Family Reunion, Carribean Cruise-style

In celebration of my grandma's 90th birthday, my dad's side of the family all got together to take a cruise around the Caribbean for a week. Definitely not a bad way to spend the first week of January! In total we were 15 people: my grandma and great aunt, three aunts and uncles, my parents, my two brothers, and five cousins. We went with the Star Clippers company on their newest boat, the Royal Clipper. We'd been with Star Clippers to the Mediterranean for a cruise with my mom's side of the family and had a great time, so my parents suggested that we go with them again. What makes them different from the average cruise line is that they only have sailing ships - i.e. masts, sails, the whole nine yards. The boats also have engines, too, but when the itinerary allows for it then the boat is entirely powered by the wind. In fact, the Royal Clipper is the biggest sailing ship in the world today. Plus they don't have as many passengers as the other cruise lines. The Royal Clipper is their biggest ship, and there is only room for about 230 passengers. If you want to know more about the ship, check out their website: http://wwww.starclippers.com . So while the whole thing is pretty much a packaged tourist deal (which I am not usually excited about), both times it ended up being a really fun experience. A lot of it probably has to do with spending a stress-free weekend with relatives - everyone was relaxed and there was no drama for the whole trip, which was great. But it's also cool to learn about how the ship works and feel like we're having a cool nautical experience rather than your average pre-packaged tourist experience. Anyway, sorry to sound like an advertisement, but it really was a lot of fun.



[The Star Clipper under full sail]

The first day, we flew into Barbados and checked in. We didn't really see any of Barbados except for the airport and the dock, but we were all too tired to notice as we had all had to wake up at 4am that morning to catch our 6am flight. That day we had all of the orientation/safety meetings, and our first introduction to Monija, the outgoing Italian cruise director who spoke four languages and had an affinity for extremely tight pants. Afterwards, we had our first dinner onboard. The food throughout the cruise was really wonderful - breakfasts and lunches were pretty tasty buffets, but dinner was really the main affair. Each dinner had five courses or so, with a couple of options that day for each course. I don't think I can say that I had one meal I was disappointed with; apparently they consult with some Michelin guide ranked chef to come up with the menu for each night or something. Whatever they did, it worked. The downside, as some of my cousins remarked, was that afterwards we were going to have to work to get used to our regular food routines again. Anyway, it was definitely a big change from China, where cereal and pizza were rare delicacies by the end of my six months there.

Our route took us the whole distance of the cruise on the first night, from Barbados all the way down south to Grenada. Then we spent the next six days retracing our steps and stopping at the islands along the way. But that first night we were using full engine power and full sails to make the distance in time, and it was the only time I really started feeling sea sick. The next morning in Grenada, Nathan (my older brother) and I signed up for one of the optional excursions to go on a hike through the rainforest on the island to a waterfall and back. Grenada was most recently an English colony, but had been occupied by the French at some point as well, so the official language is English but most people also speak a version of Creole (slightly different from the New Orleans version). On the half-hour ride up to the trail we got to see a bit more of the island; the guide pointed out the damage done by Hurricane Ivan a couple of years ago. There were a lot of washed out houses along the road, and lots of stumps of big trees that had been blown over. One of the country's main exports used to be nutmeg, but almost 90% of nutmeg production had been destroyed by the hurricane. There were a lot of places with really great views out to the ocean; our guide explained that this was because so many of the big trees had been blown away that now it was possible to see through where it had once just been forest. We passed by the national stadium, which had been destroyed. Interestingly enough, the Chinese were helping to rebuild it.


[1-One of the views out to the ocean that would previously have blocked by the forest.]


[2-Our guide, 3-the waterfall.]

The hike itself wasn't very difficult, but it was pretty slippery and muddy. Our guide was pretty knowledgeable about the flora along the trail, and he explained to us how they harvested and used different parts of the plants. We learned a bit about cinnamon, bread fruit, nutmeg, bananas, mint and cocoa, in between trying not to fall on our asses. The waterfall was pretty cool and a couple of local guys jumped from the top of it in order to make a few dollars in tips. Nathan wanted to imitate them, but I wasn't so sure and in the end we ran out of time, so we just hung out in the pool underneath the waterfall and paddled around a bit. After we hiked back up, our guide bought us all drinks at the store at the top of the trail; apparently on several Caribbean islands the Coca-Cola plants use real sugar rather than corn syrup, so we tried it out to taste the difference. That night they invited on board a steel drum band. I went to listen to the band, but ended up spending most of the time avoiding getting roped by Monija into embarassing myself by attempting to dance. My grandma, on the other hand, was the first one out on the floor. By the end of the night, she was dancing with both of the twenty-something blonde Swedish water sports guys at the same time.

Day three was the Tobago Cays (pronounced keys, apparently). Most of our whole family group went snorkeling out in an area with some coral and interesting fish to check out. We also passed the beach where Johnny Depp was filmed being marooned for Pirates of the Caribbean. When we weren't snorkeling, the boat operators kept us well-supplied with rum punch, and eventually we ended back up on the beach nearest where our ship was anchored to have a barbecue. Two of my cousins took out the small little sail-boat that they had. Josh (my younger brother) and I took out a sea-kayak to go and harass them, but we couldn't quite catch up, so we tried to flip over our other cousin who had taken out the other sea-kayak. She yelled pretty loudly, though, so Josh decided to spare her. Afterwards some of us tested out the on-board saltwater pool, which has a glass bottom and portholes so that you can see into the lounge and dining room (and they can watch our pasty butts swimming around). We also started taking advantage of the bowsprint, which was essentially a big rope net out in front of the boat where we could climb around or just lay down and chill out for a while. It was like a big hammock in front of the boat, and it was a great place to lounge around and watch the horizon, the sails, or the water underneath us.


[1-a picture from the last trip we took with this cruiseline - my cousin Max looking down into the dining room from the onboard swimming pool; 2-hanging out in the bowsprint]


That night we had a little private party for my grandma's birthday (which isn't actually until the end of the month) and got a cake for her at dinner. Apparently later my brothers were both roped into performing in the fashion show where they showed off the apparel available for purchase at the sloop shop. Apparently Nathan got to go down the catwalk to "I'm too sexy." I missed the whole spectacle, unfortunately, because I was watching a movie about Tibet down in the cabin.

On day four, we hit up two islands, but I slept through the first one (St. Vincent). The second one was Bequia; I didn't actually go ashore there either, as my family (my parents and brothers and I, that is) went scuba diving along the coast. It was the first time any of us had gone diving in about five or six years, and I spent most of the time trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing and see if I could maintain neutral buoyancy. Neutral buoyancy is the state in which you are essentially floating in place rather than sinking or rising. If you are doing it right, you should be able to rise a bit with your inhale and sink a bit with your exhale. If you can get there it's pretty cool because you can just hover and look at things. Anyway, the coral wasn't super amazing, but was more colorful than where we had gone snorkelling the day before, and we got to see a lot more fish. The dive master who went out with us that day, Willie, was a really friendly guy from Guatemala, so I got to talk to him a bit about living there. The other dive instructor was from New Zealand, but she didn't go out on the trip because she had to teach water aerobics on the beach, which was actually pretty funny because I usually imagine aerobics instructors as peppy types, and I think none of us saw her break her straight face until five or six days in.

That day we also got a chance to climb the mast. The water sports team (the dive masters and the two Swedish guys) supervised us and made sure we were strapped into a harness so nobody could fall and sue them. I did it on the last cruise, too, but I was only about 14 then and I remember being incredibly scared of the height. This time was actually really easy, and once we reached the top there was a great view and a pleasant breeze. Later we also got a race-through tour of the engine room, which wasn't really too informative because we all had earmuffs on to protect us from the noise so the engineer couldn't really explain anything. That night the sports team (who seem to get roped into everything) put on crab racing. I managed to lose all of my bets, but luckily they were only for one dollar. Later that night several of us went up on the deck to stargaze. The stars were really clear from up there, and we ran into one of the captain's mates who walked us through most of the constellations that were visible. Night-time with the sails up was always a really peaceful scene.




[1-The crew lowering the sails; 2,3,4-Climbing the mast.]


On day five, we went to Martinique, which still belongs to France. As a part of France, it is the most European, most developed, and most expensive of the islands. Some of my relatives and I wanted to go to the botanical gardens up in the rainforest, rather than walk around the boutiques in town. That proved to be a bit difficult with all of the taxi drivers running a racket for the tourists, and even after extensive negotiations, we still ended up paying 90 euros for the driver to take 8 of us up and back. The botanical gardens were actually really neat. They were chock-full of all sorts of lush (and well-labeled) vegetation and provided a pleasant hour of wandering. Back on the ship, that night was the captain's dinner, essentially signifying that we had to dress up a bit and got some free champaigne. Afterwards was the crew talent show, which was actually pretty entertaining. It was dominated by a lot of the crew from the Phillipines; my family was particularly impressed by the boy band dance number in which our frequent waiter, Manny, played a major part.




[At the botanic gardens in Martinique.]



[Sunset off the coast of Martinique]

On day six, we headed for St. Lucia. In the (way too early) morning we put down anchor in Marigot Bay, and my brothers and I joined five other passengers for a mountain bike excursion up in the hills of the island. The bike trail itself was pretty simple, except for the "hill of death" that we had to get up in order to make it to a waterfall. The waterfall was not as large as the one we went to on Grenada, but also wasn't as powerful so we were able to get right under the water as it came down. Our guide, Albert, was really a character. He was a pretty cheerful and talkative guy: definitely good tour guide material. Along the way he stopped to explain more about some of the plants. A lot of it was repeat from the Grenada tour, but repitition's good for the memory, right? He picked some guava and papaya for us to eat, and showed us how the local kids like to suck on the sweet, white gooey stuff that encases cocoa beans. He also showed us how the leaves of the cinnamon tree taste exactly like big red chewing gum (in Grenada we had just smelled the bark) and knocked down a big dried bean pod to show us how it sounds like a maraca.



[1-Stopping at a waterfall along the bike tour in St. Lucia; 2-Albert, our guide, showing of a cacao plant; 3-View out to the ocean]

In the afternoon, we sailed around to the other side of the island and my brothers and I went for another scuba dive by a place called Soufriere. We dove along a reef about 50 feet down from the surface; at first I was having real problems with the pressure in my ears but I made it down eventually. This reef was a lot more spectacular than the one we had gone to off of Bequia. There were some crazy colors down there, mostly dominated by a lot of really fluorescent-looking purple, green, orange, and turquoise. Plus with all of the funky shapes, it actually kind of looked like a sixties mod kind of scheme. Groovy, man. There were also lots and lots of fish. One day I swear I'm going to figure out what some of them are called so that I can actually say what I saw, rather than just saying that there were fish, there were a lot of them, and they were colorful.

That night was the last night on the ship, which was a bit sad because we'd all been having a great time and had started to realize it would probably be a while before we had our whole family together again. The crew also played it up a bit that now we were all part of the one big "Star Clippers family." They really went over the top when they had everybody come in and sing "We are the World," holding up flags from all different countries. I had been trying to avoid cynicism on the trip, but I couldn't help but notice that we were the world only in the sense that the crew mainly represented poorer countries (the majority of them were from the Phillipines and also a lot of ex-Soviet states) and the passengers represented rich countries like Germany, France, England, Canada, and the US. But it was true to an extent that people did really seem to get along for the most part. The crew were all there for different reasons, from the stewards who did it because it payed a lot better than most jobs they could get in their countries, to the Kiwi dive master who signed up for 8 months because she ran out of money while backpacking in Spain, to the Italian cruise director (Monija) who had made a career out of working on cruise ships for the past 10 years. But I've got to appreciate that everybody was pretty upbeat most of the time and did their best to make sure we enjoyed ourselves. After dinner we had a little mini birthday party for my aunt and cousin, who had their birthdays the next day. Then we all said goodbye and a couple of us went up on deck to enjoy the stars and the breeze one last time before packing up to go.


[Sunset on our last night on the ship]

The next morning we were in Barbados again. Our flight was at 8am, so we got off the ship at about 6:15 (checked out by the sports team, of course). The bus driver who took us to the airport made sure to point out all the places we could go to party if we came back to the island, and I was cheered up a bit by the big rainbow that appeared in front of us. After two flights, with a five-hour layover in Miami in between, we were back in DC. Unfortunately, some of our luggage was not. They managed to lose my bag and my mom's bag, while delivering my brothers' and my dad's bags. I flew out to school the next day, and they still hadn't found mine. My mom only found hers by looking for it herself when she dropped me off at the airport in the afternoon (mine still wasn't there).

Despite the frustrations at the end, it was definitely a great vacation. Now I just have to try and find a way to survive my transition back to school...

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