Chasing Summer –

November 24 – 27

All right, I feel slightly lazy about my writing this week, but to be honest, I feel like the islands are rinse and repeat. They are so close together and share similar histories and geography that writing about one is a little like writing about the next one.

Sorry, Caribbean, but it’s true. The islands are also small and except for the large duty-free shops, there is little to see except beaches. So for four days, that’s about what I did. In fact, Antigua has 365 beaches – one for each day of the year.

In Antigua, we arrived on a Sunday, which meant that most everything was closed. Sunday is the day off, and families get together and do things. This also meant that Sunday was also party day, and some residents joined a BBQ party at a lookout that night. I was skyping with mom and dad.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, Scott and I walked to Fort John Beach. It was about an hour away from the boat, but the hot weather didn’t make for an easy walk.

About 5 minutes after we arrived Angela and Steve caught up (we had left ahead of them to go a little slower) and found out about a restaurant/bar at the end of the beach where we could sit on loungers in the shade for free if we bought a drink there.

4 minutes passed here, and I wandered to the Fort Johns’ remains. It gives some nice views of the harbor entrance.

The next day was almost a repeat of day one, with another beach, and fort remains overlooking it. This one was Deep Bay Beach, and I tried out my new snorkeling mask. It works great, but the water wasn’t clear, so I didn’t bother going out to the shipwreck that is about 200 yards off the beach.

The shops were expensive just like every other island we had visited.

After 2 days in Antigua, we moved to St. Kitts for another two-day stop that involved more beaches.

Day one of St. Kitts, I was feeling tired and had a weird sunburn/rash on my ankles.

St. Kitts has a larger port and hosts more cruise ships at a time so the busy port was a tad off-putting. As soon as I walked ashore it was to a cacophony of shouting taxis and tour guides, locals with spider monkeys to pose in pictures with, vendors calling out and masses of tourists roaming about without any care.

I decided to walk Basseterre and it didn’t take long to see the highlights as the town is small.

Starting in Port Zante, since that is where the Odyssey was, I walked through the port area and headed to the National Museum of Saint Kitts. Sadly, it is under renovation and closed to visitors.

I took a left and made my way to the Circus and Berkeley Memorial, which is a combination drinking fountain and a clock in the center of Circus (a historic square).

From here, I walked to Independence Square. It was originally Pall Mall Square. Where the fountain now stands was once the site of a market where enslaved men, women, and children were sold.

Off of Independence Square is the Basseterre Co-Cathedral of Immaculate Conception.

After a quick visit inside the cathedral, I walked a few blocks to the St. George’s Anglican Church. It stands on the site of the former Notre Dame, which was burned down by the British in 1710.

St. George also suffered its own fire problems in 1763 and hurricanes in 1831 and 1843. The church was rebuilt in 1859 only to burn down in 1866. It was rebuilt again in 1869 and has stood tall ever since.

At this point, I didn’t have much left to see, so I made my way back to the port area where Amina craft market is to have a look.

The craft stalls and duty-free shops all want to make a sale. I get that I do, and I don’t know if they work on commission in the bigger stores, but I felt like I was stalked. If I showed the slightest interest, aka looked at anything no matter how casually, it was an invitation for the sales team to rush in and try to sell me the item.

I don’t like pushy salespeople, as a matter of fact, I’d rather have to hunt a worker down to see something closer or ask a question so this was driving me absolutely bonkers.

Feeling my breaking point of niceness approaching, I returned to the Odyssey for some alone time in my cabin, watching a movie and reading a book. Nothing productive and nothing social. I felt much better the next morning.

Because I had ignored humans the day before, I woke up to a flurry of Whatsapp messages. One in particular involved an island tour that cost $25. I decided I’d join in, and the plan was for everyone going to meet at 10 am on the gangway.

What I and everyone else was unaware of was that the tour wasn’t going to start until 10:45, and the meeting point was a 2-minute walk from the gangway. So we arrived enmass at the gate at 10 and our guide wasn’t going to be there until 10:40.

No, just no. It was hot as sin out, and we were not in a shaded area. People called, and the driver said he would come in 2 minutes. Lol around 10:20, he showed up, and I asked if we could go sit on the bus out of the sun.

We slowly walked over there. stopping for him to pick up rum and get on the bus. We just fit and were leaving the parking area when he received a message that 2 more of our people were coming. Drama ensues – there is no more room. They are late anyway.

He goes and fetches them and we have to go on a different bus- everybody off and finds new seats which causes an uproar because people who had window seats, now don’t, the late people took 2 window seats, they were arguing that they weren’t late, etc.

I really don’t like groups of people in general, they are tiring, but arguing grumpy people I absolutely refuse to spend my day with if I don’t have to, and I didn’t have to, so I just walked away.

I feel like I’m complaining too much? Am I complaining too much?

As I was walking away, another driver with a group of 6 strangers said they were going to the beach and did I want to join them? So I said yes and headed to their taxi. Another resident, Deborah, left the complaining crew, and I got her to join us.

So instead of an island tour, I had a hoot at Cockleshell Beach with a group of German tourists and Deborah. It was a fun 4 hours without a complainer in sight.

We have been at sea for 50 days but with the 4 months of “waiting travel”, that’s 5 1/2 months on the go. I enjoy my life and the friends that I have made on the Odyssey regardless of a couple of cranky days this past week.