St. Barts

During the night we set the hook at our anchorage in Gustavia Bay in St. Barts (258 nautical miles from St. Lucia). When I awoke the sun was streaming brightly into our stateroom. I went out to the veranda and was greeted by a beautiful view of St. Barthelemy (St. Barts). I walked inside and got a drink of water, my camera, and some flipflops. By the time I returned to the views, huge clouds had rolled in and the wind had picked up immensely.

With this wind came a downpour of rain and I scampered back into the cabin. We waited for the call allowing everyone to go ashore for their planned day on St. Barts. Our plan for the day was to relax and take a short tender ride to the port, walk around and then return to the ship. The goal was to set foot in the town of Gustavia, act like the rich and famous and then return to the ship spending the majority of the day relaxing.

From our research about this island, we had found that it is the most expensive port that we would visit on this cruise. The local government has worked hard to establish this atmosphere of wealth and luxury. To do this they actually restrict the larger cruise ships from entering the port. Cruise lines like Carnival and Disney are not allowed to visit, keeping the riff-raff (LOL) away from this very expensive island retreat. Because we are basically not members of the rich and famous class, our venture into this world would consist of a tender ride to the port, step off, step on the tender and return to the ship. I overheard a fellow onboard the ship talking about the cost of a ball cap in this port and he said that a $10 hat on other islands would cost you $50 on this one.

The ship's crew launched four tenders and almost immediately the winds and the waves created havoc. Our ship's Captain came on the intercom system and made a very hard call for him. The tenders were called back and he made the decision to haul anchor and cancel all shore visits. The wind and waves were just too much for the tenders to operate safely. The ship went into Plan B mode and so our two-day return trip to Miami was extended to a three-day motor back to the US.

It was a bit disappointing to not be able to rub elbows with the yachting class, but we could understand the safety aspect of the shore excursion cancellation.

Plan B for the ship's crew, however, meant more work. Everyone had to change their schedules because the guests were not able to get out of their hair for the day. Activities were quickly added to the schedule, food and drink areas had to double their staff due to the crowds wandering about, and the cabin crews had to speed up their cleaning of each room. It was a big hardship on the crew.

Linda and I met Jacquie and Grant up on deck 5 and played a round of trivia challenge with about 30 other guests. The fifteen questions were all Christmas orientated and we did very well missing only 2 of the fifteen, which earned us 2nd place. They gave us a card that they called Big O Points. I guess you can collect these points and then turn them in at the end of the trip for small gifts. We will probably not collect many of the cards since we are on our final few days and just now learned about this process. The weather cleared as we headed away so the outside activities were not curtailed.