ST. KITTS---MORE SUN AND WARMTH

Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Sunny and warm-80s F

As I write this about 3 p.m. EST, I am sitting on our balcony with the Caribbean stretched out to the horizon in a southwesterly direction and St. Kitts to the northwest. I am so glad that the ship ended up stopping here. About a month ago some Celebrity ship passengers on a tour bus were robbed at gunpoint and a Princess tour bus was right behind it on the road. The following 2 weeks no cruise ship stopped in St. Kitts, to my knowledge. This deed instantly affected their economy, as attested to today by merchants I talked to. Apparently the robbers were caught and ships started coming back.

St. Kitts is a lovely island. An Englishman, Capt. Thomas Warner, established the first European settlement in 1624. For the next 80+ years the French and British struggled for control of the island, but the 1783 Treaty of Versailles gave Britain dominion over St. Kitts and Nevis. The two islands gained independence in 1983. According to the Princess Patter, the landscape is more reminiscent of Polynesia than the Caribbean, the terrain, rich soil, and climate made the islands ideal locations for growing sugarcane and were called the crown jewels of the sea. It is 65 square miles and has a population of 32,000. The colonial two story buildings in Basseterre, where our ship docked, remind me of New Orleans.

This is the island that English friends Colin and Gwen watched a cricket match in January 2009. There is a shopping area just past the dock. Today the Emerald Princess is in port with us. We walked leisurely to the clock tower at Circus Circle. We could have had our photo taken with tiny monkeys a dozen or so times. St. Kitts has large monkey population. We shopped for a while—I am still looking for a certain watch and I was still looking for things for dear granddaughters B1 and B2. I did buy something at Del Sol for them. I already bought Christmas presents in Aruba for dear daughters in law—I hope they like them. It is very hard to buy for sons R and B.

Anyway, we happened to be in Diamonds International when they were having a drawing for a diamond bracelet. When I heard the name, “Tim Koenig,” called out, I could not believe it! So unless he has a girlfriend I don’t know about, I now have a diamond bracelet. Aren’t we lucky!!!!

We returned to the ship about noon for lunch in the Horizon Buffet. I loved the cheese tortellini. Since I have read all three of the books I brought I am now reading Tim’s. Many many years ago in the early 80s, when I first met Tim, we read the Thomas Covenant Chronicles, a series of six books by Stephen R. Donaldson. After all those years, Donaldson decided to continue the saga. I like the fact that we have both read the series and will continue!

It is 3:30 now and the ship has left the port. I can hear the band playing country & western by the pool-apparently they read my remarks about not playing by the pool! I will try to post this on the blog now and will return later.

As it turned out, there was no Internet connection then so we enjoyed the view of the sea and the island. At dinner we went to DaVinci again and enjoyed the very best pasta e fagioli and veal scallopini. It is Italian night. Tim noted that the maitre d’ no longer makes a pasta dish for the guests at dinner. When we asked him about this, he said to let him know before dinner some night and he would gladly see that we got our own pasta. Two years ago on the Grand we saw the maitre d’ do this, as well as on the Crown and Coral. We are finally getting the hang of when to go to dinner so we don’t wait for a table for two. Dessert was Cassata alla Siciliano (vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream layered with a topping, like Neopolitan) and Venetian Style Crepe with Apple and a vanilla topping. Both desserts were excellent.

Tonight is an early night because tomorrow is St. Thomas and that is a total all out shopping island for me. Tim is gracious enough to go with me. I think he is making sure I don’t spend all my money??? He likes to look at watches too.

TK’s Takes: This cruise makes a Holland America cruise in Alaska seem like Spring Break on a Carnival cruise. The assistant cruise director could only get six people for volleyball in the pool. There are only about five or six children on this cruise. The Emerald Princess was in port with us—it looked like a very nice ship.