Dateline: December 28

When someone of the American persuasion tells you that they are taking a cruise, what they typically mean is that they are getting on board some gigantic facsimile of the Love Boat. My earnest suspicions are that most Americans like to take cruises because a) they are a bit lazy; they want to go to distant locations without all the hassles of traveling, b) the food, and c) the food. Which, let’s all be honest, is grotesquely plentiful on cruise ships. The really big boats have that going for them, and if you don’t care all that much about the quality of the food, you’ll be (you’ll pardon the expression) in pig heaven. They also have features like pools and casinos and theaters and nightclubs and spas and 24 hour a day bars, just in case you hanker for a little drinkie at 5 a.m.

This is decidedly NOT how we cruised the Caribbean. An alternative way to go, (and our way, it turned out), is to sail the Caribbean aboard one of the teeny-tiny sailboats, (ours was a scant 103 linear feet in length) sometimes called a “tall ship”. “Tall ship” because these boats are REAL sailboats and they actually have big tall masts and genuine sails that unfurl quite majestically as you skim over the azure seas at whatever the velocity of the current wind dictates, in case you have a secret inner Kennedy, which I do. Now THAT is sailing! (Contrasted with the floating cities of the “royal” variety which I think of as sort of floating Hometown Buffets writ large.)

Confession: a small, misanthropic part of me always wanted to buck the over-rated, so called, “normal” trend, skip all expected conventions, and live on board a sailboat year round. Meet “Ben”, the young skipper of the Diamant, our noble sailing vessel and home for one glorious week. (Note: Ben is not the skipper’s real name, but as he is a ringer for Ben Affleck, he was and will forever be “Ben” to me. I don’t even remember his real name.) When he is not commanding the helm of the Diamant, Ben and his young bride live that alternate fantasy reality to my super standard, play by the rules, white picket fence, mortgage, mini van, soccer mom history, on board their own, similarly sized sailboat. Ben and Mrs. Ben have a baby, too. While most people (6 cabins = 12 passengers) were occupied with the usual activities afforded by sailing, i.e. lying about the deck in various forms of utter relaxation, I queried the young captain incessantly. “Do you ever feel claustrophobic with such limited space?” “How much does it cost to buy a sailboat like this?” “How do you keep the baby from falling into the sea?” “What do your parents think about your lifestyle?” “How does one go from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor to the open seas of the West Indies?” And, on and on. I’m sure he was sick of me but he was gracious. And, who knew? Lake Michigan is an excellent training ground for a young, tall-ship skipper.

Do I recommend this kind of cruise? Absolutely! Here’s our itinerary aboard the Island Windjammers’ Diamant:

12/28 – Set sail out of the port in Grenada after a brief introduction to our fellow passengers. On a boat this tiny, traveling with ten total strangers could be just god awful. Thankfully, our worst travelling companions were charmingly “unique”, even entertaining. Only one of the five couples besides us (two of our shipmates were single guys), had zero sailing experience. Every body else had a number of trips like this one under the belt, and one couple were sailboat owners themselves who had only recently sailed all the way to Australia from San Diego, just the two of them. We had only enough time to get an orientation and the standard safety lecture before heading out to the general vicinity of Carriacou. Carriacou is the largest island of the Grenadines but tiny at only about 13 square miles. Population estimates are around 4500. Tourism literature tells you that the primary industry of Carriacou is “boat building, fishing and seafaring” but nobody we found could tell us exactly what “seafaring” means. A few people snickered when I asked, so it might be illegal. First lesson: Contrary to intuition, Crocs are not the preferred foot apparel on a sailing vessel. (Slippery little mo-fos will be the death of you on a wet surface.) Second lesson: Apply the patch for seasickness at least several hours prior to embarkation. (You will not make this mistake twice.)

12/29 Salt Whistle Bay near Carriacou to Tobago Cays: There are four hands on board in addition to the chef, plus the captain, meaning that the service personnel to passenger ratio is one to two. Somehow this ratio translates into a general feeling of pampering and, if not splendor, at least comfort. The food is quite good although how a single person can consistently pump meals for twelve people out of a kitchen the size of a phone booth is nothing short of a miracle. We ate indoors for breakfast always and also for lunch if the crew didn’t bring lunch over to whatever island we were snorkeling on by launch in the form of a picnic. Dinners were served al fresco up on the aft deck. A cooler stocked with all manner of beverages, available 24/7 = happy sailors.

12/30 Tobago Cays are part of the Grenadines, an archipelago of five tiny islands half way between Grenada and St. Vincent. The islands are uninhabited and the surrounding sea is designated as a National Marine Park. About 20% of the 50,000 cruise ship visitors that make it to the Grenadines also get to the Cays. Approximately 3,000 yachts shelter there overnight each year and then you’ve got your day trippers from nearby resorts. This area is highly trafficked, kind of like a combination of Sea World and the Indianapolis 500 for boats.

12/31 New Years eve on Bequia. First we went ashore for an island tour (including the Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary) and a delicious lobster dinner (see Coco’s in the trip notes) to celebrate the new year. Then back to our home on the seas to watch the fireworks being shot off the beach in Bequia town and also from the decks of a few of our neighboring moored yachts. This was a unique way to ring in the new year.

1/1 Doubling back and heading to Grenada we stopped at a tiny Sandy Island known for excellent snorkeling, and it was. There was not a shade tree to be found however so almost everyone got a little too much Vitamin D, if you know what I mean.

1/2 Back to Grenada to sleep on board in the port one final night before disembarkation.

So, what’s the take-away? The Island Windjammers got it goin’ on. They run a tight ship, literally, so there’s nothing to complain about. Good personnel, a great overall experience in one of the most beautiful locations in the tropics. In fact, look up island paradise in the dictionary and there’s probably a picture of the beach at Chatham Bay on Union Island. The resort there was not yet up and running, but it will be shortly and THAT would be a spectacular location for a honeymoon, although $$$$$. (We paid US$20.00 for a bowl of conch chowder, albeit the best damn conch chowder in the history of conch chowders worldwide.)

In sum, these kinds of cruises are for fit people, (not Diana Nyad fit but you do have to be able to climb in and out of the launch which is how you get over to the islands). I surmise that the majority of people who take this particular kind of cruise are those who are interested in prolonged snorkeling ventures. Cultural visits are at a minimum and 90% of your meals are on board, so you won’t be frequenting many island dining establishments. (The Grenadines are really tiny so you probably aren’t missing much in those categories anyway.) But, if you ever wanted to know what it feels like to be Jackie O aboard her yacht for a week, this is definitely the way to sample that without having to sell your first born.

Next desto, Barbados, where it is rumored that Jackie O spent some quality time for reals back in the day.

Dateline December 25

We flew into Maurice Bishop International Airport on the tiny little island nation of Grenada on Christmas night, arriving late at our hotel (Grenada Grand Beach Resort) to be told that our “special” Christmas dinner had somehow gone missing. What the hell, we ordered off the menu as the dining room was closing and we can report that we did not starve.

Boy, what a difference 38 years can make. Permit a short reverie, please. In my wayward youth, specifically, August of 1975, I sailed around Grenada with a bunch of twenty-somethings on a catamaran wearing only a teeny weeny bikini and not enough sun screen. (I don’t think sunscreen had been invented yet to be honest.) Grenada was then something of a banana republic although technically Grenada’s economy has never relied on banana production. During that period the politics of Grenada were unstable to say the least. Complete independence had only been granted the year before in 1974 with the usual hostilities arising between various machete-wielding factions in competition for control of the new government. As I remember that trip now, we were completely oblivious to the dangers, even after we’d been told sternly not to venture away from the tourist hot spots on the island. (Oblivion maybe-could-have involved the local rum.) Ah, youth! And, oh, to be so carefree again!

But, about Grenada: Just fyi, a brief history lesson: Like most of the islands in the Caribbean, Grenada had first been invaded in the mid 1600s by France. The indigenous Grenadians were understandably opposed to subjugation and so the French promptly set about annihilating them. Some natives fled to nearby Dominica (more about this place in a future postcard) and the ones who stayed behind were driven deep into the forbidding interior and “marginalized”. I know this makes it sound like the French denied the Caribes access to the good croissants, but what it really means is that by around 1700 the island’s indigenous population was completely wiped out. Next up, the British stole the island from the French in some Caribbean land grab in the mid-1700s and then the French briefly stole it back, then they lost it again. Both the British and the French colonials were huge fans of slavery and the vast majority of the non-European population on Grenada today are descended from those African slaves. (If all this is just TMI, the long story short is that the French influence was apparently too brief to impact the terrible legacy of English dietary habits. Let’s just say, even today, one doesn’t go to Grenada just for the food. Just imho.)

Oddly though, for a foreign tourist destination where our most memorable meal was at a little joint called New York’s Finest Bagels, for its size, Grenada is a pretty big deal in the culinary world. Why? One word: nutmeg. It turns out that while under dominion by the British in the mid-1800s, the non-native nutmeg tree was introduced and thrived so that today no foreign visitor gets off the island alive without touring an actual nutmeg plantation. (That might be an exaggeration.) In addition to the nutmeg plantation, there is a rum distillery tour and also a tour of a chocolate factory, all equally thrilling, as you can imagine.) I have nothing against any of those substances personally, but I don’t recommend doing all three tours in one day, unless of course you are a PhD in agriculture traveling on the University’s dime and your snorkel time is severely limited. (Re: that – decent snorkeling, not the greatest ever.)

Seriously, though, the importance of the nutmeg to the national economy cannot be over-stated. Tiny little Grenada, with only about 110 thousand inhabitants today exports fully 20% of the world’s nutmeg. (Indonesia exports the rest.) Think about that while quaffing your next eggnog, people! This humble tree is so crucial in fact to the country’s economy (only tourism is a larger product) that the national flag of Grenada features an actual nutmeg, albeit in a somewhat stylized fashion.

Unless they habitually cruise the Caribbean on the gigantic cruise ships, (that’s how most U.S. tourists arrive to the island if they get there at all), the average American won’t be able to tell you where Grenada is on the globe. Grenada does not enjoy the same tourist traffic as other, less beautiful, Caribbean destinations. Like, say, for instance, the Bahamas. This is my theory about that: Some will no doubt remember the “Invasion Of” in 1983 and I’ll let you do your own research and make your own conclusions about that little episode in our mutual military histories. Suffice it to say, it was abrupt and bloody. Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop got executed by members of his own party (or the CIA, depending on who’s telling the story). Bishop’s body, much like our special Christmas dinner, was never found. (On the upside, they did re-name the airport after him recently!) Because Americans have a penchant to name things (like colossal military fuck-ups that the rest of the world denounces), President Reagan nicknamed the invasion of Grenada “Operation Urgent Fury”. (Some say that’s when the term “clusterfuck” was invented.) Anyway, the history of the Invasion of Grenada is a clouded history at best and the invasion probably only came to be because Americans were all freaked out about the attack on Beirut which happened just two days earlier. We really needed to invade somebody, so… In the end we got spanked badly when the UN General Assembly, Great Britain AND Canada called Operation Urgent Fury a “flagrant violation of international law”. I suggest that because Grenada was portrayed during that period as “pro-communist” and “in bed with Cuba” to justify the invasion, to this day the island gets a bad, undeserving rap from some. Perhaps the Gipper oversold us on danger of the communist threat. What’s pertinent information to the international traveler there these days, especially Americans, is that the average Grenadian holds no lingering ill will for any of that. In fact, one of the largest national holidays in Grenada is “Thanksgiving Day” when the Grenadians thank America for invading their country. (Don’t even ask. We apparently have a great PR presence there.) On our island tour we saw handmade signs posted along the road saying, “Thank You, America!” We were told by our guide that the signs went up spontaneously to say “thanks for putting down the pro-communist military coup” and that these same signs have been up since 1983, but given the still visible damage from several pretty serious hurricanes since then, the latest being Ivan…you will forgive me, I doubt.

The bottom line is, we felt safe. You will too. But, take your sun screen. And, plenty of mosquito repellant. You will need them both no matter the season. That much hasn’t changed.