Day 8

St Kitt

Will & I met Beth, Eli & the twins at the Windjammer for breakfast, then Beth & I headed off or an 8am total body conditioning class, although I would have been happy to go to a total turn into a slug class. Beth is such a good influence. Guilt further drove me to do 20 minutes of cardio.

I had some breakfast, played shuffleboard with David & William, bought them & Julia some towel animals. One of the small pleasures of a cruise is to come back to your cabin and find out what towel animal you have: monkey, stingray, bat, rabbit. Fun!


We met up at deck 3 and head down together en-mass to deck 1 to disembark, or ie it embark? Whatever, we get off the ship, and into a strip mall, all new construction and high priced sameness & pass through a few more dollars lighter to our bus, or should I say buses, as they are too full to seat a party of ten, and Michael goes on his own, which suits him well. Outside, skids of bricks waited to pave the way for more tourists' feet as the optimistic expansion proceeds.

Larry & I sat up with the driver, who told us to call him Earl, Duke of Earl, like what was written on the side of the bus, but his ID said something else, so Earl was like a stage name, the name goes with the job.

We learned that the St Kitt government planed the last sugar cane crop last year and will now work on building up tourism, as evidenced by the strip mall.

We drove up and up through streets lined with crowded, but clean housing, the gutters were clean (not like Dominica), the houses were poorly constructed and I doubt they could survive a hurricane.

We stopped at an overlook with a vendor. Then stopped again at a batik studio/store with beautiful, but highly overpriced goods. We swarmed over the frounds & took pictures. Then back on the bus.

Chickens, cows, and goats all roamed freely. We went to a 300 year old ruins of a windmill for sugar cane. We walked into the rain forest from there on a wide, clear path with steps made of logs & packed earth. We ate some almonds, fresh from their pods, opened by our guide with a rock. Larry and David tried their hands at cracking the pods, Larry was especially good. What a lot of work for 1 almond!

We saw plants, birds, and monkeys, well some of us saw monkeys.

Frankie kept up with us well. David and Will squabbled a bit and had to be separated. We went back to the bus for tuna sandwiches, lemonade, Sunny D, and coke. Then back to the ruins and there was a car parked in the way. How rude! The driver was agitated and squeezed by it, but scraped a fender on the rock wall.

Back at port, Mike & I went shopping briefly. We bought nothing, but the free samples of rum were yummy, coffee flavored. Hank, too went shopping, buying Cuban cigars.

Mike & I got on with 2 minutes to spare, we got showered & dressed for dinner . Smart casual dress.

Hank went to the dispensary for an ear infection, poor guy. But he a had to treat it or risk full infection while flying, which is painful. Unfortunately it cost $250 with meds (note: insurance reimbured it).