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Excursion: Private Beach and BBQ Lunch
The ship moved to a new spot in the Grenadines around 6 am. I went up to the lounge (my favorite spot on the ship) to check out the sunrise and had a nice chat with Scott. We spent some time capturing the sunrise and trying to get one of the birds in the picture. My phone embellishes sunrise/sunset pictures. It made the sunrise look a lot better than it actually did. But hey, a good picture is a good picture.
We have a beach day today. A nice break from the excursions. We’re parked by Mayreau Island and have a private beach to ourselves. Private in the sense of Marion, me and the other 140 people on the boat. But still very nice. We took the first tender over, and being the young and fit folks that we are, easily outpaced most of the older folks to the spot where the beach chairs were set up, thus securing a prime spot with a) an umbrella for me, b) sunshine for Marion, and c) in the first row of chairs so we weren’t stuck in the 2nd or 3rd rows trying to see the beach and bay over other people. Score!
It’s a beautiful spot. There are 10 or 12 sailboat/catamarans in the bay. The sun is out and the water is warm. We got settled in and went in for a swim. The more intrepid folks headed right to the one side where the best snorkeling was supposed to be.
After bobbing around for a bit, I decided to give the snorkeling a try. This was the first time with the gear provided by the boat. So we’ll see. And try number two to use the underwater case with the old phone. And failure number two. Well success on the one hand. The phone did not, in fact, get wet. But, for reasons I have given up trying to determine, the screen press just doesn’t work in the water. Works fine when it’s sealed in on land. But once it gets wet, nothing. So it’s dead to me now. Too much of a hassle. And Josh, the coral guy, promised to send us a link to all the pictures he’s taking so that should cover that. (Except now, over a month later, nothing from him…)
The good news was the mask from the boat worked really well. The bad news is the snorkel did not. For some reason it kept filling with water. Not from the top, but from the bottom where there was some kind of valve. I found that if I sucked the whole thing into my mouth, not just the ‘place teeth here’ part, it mostly worked. And moleskin applied to the toes that got chafed on the last snorkel run worked really well. A big thank you to Marion, the planner, who has a whole pharmacy of ‘just in case’ with her. She’s good to travel with.
The beach had a ‘ridge’ of rocks between the sand and the water where the waves crashed. But not waves so much as just a swell. But it made things interesting for some of the older folk. Especially if they didn’t have water shoes. You’re trying to step carefully on the rocks, and getting pushed back and forth by the swell. Going in wasn’t too bad since you dropped down. But getting out, you had to step up and the undertow pulls you back, so it takes a bit of effort. There were a couple of people I wasn’t sure were going to make it out. But everyone did.
A quick rest and then it’s time for lunch. They’ve set up an elaborate lunch buffet on the beach. Very impressive. Salad bar, multiple entrees, fruit, desserts. The whole shebang they do on the boat. Plus napkins, cutlery, water and wine glasses on the picnic tables. It must have taken them forever and lots of people to do it. But it was really nice. Luckily, they didn’t have to contend with monkeys trying to steal the food, like they did for a similar beach day we had in Costa Rica. But the wind was fairly strong which made things a bit dicey for them.
We had lobster caught the day before in Bequia. Yum! And we cleverly hopped to it when they said ‘lunch is served, you should go now to avoid the line’. And we did. Pays to listen to the staff (if we actually hear them). Like the other day on Mount Pleasant when someone said ‘looks like it’s going to rain, you might want to head back to the Jeep’.
After lunch we both gave snorkeling a try. This was Marion’s first time. Her snorkel had the same problem as mine and her mask leaked. If we’re going to keep going snorkeling, it’s time to buy some custom gear that fits and works for us. And (for me at least) with prescription glass. The water magnifies a bit. But if the fish is more than 3 feet away, it gets pretty blurry. I had forgotten that the last time I went snorkeling, some years back, I was still wearing contact lenses.
The first time I went in I got my flippers on and tried to walk and of course you can’t because you have long duck feet. So I figured out you can walk backwards a lot more easily (just slide your feet). I moonwalked into the water. The second time I couldn’t manage to stand up with my flippers on for some reason. So I just pushed myself forward until I was buoyant and went in feet first. I can only pray that no one was filming it.
But the snorkeling was decent. Not as good as Sugarloaf but better than the first place we went the other day. Not teeming with fish but I still saw quite a few. Including a blue barjack which is what Josh thought I saw the other day (based on my description, he never saw it) but wasn’t (based on Marion’s ‘Guide to Caribbean Animals’ book). Anyway, I’ve now seen them both. My favorite was a mostly black one with bright blue neon on his tail and the top of his body. It was not in Marion’s book so I don’t know the name. But it was cool looking.
I was heading towards the point since someone had told me there were more fish there, but realized (luckily) that the current was much stronger there and I was heading out to sea. So I hightailed it back to shore before I ended up in the mid-Atlantic.
We decided to swim instead and bobbed around for a while. Just enough water movement that you need to fight against it a little bit, but not enough to be problematic. Deep enough to be up to your neck but still able to stand. Very nice.
While we were out there, we noticed that Paul and Sylvia had dragged their beach chairs well off to the side under a tree and had their own little enclave. Clever. We should have thought of that.
We caught a tender about 2:30 and headed back to the ship. Having avoided any nasty sunburns. Well, Marion got a bit pink on her back but nothing serious. I managed to spend a week in the tropics and not get any red at all. A minor miracle.
‘Tea Time’ today had an ‘American’ theme. The French idea of American cupcakes is a bit off, but they were still pretty good. We played ‘Caribbean Bingo’ (words of various islands, foods, dances, etc.). Marion got within one of the win, but someone beat her too it. The prize was a free trip. From St Vincent to St Lucia. Which is, of course, where we are and where we’re headed.
Then it was time for the 2nd talk by the slavery guy. This talk was focused on the trans-atlantic slave trade. He was a bit more organized this time but still. Black and white bullets on the slides that he somewhat followed. Really? That’s the best you can do?
He pointed out that slavery was not a ‘black’ thing. There were white slaves too. In fact, the original plantation workers were white indentured servants. There was also black on black slavery in Africa. The various ethnic groups and kingdoms in Africa all fought each other and took slaves. In fact, and I didn’t know this, the Portuguese who first explored Africa from Europe weren’t looking for slaves. They wanted gold. The Africans offered them slaves. It was largely an economic thing. It only later became a racial thing. Not the other way around.
Despite all this, he was very disparaging of England and to some degree the colonial US because we built the slave ships for the trade and people got rich from that. But he never mentioned how the Africans got rich from it too. (The ones selling the slaves of course, not the actual slaves…)
There were something like 10-12 million people enslaved over the course of 400 or so years. I had no idea it was that large. That’s because “only” about 450,000 came to the US, 3 million plus to the Caribbean and another 3 million to Brazil. Some to North Africa (Islamic slavery) and it was unclear where the rest went. East Indies maybe? He didn’t say.
In fact, he had a knack for asking us a question and not giving the answer. Perhaps he didn’t know the answer. For example, he said it’s surprising that despite only 450,000 slaves coming to the US, there are 100 million+ blacks in America now. But there’s wasn’t an equally large increase in the black populations in the Caribbean. Strange, yes? Why do you think that is? We don’t know. He apparently doesn’t either or isn’t going to tell us.
My speculation (and Marion loves when I speculate) is two-fold. The primary reason being that the slaves were worked to death in the Caribbean. As bad as American slavery was, Caribbean slavery was much worse. I’m guessing a lot of folks didn’t make it to childbearing age. Especially since he said the women largely worked the fields. And second, these islands are not big. There’s not a lot of room for a 10x increase in population. So it naturally didn’t occur and/or they left (once they could).
In a similar vein, he mentioned that a really large number of slaves came through Antigua. Yet it’s a tiny dot of an island. So why did they all go there? It’s a mystery. He did not tell us.
In my ongoing efforts to be open to new things, I had venison for dinner. I don’t think I’ve ever had it. It was pretty good. Very lean and tender. Not gamy. And excellent mashed potatoes. But sadly, no chocolate ice cream like last night. Just vanilla and strawberry sorbet. Which were good but the chocolate was REALLY good and I want more. Maybe tomorrow night.
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