BUT THIS trip has a story all of its own. My wife retired in 2011, and spent much of the first year of retirement, caring for her mom, whose health had begun steadily failing. She was a nearly lifelong resident of Northern Virginia, but spent her last year in Michigan, where we lived at the time. We were scheduled for this cruise when she took a turn for the worse. Sadly, she died the day we were to fly to Ft. Lauderdale to meet my brother-in-law. My wife and my brother-in-law are her only children. While at first, we were unsure whether following through on the cruise was the right thing to do. My brother-in-law and his girlfriend, to board the cruise ship. He was already in Ft. Lauderdale by then. We all knew that if she had any say in the matter, she would have said "Hell yes! Go on your cruise." We did, and we have always thought of it as her dedicated cruise. My mother-in-law defied all the stereotypical references. She was the best! So, my first two cruises had significance - being tied to two of my favorite parent figures.
MICHIGAN CAN feel like Siberia in January and February. By that time, I was usually "done" with cold, sloppy, dreary weather and with scraping my windshield twice a day and fighting slippery roads on my commute to and from work. I was tired of waking up in the dark and arriving home after dark. And mostly, I missed the sun. A Caribbean Vacation at this time of year had always appealed to me.
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| Ruby Princess |
MICHIGAN CAN feel like Siberia in January and February. By that time, I was usually "done" with cold, sloppy, dreary weather and with scraping my windshield twice a day and fighting slippery roads on my commute to and from work. I was tired of waking up in the dark and arriving home after dark. And mostly, I missed the sun. A Caribbean Vacation at this time of year had always appealed to me.
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| Princess Cays, Bahamas Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
THIS CRUISE made stops in the Bahamas (Princess-owned, "Princess Cays"), St. Martin, St. Thomas and Grand Turk (in the Turks and Caicos Islands). My brother-in-law and his girlfriend planned a couple excursions during the week, including snorkeling and water-related sports. We, on the other hand, planned essentially nothing. Some shopping and walking on the beach and exploring the small towns were all that were on the itinerary. We (my wife, especially) had just gone through a tough time and I think just having nothing planned was exactly the right thing for us.
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| Princess Cays, Bahamas Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
OUR FIRST stop was Princess Cays, where we had reserved a cabana to change into swim gear and get out of the sun (or any other weather that came our way). The cays is a private facility that takes up a large percentage of the island of Eleuthera, in the Bahamas. I would estimate that Princess owns about 1/2 of it. On the Princess property, there are no residences or stores. It is simply a very nice beach in the middle of the Caribbean. The cruise ship brought a nice barbeque buffet on shore, and we ate well. Of course, they had a bar. I kicked around the shoreline with my camera and got my feet wet. It was a nice, relaxing day.
THE NEXT port on our itinerary was St. Maarten. St. Maarten is, and probably will remain, my favorite of all of the places I have visited in the Caribbean so far. There is just something special about it. I may be because it was the first Caribbean Island I ever visited. For whatever reason, it has resonated with me. I have been there 3 times on cruises. Someday, it is not out of the question that we might spend a week or 10 days there.
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| Phillipsburg Cruise Terminal - St. Maarten Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
THE NEXT port on our itinerary was St. Maarten. St. Maarten is, and probably will remain, my favorite of all of the places I have visited in the Caribbean so far. There is just something special about it. I may be because it was the first Caribbean Island I ever visited. For whatever reason, it has resonated with me. I have been there 3 times on cruises. Someday, it is not out of the question that we might spend a week or 10 days there.
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| Center of Phillipsburg - St. Maarten Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
ST. MAARTEN is divided nearly in half, with the line extending east to west. The northern roughly 1/2 is French owned (and not surprisingly, the predominant language is French). The Southern 1/2 is Dutch owned. They predominantly speak English there, though. The primary city on the Dutch side is Philipsburg and the primary city on the French side is Marigot. The main port is on the Dutch end, though there are some small ships that port in Marigot. I suspect the primary reason the larger ships port in Philipsburg is because the Dutch side has a deep-water port and better facilities for the larger ships.
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| Phillipsburg - St. Maarten Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
THE CRUISE port is about 1 1/2 miles from the center of downtown Philipsburg, and the first mile is along highway. It is not really suitable for walking, though we always see some folks doing so. There are a couple ways to get to town. One is by taxi, from the cruise port parking lot. A more popular (and more fun) way is to take one of the water taxis from the cruise port over to the taxi dock in Phillipsburg, landing you right in the middle of things. On all three of our trips there, we have opted for the water taxis. As you board, there is cold beer prominently displayed (for sale of course). But it sets the mood for your visit. Everything is: "don't worry, mon. Have fun. You are in Sint Maarten!"
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| St. Maarten Water Taxi Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
WHILE WE have only been there by cruise ship, St. Maarten is accessible, with a small airport that is still large enough that small jets take off and land there. And flying anything smaller might just be a deal-breaker for my wife. 😕 The airport is also on the Dutch side of the island. The airport is someplace you may want to visit, even if you aren't flying onto or off the island. The jets take off and land directly overhead (it feels like you could reach up and touch them) and you will probably never get closer to one anywhere else in the world. There is a beach there, too, and we see people down there - but I wouldn't do it. The jetwash throws sand everywhere. Better, there is a bar right next to the airport and beach. It is always hopping with activity, but the beer is cold and it's a great place to wait and watch for a plane to land. We didn't make it there this trip, but we would next time.
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| Main Street - Phillipsburg, St. Maarten Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
STOPS HERE and in St. Thomas, USVI, were a bit of an eye-opener to me. I should have known better, as we had certainly encountered it during our Alaskan cruise. But just right at the cruise port. Here, the obligatory tourist shops were all there at the cruise port too. But we mostly ignored them and jumped on the water taxi. What we would learn is that the tourist trade is huge in all these places. I understand that the money infused by tourism is a boon (in some ways) to these otherwise often poor places. On another trip here, we would tour parts of the island and be impressed by the contrast between the very wealthy and very poor inhabiting St. Maarten. But I learned quickly, to seek more out-of-the way places and to try to get some of the "local" flavor and culture. Unfortunately, in many of these places, that can be unsafe. More on that later. I did find some of the back streets less crowded and sometimes photogenic. As I have noted elsewhere, as a photographer, color attracts me and one thing we have learned is there is no shortage of colorful subjects in the Caribbean.
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| Phillipsburg - St. Maarten Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
ON THIS cruise, we stayed pretty much around the cruise ports or small towns very nearby. We took the water taxi to the docks. As you walk off the docks into Phillipsburg, walking to the left takes you onto the beach. To the right takes you into town. My brother-in-law and girlfriend went to the beach. We opted to walk around the little town and explore. We had been to beaches. But this was the first time (other than through Canada) for us in the Caribbean and for me out of the U.S. I wanted to explore. We walked in and out of some of the shops. In more or less the middle of the downtown main street, there were several spots to buy a cold beer. There are only a few places in the world where you can walk down the street with an alcoholic beverage. Phillipsburg is one of them. I had to partake!
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| St. Maarten Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
AFTER WE had seen most of the very small downtown shopping and commercial district, we found a spot down at the end of a quiet street near the water and sat in the shade to have a snack and another drink. The photo above was our view of the quiet little local marina from our table in the shade. As we got off the water taxi back at the cruise port to re-board the Celebrity Reflection, I made this last image of St. Maarten. And of course, they did see us again (and again). 😊
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| St. Maarten Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
AS CRUISERS know, it is common for cruise ships to cruise between ports during the night. When the distances aren't too long, they arrive in the morning, and depart in late afternoon/early evening. The distance between St. Maarten and St. Thomas, USVI is not great, and we arrived at our next stop in the early morning hours the following day.
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| Early Morning - Frenchman's Bay - Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
ST. THOMAS is one of the three larger islands that, together with around 50 smaller islands, make up The U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). The other two are St. Croix and St. John. St. Croix is easily more than two times the size of the other two (which are roughly equal) in land area. St. Thomas and St. Croix have populations of just over 40,000 each, while St. John (which is mostly a national park) has only one tenth of those numbers (just over 4,000). Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas is the capital of the USVI, and also the most densely populated city, at nearly 20,000 residents. And when you are on the downtown main street in Charlotte Amalie, it feels like a much larger city. St. John is a short, 3 1/2 miles across the water from the eastern end of St. Thomas at Red Hook. It is a quick ferry ride over. We would visit there on our St. Thomas stop on another cruise. St. Croix, about 45 miles south of St. Thomas, would be a stop on a cruise a couple years later.
THE DEEP-water cruise port for St. Thomas is in Charlotte Amalie, in the western part of Bay de Grigri in Frenchman's Bay, to the south of the island. Again, the cruise port is about a mile from the city, and walking is not really practical (though we did see a few doing it). Charlotte Amalie is ready for tourists, though. They have a pretty robust system for transport, including their multi-passenger, large, golf-cart-like vehicles. They are at the cruise port, ready and waiting for ship passengers wanting to be transported to places like downtown, or up-island to Magens Bay (a renowned public beach). The cruise port has limited capacity, and it is not unusual to see a smaller ship or two anchored in Long Bay, on the eastern side of the water in front of the main part of Charlotte Amalie. These passengers obviously must be tendered in.
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| Charlotte Amalie Cruise Port Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
THE DEEP-water cruise port for St. Thomas is in Charlotte Amalie, in the western part of Bay de Grigri in Frenchman's Bay, to the south of the island. Again, the cruise port is about a mile from the city, and walking is not really practical (though we did see a few doing it). Charlotte Amalie is ready for tourists, though. They have a pretty robust system for transport, including their multi-passenger, large, golf-cart-like vehicles. They are at the cruise port, ready and waiting for ship passengers wanting to be transported to places like downtown, or up-island to Magens Bay (a renowned public beach). The cruise port has limited capacity, and it is not unusual to see a smaller ship or two anchored in Long Bay, on the eastern side of the water in front of the main part of Charlotte Amalie. These passengers obviously must be tendered in.
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| Downtown Charlotte Amalie Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
WE FOUND Charlotte Amalie to be congested, dirty, and touristy. We had no plans other than to walk around town, except that we were on a mission for some jewelry and cigars. After spending "enough" time on this main drag, we asked for a spot that might be "off-the-beaten-path," that would have "local" food and patronized by local residents and workers, to find some lunch. Shop owners were hesitant to send us off the main drag for our safety, but we did finally get a recommendation for a restaurant just a block off. We found it and had a nice lunch (it was some kind of local cuisine - but don't ask me to remember what it was that far back. I remember it as being good - but obviously not memorable 😀). It was obviously not a tourist spot, and we felt welcome enough and not unsafe in the least. While walking around that area, I also found some things to photograph.
IT WAS, overall, another nice, if not stimulating, day. As we became more "seasoned" cruisers, we would learn, though, that it often pays to have a plan in advance, and in particular, where there is something to see, a tour arranged. The type of tour that works depends a lot on the destination. In the Caribbean, either walking around, going to a set destination, or taking some kind of vehicle (the golf-cart-like vehicles are pretty popular in this part of the world - but not to be confused with the Tuk Tuk carts that are found throughout Europe, India and Southeast Asia) tour works best. On this trip we just didn't know better. We cannot leave St. Thomas, though, without at least one humorous anecdote (the degree of humor will probably vary from reader to reader). When we got off the ship, my brother-in-law and his girlfriend and we went our separate ways. I don't remember what they did, but likely, it was the beach. We headed downtown. We jumped into one of those huge golf-cart type transport shuttles (I would estimate that they probably held 16-20 passengers). We were near the front, and we noticed that my wife was the sole woman on the shuttle. The men, mostly somewhere either side of 30 (by my guesstimate) were loud, rowdy, laughing and having almost too much fun. We struck up a conversation with a couple of the guys near us. The rest of the story: This beautiful, blue Holland America Ship (Neuw Amsterdam) had been tag-teaming us throughout the cruise. They were tied up on the same wharf as us in almost every port. I had been admiring (and photographing) it all along. Well. It turns out it was a specialty cruise for gay men. As much fun as they were having, they did have some complaints. Apparently, the prior day (at sea) the ship ran out of beer!! No beer left. None. 😀 It left them (and us) wondering about how they could have planned so poorly, knowing they had a huge party aboard all week. These men - obviously quite a few of them couples, were a hoot, and kept us in stitches the entire 20-minute trip into town. We were disappointed, however, to learn that they felt that they were treated somewhat disrespectfully by crew members on their ship. They were headed for Magens Bay and the beach. Afterward, we both agreed: we should have stayed on the shuttle and gone to the beach with these guys!
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| Off the "beaten" Path - Charlotte Amalie Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
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| Holland America Ship - St. Thomas, USVI Copyright Andy Richards 2021 |
OUR LAST port of call would be Grand Turk, in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Never heard of it? Well neither had we. 😅 Always an adventure. These islands, consisting of Caicos Island and the much smaller Grand Turk Island, are British Territories to the southeast of the Bahamas. They are primarily known for tourism (sandy, Caribbean beaches) and as an offshore financial center. There are a number of upscale beach resorts on Caicos. Grand Turk (a/k/a Cockburn Town) on Turk Island, though it is the capitol, was much less developed when we visited. But there were signs of development occurring, with a fair amount of new construction and rehab type construction on the very small downtown "main drag." But in spite of its small size and apparently undeveloped status, the cruise terminal is surprisingly modern and large. Inside, there is a very large duty-free liquor store with impressive varieties and quantities. Outside the store there is a "compound" (story to follow 😊) with other stores facing in, and gates out to the island and toward Cockburn Town.
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| Grand Turk Cruise Port Center Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
WE HAVE not been back there, but I would not be surprised to see it more developed today. But less than 2 miles wide at its widest point (not surprisingly, where the airport runways are located) and just over 6 miles from end to end, it's a pretty small place. Probably its greatest attraction today is the public, "Governor's Beach," a popular spot for sunset watching.
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| Governor's Beach - Grand Turk Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
WE TOOK a taxi to the downtown. Our travel mates had booked a snorkeling excursion and we agreed to meet on the beach to watch the sunset later that day. On the way to the downtown, we made a stop at the Grand Turk airport to see the full-size replica of Friendship 7, John Glenn's space capsule, which had splashed down off the coast of Grand Turk upon its return to earth in February, 1962 (surprisingly, a trip through my archives reveals that I did not make any photos of this. The shot here is courtesy of Grand Turk Island Trams).
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| Friendship 7 - John Glenn's Space Capsule Splashdown February 20, 1962 |
ON THE drive into Cockburn Town, we were surprised to see cattle, horses, and various other livestock, free roaming the roads, streets, yards and fields. The downtown showed signs of aging and even some crumbling infrastructure, but combined with new construction, it looked to be on the verge of upgrading. Along the beach though, there were some quaint, and old-school, Caribbean touches, including shops, old boats, and food establishments, all lining the crystal-clear Caribbean water.
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| Images of Cockburn Town/Grand Turk All images copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
O.K. I promised a story. 😁I don't think I have made any secret of the fact that we drink on these cruises. Remember, we were still neophytes (cruisers, not drinkers, LOL) at the time of this - only our second ever cruise. In Alaska, we had (perhaps wrongly) concluded that the "beverage package" was not worth it for us. We continued along that line of thinking again on this one. Only this time, we decided to "pad the till" a bit. My wife found some clear plastic bladders which purportedly would go through the ship's inspection process without showing up and so we brought some of our own "contraband" booze. To our surprise, they worked. Now, we don't ever do this anymore and I am definitely not advocating it here. But on this cruise, shortly before we reached our Grand Turk port, we ran out of our own liquor, which we were drinking in our stateroom and/or on our balcony. We took the bladders on shore in our backpacks. In the duty-free store, we re-stocked our gin with a bottle that would require both bladders to fill. You have to picture me, a law-abiding citizen who never did anything even sketchy (I know, I am a chicken 😟). I may have forgotten to mention that they had security in the open area of the cruise port. Security in the form of men with assault-looking rifles, and dressed in camo uniforms, hats and tall black boots. They may have even had Castro-beards. They were kind of scary. We bought the bottle and my wife excused herself to go to the ladies' room, the bottle already in her backpack. She returned after a bit, and then we had to transfer the bottle into my backpack without being seen by the "guerillas" (well, security guards, anyway 😁). I was sweating and nervous as I then got up and walked over to the men's room, going into a stall, trying not to touch anything, and trying not to make any noise. I expected the door to crash open with the cry: "Policia! Freeze! On the ground, Gringo!," at any moment. Too much TV and movies? Most likely. Anyway, I completed the task undiscovered and nonchalantly (right) dumped the empty bottle in the trash. I know now that not only did the security guards pay zero attention to us, but that if they did, they couldn't have cared less about a little gin. But I didn't relax until we were back in our stateroom later. 😓 These days we sin up for the cruise line's drink package and don't really worry the liquor thing. But it makes for a kind of fun story.
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| Sunset on Grand Turk Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
WE ALL met on the beach next to the cruise port and watched the sunset before re-boarding the Ruby Princess that evening.
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| Ruby Princess - Caribbean Copyright Andy Richards 2012 |
OUR LAST day would be an at sea day, and we relaxed around the ship's pool area, ate, drank and just enjoyed our last day of sunshine. Alas it was to end soon. But we knew we would be back! As it turned out, sooner and more often than we thought. The cruise was fun, relaxing, and to those of us from northern climates, warm! We knew we were headed back to at least another 6 weeks of cold, dreary, and occasionally slogging snowy conditions.
BUT BEFORE we did, the trip couldn't finish without at least one more humorous episode. Humorous now. Perhaps not at the time. We had purchased some nice jewelry for my wife, and I had purchased some cigars in St. Thomas, for a friend. My wife had attended a "seminar" aboard the ship on our first "at sea" day, about shopping for jewelry in St. Martin and St. Thomas, among other places. As we were to learn, there were a few chains that had stores in every port - usually right in the cruise port - but often in both the port and in the nearby towns. What I will tell you about the "seminars" (based on my interpretation of her comments and my own observations) is that they are really sales presentations. And they often impart misinformation. On piece of that misinformation involved taxes and duties. We knew that St. Thomas, as a U.S. territory, did not impose duties. I bought my cigars there, so they weren't an issue. We did buy one significant item of jewelry, though, in St. Martin. When we got off the ship, we picked up our bags and got in the customs line, having dutifully filled our our customs forms. The Customs agent looked at the form and noted the item from St. Maarten. "You know," he asked, "if you purchased that in St. Thomas, there would be no duty on it?" Yes, we responded. We knew that. "So, are you sure you bought that in St. Maarten and not in St. Thomas?" he again asked (eyebrows raised). Like a couple deer in the headlights, we looked back and said yes. We knew where we bought it. "You are killing me here!" he said. 😕 Really? This guy was an official of the U.S., trying to coach us on how to cheat. He sent us into another room to pay the duty. The small room was unbearably hot. We felt nauseous. But even more so, when they informed us that they could not accept credit cards for payment. We weren't carrying a lot of cash and we dug through purse and wallet to come up with the $ for the duty. We would have to find an ATM outside to pay for any taxi and incidentals from the cruise port to the airport. We had (just barely enough) and visions of a Ft. Lauderdale jail cell eased away. 😁 That was enough of an uncomfortable story. But it gets better. As another customs agent was writing out a receipt for us, I asked him (half-jokingly) what they did if somebody just didn't have the cash. After all, it must happen, I reasoned. Jail? He said it was really no problem. They would just write us up a promissory note and we could pay it when we got home! Again - really? Why not let us know about that option in the beginning instead of watching us frantically search for the cash? You can't make this stuff up. Remember Ronald Reagan's quip about the 13 scariest words you will ever hear? "Hello. I am from the government, and I am here to help you." This cruising stuff is fun!
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