Caribbean Capers

Introduction

Our reasons for a Caribbean trip were varied. Neither of us has travelled extensively outside Europe, and this was to be, for both of us, only the second long haul trip ever undertaken, and the furthest we have been out of Europe with the exception of Canada, and certainly the nearest to the equator we had ever been.

After our wedding in May 1998 we decided against a honeymoon immediately as Richard was very busy with work and anyway we had spent all our money on the wedding. So we had one day off after getting married and then resumed normal life, about ten grand less well off but having had a very wonderful wedding ceremony.

So this trip was really our delayed honeymoon, thus postponed to co-incide with the quietest time of year in the graphics industry (Christmas) when everything shuts down for about three weeks making it the perfect time to take a holiday. A winter trip meant either skiing or winter sun, and as Samantha isn’t such the biggest fan of skiing and – more significantly – was to be five months’ pregnant at Christmas 1998, the potentially less hazardous winter sun option seemed the obvious choice.

We had both always wanted to experience a cruise, and a quick search through Fieldings Cruisefinder on the Internet revealed some interesting vessels and descriptions of what they offered. We decided to go for a “barefoot” cruise which basically means that it’s informal and you don’t have to get dressed up for anything. Barefoot cruise ships tend to be small and intimate and don’t have things like casinos, shops, swimming pools etc. We thought we would prefer the informality as we have stayed in expensive hotels before where the overall starchiness and saturation of liveried attendants hovering in expectance of tips is intrusive and, to our way of thinking, quite irritating after a time. We like to relax on holiday without feeling that we’re not wearing the right clothes or holding our cutlery with the right fingers so we decided against any kind of boat where formality and pampering service was on offer, and chose to spend our honeymoon aboard the Sir Francis Drake, an attractive old cargo sailing boat converted to accommodate around 20-25 people and 7 crew for regular weekly cruises around the Caribbean. We visited their website, liked the look of it, and decided to book up. (See Tall Ship Adventures). The Sir Francis Drake (and similar vessels) are also quite a bit cheaper than the “big” cruise ships, which helped influence our decision.

We tried to make arrangements for the week immediately after Christmas but were told that this was fully booked. So we booked for the 2nd–9th January and decided to spend the week prior to this somewhere else in the Caribbean to get as much a flavour of the area as we could. After extensive research and the accumulation of dozens of holiday brochures, we chose to go to St Lucia (“Simply Beautiful” as the tourist board and travel brochure puff would have it) and stay in Sandals Halcyon beach for 5 nights, travelling out on the 27th December with Virgin Atlantic and booking the holiday through Virgin Holidays, part of the megalomaniacal empire belonging to permagrinning Mr Branson, himself an owner of a Caribbean island (Necker Island in the BVI). The plan was then to fly to Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, stay one night in Road Town, commence the cruise on the 2nd, return on the 9th to spend a further night in Beef Island (near the airport and point of disembarkation of the cruise) and then return via San Juan to St Lucia and then home on the 10th. Everything was booked, Maria’s Hotel by the Sea in Tortola for the 1st, Beef Island Guest House for the 9th, and American Eagle flights for the connections (travelling via San Juan). There were direct flights on the Caribbean airline LIAT going from St Lucia to Beef Island but I decided not to book with LIAT for two reasons. The first reason was that their website provider had sent me an e-mail in response to my query about travel timetables explaining that they were on strike as LIAT had – allegedly – no intention of paying them! This made LIAT seem highly dodgy in my eyes and I instantly became suspicious (much later, my paranoias about LIAT’s performance and service were proved correct). I also considered that the American Eagle (run by American Airlines) pilots might be subject to more stringent measures with regard to possible high blood-alcohol levels after New Year’s Eve festivities so might be a safer bet not to pass out and ditch the crate in the drink on the 1st January. So, everything booked and paid for, we packed our stuff, including several cameras and a newly-acquired Sony video 8 camcorder, and started to get excited about our honeymoon winter break.