one of the two drives around the island tours. One is the ‘Scenic’ tour and one is the ‘Exploration’ tour. They’re similar but not quite the same. We are on the ‘Exploration’ tour. The other one seems shorter. Anyway, the vast majority of folks are on our tour.
But to get everyone over to shore on time, they pretty much have to fill up both tenders. They’re designed to hold half the boat each. But not comfortably. And to top it off, it starts raining just as we’re boarding. One of those quick squalls and nothing serious. But as they’re stuffing us all in, we’re sitting near the door. Luckily on the side away from the door. Those on the bench on the other side are getting pretty wet. They finally figure out how to get the door closed. It took some effort.
By the time we reach the dock, it’s stopped raining and the sun is back out. We will be sitting on covered benches in the backs of pickup trucks. 8 people per truck (and 8 trucks!). Our driver is Alvin. He seems like a nice man. I don’t remember the guide’s name but she was good and told us a lot about St Vincent.
As we headed through Port Elizabeth, it started pouring again. The driver and guide had to get out and put the sides of the truck down for us. Poor guys. But we stayed dry. It didn’t last long. They get a lot of rain in these islands (100+ inches in some places) but it seems to happen in 5 minute deluges.
We headed up the headland of the harbor to Fort Hamilton. Which is really just a wall and some cannons at the top of the hill. It’s named for Alexander Hamilton (the famous musical theater actor 😊). He never came to the island but his dad owned some property here. Close enough. I guess there wasn’t anyone famous enough locally. The cannons were never fired. But it never hurts to be prepared. The hill provided a good view of the harbor. And there were 5 or 6 frigate birds circling around. Me and the 3 or 4 people with longer lenses spent time trying to photograph them as the others took their shots of the harbor.
Then we were all called around and the guides from all the buses sang a ‘welcome to Baquia’ song. And then, for no discernible reason I could discover, we were all asked to sing along to Let Me Call You Sweetheart. But it was fun. It’s too many people for too small a space. The tour should have been half the size. But we managed.
From there we headed off to Firefly Plantation, a former sugar plantation. It isn’t one anymore. Now the owner dries sea salt. But we got to see various tropical fruit – star fruit, papaya, golden apple, and big green things which I think they called green papaya, and of course coconut. By the way, ‘golden apples’ are not the golden delicious apples you were thinking of. They’re not actually apples. We got to sample star fruit which was good. And golden apple which was also good.
And we got pieces of sugar cane to chew on and taste the juice. The Smithsonian guy told us a bit about how important sugar was to Caribbean development and the success of the UK. Although really the success of a few sugar barons more than the UK itself. The government took its share but there was definitely a 1% that struck it rich and controlled the government for many years (some things never change).
It took millions of slaves. Sugar production was very labor intensive. Apparently 3 million slaves were brought to the Caribbean over the years. I had no idea it was that many. “Only” 450,000 were brought to America. The women primarily worked the cane fields. The men did the mashing up and heating. Heating was a 3-step process to get the crystals to form and had to be done just right. The work was very hard and life expectancy was not long.
While he was giving his talk (which, btw, didn’t include a lot of the information above, I got it from the Michener book), Marion walked off a little bit to look at some plants (while still listening). The guy’s wife informed her that she should NOT be looking at plants while her husband was talking but should be paying attention to him. Marion’s quality upbringing prevented her from telling his wife what she could do with her suggestion (not that it was presented as a suggestion). This was the first, but not last time we were to learn that the two of them thought pretty highly of themselves.
While we wandered the plantation looking at fruit trees, there were two VERY happy dogs running around having a grand old time. One found a coconut husk to chew on and seemed very happy with that.
After walking around it was up to the restaurant for drinks. I had a rum punch. Quite tasty. Marion had a ginger beer (non-alcoholic). We met an older couple from Washington DC. She used to work for the defense department and had visited Monterey multiple times because there’s some kind of military data analysis facility there she worked with. He didn’t say what he used to do, but he just exuded ‘diplomatic corps’. I can’t tell you specifically why, but both Marion and I had the same feeling.
Then a drive up to Mount Pleasant for the view. We could see some of the other Grenadine islands from there. And some random goats and chickens. But another squall was coming. The guides gave us a warning. Marion and I cleverly heeded it and headed for the truck. Others were slower. We got in just as it rained again. Some other folks weren’t quite so lucky. But it’s a warm rain and if you’re not worried about your camera, not a big deal.
Then back down the hill and back to the boat. We had another talk by Josh the coral guy. This time about his particular research. He’s SO much better than the other guy. He’s got good visuals on his slides. He introduces what he’s going to talk about, talks about it, then summarizes. He doesn’t ramble. All things the other guy does not do.
[ Main Index] [ Previous Day ][ Next Day ] [ Photo Gallery ] [ Top ]