Isla Catalina

Wednesday, December 4th
Seabourn Sojourn
Isla Catalina, Dominican Republic
Arriving:  9:00 AM
Departing:  5:00 PM
Partly Sunny - 86 Degrees

Isla Catalina is just a mile and a half off the coast of mainland Dominican Republic, very near La Romana, a stop on the Amazing Amazon cruise in 2011.  The island itself is just more than ten square miles of beaches, dunes, and mangroves, reaching maximum elevation of 60 feet above sea level.  Isla Catalina is not in the guide books, there is no history to learn, no tours, no resorts.  We have been invited to a beach party.

The Captain and Crew of the Seabourn Sojourn

invite you to this

Seabourn Signature Event

featuring

Caviar in the Surf

BBQ on the Beach

Watersports in the Bay

With Sojourn at anchor in the bay, we boarded the ship's tenders for the short ride to shore, a perfect crescent of sandy beach.  In two feet of water, waves crashing at their feet, waiters dressed from neck to waist in tuxedos passed flutes of champaign and caviar with traditional garniture.  The beach was lined with neat rows of chaise lounges under umbrellas.  The BBQ tent was smoking with good smells, lunch almost ready.  Back on the dock, watersports await:  kayaking, pedle boating, wind surfing, water skiing, inner tube and banana boat rides.  This is the picture they put in the brochure.  This is the island paradise that sells the cruise.  This is the story you tell back home.

Yes, it was very nice, and a huge effort on the part of the ship's crew to pull off.  But, some of the gloss wears off between the brochure and the beach.  We picked our spot and settled in on the beach, then waded into the water for some caviar.  Have you ever been to feeding time at the aquarium?  On a steep beach in strong waves, big people in tiny bathing suits fell all over themselves, and each other, clamoring for caviar.  It was like The Biggest Loser meets Survivor, and it didn't look anything like the brochure.  We got a sip and a taste, and got out of there to sign up for banana boat rides.

It's a banana blast!!!  Four people straddle a long rubber banana, wearing helmets and lifejackets, holding on to a tether, while a Zodiac with a giant Yamaha outboard screams up and down the bay towing the banana on a long rope.  Thumbs up for faster, thumbs down for slower, wave frantically for "Get me off this thing," and something about let go if you fall off.

It was a wild ride!!!  Wooo-hooo!!!  Thumbs up!!!  Wooo-hooo!!!  Thumbs up!!!  Wooo-hooo!!!  Oh shit!!!  Tres was falling off, but didn't let go.  The banana flipped, and everybody split.  Tres couldn't remount the banana from the water, so he had to swim the rest of the way.

Back on the beach, time for BBQ.  The buffet broke every rule for picnic safety:  lots of mayonnaise, meat not cooked thoroughly and held below temperature, no sanitation.  The mosquitos were huge, and mean.  They bit through clothing violating common decency and the Geneva Convention.  We ate quickly and hopped a tender back to the ship.  Next time, we may stay on board and just read the brochure.


Next Stop:  Fort Lauderdale

St. John

Tuesday, December 3rd
Seabourn Sojourn
Cruz Bay
St. John, USVI
Arriving:  7:00 AM
Departing:  3:00 PM
Partly Sunny with Showers - 84 Degrees

Yesterday, we were in the town of St. Johns on the island of Antigua.  Today, we are in the town of Cruz Bay on the island of St. John.

St. John is the smallest, the most beautiful, and the most natural, of the three US Virgin Islands of the Lesser Antilles.  The United States bought the islands, St. John, St. Thomas, and St. Croix, during World War I for $25,000,000.  The islanders were granted the vote in 1936, and greater independence in 1954.  St. John has remained pristine and largely undeveloped thanks to Laurance Rockefeller who donated 56% of the landmass of the island, and most offshore rights as well, to create Virgin Islands National Park in 1956.

In addition to, and within the boundaries of, the national park, Laurance Rockefeller's other legacy is the Caneel Bay Resort.  Built on and around the ruins of a nineteenth-century sugar plantation, Caneel Bay has been host to "celebrities, politicians, and industrialists."

"Set on a 170-acre peninsula amid the lush beauty of the Virgin Islands National Park and seven picturesque beaches, Caneel Bay is a breathtaking destination on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Discovered by Laurance Rockefeller while sailing with the Rockefeller family, this Caribbean hideaway is accessible only by boat or ferry and its beaches are widely considered to be among the best in the world. A steadfast environmentalist and preservationist, Laurance Rockefeller was dedicated to creating a destination that would live in harmony with its natural environment."

Trunk Bay is the most famous and photographed beach on the island, the national park has twenty hiking trails, and Annaberg is the more famous and visited sugar plantation, but there is no better place to resort and relax than Caneel Bay, as Greta Garbo did whenever she wanted to be alone.  With 170 acres, there is plenty of room.

Next Stop:  Isla Catalina

Antigua

Monday, December 2nd
Seabourn Sojourn
St. Johns, Antigua
Arriving:  8:00 AM
Departing:  5:00 PM
Partly Sunny - 82 Degrees

Antigua is the largest of the former British Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, colonized by English planters from St. Kitts in 1632.  Antigua and Barbuda attained self-governance within the Commonwealth in 1967, and full independence as a two-island nation in 1981.  Antigua is the "Island of 365 Beaches," one for every day of the year.

Nelson's Dockyard is "Antigua's Most Famous Attraction."  English Harbor on the southern coast of Antigua was one of the most strategic ports in the Caribbean, a deep, wide bay, with a narrow, well protected entrance.  The Royal Navy began operations there in 1704.  Horatio Nelson Sailed in on the HMS Boreas in 1784, and English Harbor would henceforth be known as Nelson's Dockyard, the world's only Georgian-era dockyard still in use.  The Royal Navy abandoned English Harbor in 1889, its strategic importance no longer of value.  In 1961, Nelson's Dockyard reopened with craft Shops, restaurants, restored hotels, and the Dockyard Museum in the old naval officers' house.

With just one day on Antigua, and 365 beaches, we skipped the history and went to the beach.

We "set sail on a sleek, state-of-the-art Wadadli Cat sailing catamaran to discover the exciting underwater world of Antigua and snorkel over a real shipwreck.  The 866-ton, three-masted steel barque, the Andes, sank in 1905. The wreck remains an historical resource, sitting upright in 30 feet of water.  It is teeming with marine life like parrotfish, damselfish, grunts and angelfish.  After snorkeling, a swim, and a rum punch, there is a guided walk to Fort Barrington dating from 1779."

Antigua has had lots of rain over the last few weeks, kicking up the silt at the bottom of Deep Bay.  This has obscured the wreck of the Andes, which does not make for good snorkeling.  We sailed out to the reef instead, and donned snorkel and mask to swim with the fishes.  There were fish aplenty, pretty fish in yellows and blues, others in camouflage to blend in with the rocks, little tiny ones, and some as big as your arm.

We sailed on to Deep Bay to see just the tip of the mast of the Andes poking through the surface of the water.  The captain beached the boat so we could have another swim and some time on the beach.  We admired the fort from sea level, and left the hiking to the goats on the hillside.

As we sailed back out of Deep Bay, past the rocks that wrecked the Andes, the music got higher, the limbo got lower, and the rum punch really started to flow.

Next Stop:  St. John

St. Kitts

Sunday, December 1st
Seabourn Sojourn
Basseterre, St. Kitts
Arriving:  10:00 AM
Departing:  11:00 PM
Partly Cloudy - 84 Degrees

St. Kitts was the first British settlement in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, a colony of the Crown until it attained self-governance within the United Kingdom, along with Nevis and Anguilla, in 1967.  St. Kitts and Nevis are "The Beautiful Sisters," two islands, two miles apart, and one independent nation since 1983.

Sojourn is docked at the foot of Basseterre in Port Zante, a modern 27 acre marina and cruise ship terminal on land reclaimed from the sea.

The St. Kitts Scenic Railway was once a working railroad, circumnavigating the island on narrow-gauge track beginning in 1912 to deliver sugarcane from the fields to the mills in Basseterre.  It's now one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Caribbean, and has recently been purchased by Orient Express with the intent of total refurbishment.  The two-story sightseeing cars, built in Seattle they say, can accommodate  all passengers in climate-controlled comfort on the lower level, as well as on the open-air upper level covered observation deck.

We went straight up top to the back of the first car.  As the train and the wind changed directions, the diesel fumes from the locomotive were at times overwhelming, and the ride was more "ICKITY-YACK" than "clickity-clack."  With narrow gorges and high trellises, any obstruction on the tracks, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, could prove disastrous.  A scout car rode the rails just ahead of the train to check the track.

It was a pleasant tour of the island with many lovely vistas.  Lush and green, St. Kitts is an oval bisected by a mountain range from the northwest to the southeast, sloping from a height of 4,000 feet down into the sea to form a tail.  Sister island Nevis is just beyond the end of the tail.  The mountains are flanked by rainforests, the foothills give way to sugarcane fields, the cane running all the way to the coast.  The train winds in and out of the farms and villages of the island, as tropical beverages are served and an a cappella choir moves from car to car singing local and spiritual classics.

The poverty is evident around the island in the ramshackle homes and the endless series of stripped-down cars and junkyards that mar the landscape.  But there is ample evidence of progress too.  St. Kitts is a higher education magnet drawing students from throughout the Caribbean, Europe and the United States to programs in veterinary, island, and infectious disease medicine.  The government of Taiwan has sponsored an agricultural institute to help island farmers maximize yields.  St. Kitts is the headquarters for the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, in charge of monetary policy for the islands that use the Eastern Caribbean Dollar.  Bassetere is "rundown," the streets of the capital radiating out from the "circus," an octagon they modeled after London's Piccadilly Circus.  No one has yet to get them confused.


Next Stop:  Antigua