DAY 62---KINGSTOWN, ST VINCENT

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Today we are visiting the island of St Vincent & the Grenadines.  It is a cloudy day with a few short rain showers and the temperature is 82 degrees.

KINGSTOWN, ST VINCENT BACKGROUND INFO:

         St Vincent and the Grenadines is a small Caribbean island with a chain of 32 even smaller islands around it in the Lesser Antilles.  St Vincent is a volcanic formed with has a population of 110,000 and is only 16 miles long and 10 miles wide.  You may recall seeing it on the news as just about a year ago a volcano erupted on the island forcing 16,000 residents to be evacuated.  This volcano also erupted in 1902 and 1979.  The islands gained independence from Britain in 1979.

        Much like Grenada St Vincent is very hilly and heavily forested.  The east side (windward side) is very rocky and quite steep while the east side (leeward side-not as windy) has some sandy beaches.Kingston is its capital with a population of 13,000 and center for the island’s agriculture industry which is bananas production.  The tourist industry is still being developed and got a lot of expose with the filming of “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies.  There is also a small manufacturing and offshore financial sector here.  Unemployment is nearly 20% in this low-middle income economy. 

LAST NIGHT:

      We enjoyed dinner in Sette Mari last night with Bert & Karen Schraga and Marcia Rector.

Dara was our waitress last night and every day at lunch in La Veranda she brings Rebecca some gouda cheese to take back to the suite for her afternoon snack.

                    I enjoyed this Malbec wine from Argentina with my veal parmesan.

                                           As always enough veal parm to feed an army.

                              Some desserts from the buffet for me to try.  I just tasted them.

Here are some photos from last night's show featuring Rachael Tyler singing some Broadway tunes.

Rachael's show was GREAT!!  One of the best show's we have ever seen on a cruise ship.  Fantastic voice!!

TODAY:

        As we were docking this morning just before 8am a little rain shower passed over.  Our alarm was set for 7:15 so I could go get Rebecca's usual coffees from the Coffee Connection and get ready to leave on my 8am tour.  Bert & Karen were going on the same tour so I made sure we were on the same tour bus.

                                         These two photos were taken from our balcony.

               These as I walked off the pier into a nice shopping mall with souvenir things.

                                                     In the window of my tour bus

We had a very good guide on the bus along with a nice driver.  I believe he said this was their Parliament Building.

We first went through the downtown area of Kingston.  He said there were 3 streets parallel to each other:  Bay Street, Middle Street, and Back Street.

                                                      Not a good shot but this is a market.

                                Interesting church.  I had to take the photo across the bus.

                        Our guide called this an underground hotel.  One you never check out of.

                                                        Every island has a sleeping dog!

This was looking down into an extinct valcano
 

                My tour bus today was much better than yesterday's even though it is still small.

             This a small island private resort just a couple hundred yards off St Vincent.

             The road crosses the end of the runway of the old (closed now) airport runway.

As you can tell from today's photos, St Vincent is also very hilly with many homes built of the side of the hills.  The homes were mostly nice looking and St Vincent seems to be cleaner than most Caribbean islands.

                                                View of our ship from the hill next to it.

                                           The 4 masted boat is a Windstar cruise ship.

Downtown Kingstown in front of our ship on the dock.  Passengers and crew not allowed to walk in the town.  Our guide said there were only two covid cases on the island right now.  I seriously doubt that!!

                   Just off the bus and walking through the shopping mall on the way back to the ship.

        I got back to the suite just before 10:30 so changed and went to the gym for my hour on the treadmill.  I have been trying to get them to wash the windows there for weeks.  I finally casually mentioned it in a kind of joking manner to Massimo, the General Mgr, that the windows needed some attention.  Hallelujah!!  They had been washed.  And Massimo made it a point to stop by our table in La Veranda at noon to see if I had noticed it.  I HAD!!  I had some potato (pureed) soup and fried seafood for lunch.

This "super yacht" named "BOLD" docked at 1pm today just across from us.  These photos taken from our suite.  

Note the basketball goal.  Well, actually I was taking photo of the cute crew members.  I counted 10 crew members on the deck while docking.  She has a crew of 21 however.

                      The Captain maneuvering for docking appears to be pretty young.

             Complete with an helicopter.  Might be nice to be the pilot of it and live on this yacht.

 

                                               There is a larger enclosed boat on aft deck.

        Later we watched 6 of the crew using the onboard crane lift this boat off the aft deck and put it in the water on the other side of this yacht.  Took them 20 minutes to do it as they were so very careful.

        Ok, here is what I have found out about this yacht.  It is owned by Guido Krass, a German business man, who bought it for $100 million and launched in 2019.  The annual cost to operate Bold is between $5 to $10 million a year.  There are 8 suites to accommodate 16 passengers.  Ok, no problem, you can charter Bold for a week at the low price of $950,000.  Not a misprint!  Food extra.

        At 1:35 this afternoon the bridge announced over the PA system, "Code Mike suite 836".  That is the code for a medical emergency.

        We will be sailing again at at 6pm for our next port at Castries on the island of St Lucia.  Arriving there at 8am tomorrow.

        Here are this evening's entree choices in Compass Rose.  We will enjoy cocktail hour in the Horizon Lounge at 6pm followed at 7pm by dinner in Compass Rose.  The show tonight is a production show with the ship's cast called, "Divos & Divas".  We have seen it two times already but will definitely enjoy it again tonight.  Love the production show cast.