Truth be told, this day passed fairly uneventfully,
especially for Katrina, who had started feeling ill the night before. For my part, I spent the majority of the day
sitting on the open-air deck, watching the horizon, catching up on outlining
the previous days’ events, and breathing in the ocean’s salty spray.
In the evening, in celebration of New Year’s Eve, the ship’s
showroom featured a performance of various musicals and opera pieces, bringing
together the ship’s band, piano, string quartet, dancer girls, and two
singers. For once, I recognized almost
all of the pieces: “Music of the Night”,
a couple of Italian songs, “Time to Say Goodbye”, “La Vie en Rose”, a mind-warping
psychodelic version of Beethoven’s Fifth (very fast, and with flashing colors
and fractals on the screen), and a grand-finale “Ode to Joy”, to the background
images of fireworks and with the two dancer girls waving long strands of ribbon
into the air.
Sunday, January 1st,
2012. Half-Moon Cay, Holland America’s
privately-owned island.
My morning started with watching the sunrise – what better
way to greet the New Year?! We had made
great northward progress during the day at sea, so between that and the time change,
it was still somewhat dark when I had stepped out onto the open-air deck. This sunrise prelude was surprisingly long –
already the clouds were tinted with matte pink and orange hues, already the inky
purple sky was giving way to a brighter blue, and yet the sun stalled. Any moment, I felt, the sky and clouds and
water were going to burst in a brilliant display of colors; any moment the warm
rays would dispel the morning chill.
And, almost exasperatingly, the red disk refused to come out. And then, literally seconds before the
pivotal moment, the door to the deck creaked open, and out emerged Katrina –
big eyed, huddled in a coat, but no longer feeling ill. Having watched the sunset – which finally
leapfrogged over the lower clouds, and now vanquished the cold with surprising
agility for a newborn red disk – we retreated to our cabin to get ready. By the time we were out ten minutes later,
the sun’s rays were a force to be reckoned with!
Our morning activity was snorkeling. We had debated whether it was worth paying
for snorkeling when we could just do it ourselves, but for those who might
venture to Half-Moon Cay someday, let it be known: it was totally worth it! A boat took us to a pristine reef off the
shore of the island, and we were treated to the best and most colorful
snorkeling we’d had all trip, with corals and rocky formations right below the
surface. I also saw a few new varieties
of fish, including a black fish with tight “fish lips” and colorful gold-and-silver
streaks all over its body, reminiscent of fireworks. Given the occasion, I immediately dubbed it
the “New Year’ fish” (and wished that, like Christopher Columbus, I could make
the rest of the world adopt my spur-of-the-moment names).
Impressive sand-sculpting by a vacationing family.
For the remaining four hours on shore, Katrina and I walked
about the island, and along the crescent-shaped beach for which the island is
named. Two Holland-America cruise ships
shared the island that day, so the beach, while naturally beautiful and graced
with unfathomably fine white sand, was crowded.
As for the rest of the island, it – like other Bahamian islands – was
almost completely flat, and offered few trails.
As a note to a future visitor of Half-Moon Cay, it turned out that the
very far edge of the crescent-shaped beach did have some snorkeling potential,
but by the time I discovered it, I had only a few minutes to enjoy it before
heading back to the ship. Still, the
barefoot walk along the fine sand was pleasant in its own right, and the
morning’s fantastic snorkel made the island worthwhile. As for the evening, we concluded our New
Year’s Day much as we’d started it – by watching a
sunset.
Monday, January 2nd: Florida Everglades. Air-boat tour.
At dawn, we awoke to find the ship nearing port: our Caribbean voyage had come to an end. But there was still one last excursion
awaiting us back in Florida: an airboat
ride through the Everglades.
Before the ride, we first had half an hour to tour an exhibit
of rescue animals – panthers, jaguars, a fox, a skunk... The exhibit also featured reptiles, including
baby alligators that we got to hold. The
babies were two or three feet long – cute and definitely young, but no longer
innocent and harmless hatchlings – and yet their mouths were held shut by
nothing more than a piece of tape. It
turns out that while an alligator’s jaw muscles can crush literally anything
that’s in their mouth, they have orders of magnitude less power in trying to
open their mouth. So as long as you can
prevent the mouth from opening, you’re spared its deathly force as it comes
down closed!
Then came the airboat ride.
I had absolutely no idea what an “airboat” was, though, based on the
terrain, I had imagined something like a hovercraft. I was both right and wrong. Aesthetically, it was far less cool – just a
flat-bottom boat with an airplane propeller on its back. But functionally, it didn’t matter: the grass of the everglades bent effortlessly
underneath the boat, so that we were able to ride both on water and over fields
of waterlogged grass. The effect was
surreal, and somewhat reminiscent of the Knight Bus in Harry Potter; it also felt
a little like riding a sled, with the boat keeping its momentum and orientation
unlike any normal vessel when going around turns. It was a very fun ride, and amidst pools of
murky water and vast expanses of sawgrass, we did spot a few American
Alligators in the wild, which was quite neat.
I should mention, in passing, that amidst the sawgrass (named for its jagged
tooth-like edges) were also “bonnet lilies”:
a type of lily indigenous to the area, thus named for the way it adorns
an alligator’s head, as the latter comes up from a swim. And while on the subject of trivia, did you know that alligators can hold their
breath underwater for up to 8 hours?!
With that final tour, our Caribbean trip ended; now, six
months, six blog posts, and eighteen pages later, so has the re-telling of our
Caribbean adventures. Thanks for reading!
PSA: Don’t forget to
come back for more blog posts (or subscribe via email or RSS, at the top right
of the page). Next on the agenda: a fun and slightly off-the-wall post about hiking
and kayaking in Indiana, to be posted in a week or so.
Friday, Dec 31,
2011: St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Scuba.
After the previous two islands, St. Thomas was a return to
“normal” civilization. The shacks were
replaced with rich homes; the barely-paved sidewalks were now cobbled; the
haphazard lawns turned to carefully-manicured masterpieces. We were back on United States soil.
Our excursion for the day consisted of SCUBA. We took a boat trip to a little uninhabited
island 20-30 minutes away, where our two dives – each about 40 minutes long –
took place. The dives were semi-guided,
in the sense that we had 9 divers per instructor, and were supposed to, not
altogether successfully, to stay in a tight pack. Compared to when we were getting
scuba-certified 2 year ago, Kat and I missed the more guided experience of our
Kauai diving. The corals were also less
impressive and colorful than in Hawaii, with a lot of the bottom merely covered
in sand with occasional rocks. But some
spots were still quite beautiful, and the feeling of transforming from a land-based
mammal into a bubble-exuding aquatic creature was as mesmerizing as ever.
Among the highlights was a spotted black-and-white eel,
swaying its head tantalizingly from side to side, before dashing from one rocky
shelter to the next. The swaying head
was most like that of a curious turtle, except the neck seemed to continue
indefinitely, all the way to the tip of the eel’s tail. We also did see a real turtle, quite a bit
smaller than Hawaii’s, but all the more charming for its petite size. Sadly, upon encountering us, the turtle swam
up to the surface, whereas we had just descended to our maximum depth; a
pursuit, therefore, would have been not only counter-productive, but also
dangerous. (Question to marine biologist: how come turtles can avoid decompression
sickness – is it because their air comes from the surface, rather than from a
pressurized tank, or do they have a different-enough physique to make such
feats possible?) In compensation for
staying put and not following the turtle, however, we did see a shiny,
streamlined barracuda.
The second dive was to the wreck of a WWII freighter ship,
which was later used as a drug-dealer ship, and sank (or was sunk?) in the
1970s. Truth be told, I was a little
hesitant about this dive – why spend precious time underwater to visit a
decaying man-made structure, when the whole wide ocean is at our fins?! As it turned out, though, I should have
withheld premature judgment: it was
really impressive to see the extent to which nature had reclaimed the ship over
the course of this fairly short time period.
The entire surface was covered in corals and algae, and amidst a fairly
dull sandy bottom, the ship was like an oasis of the sea, teaming with fish, spider
crabs, and various shelled creatures. In
all honesty, the wreck looked like a sculpted ship-shaped rock (albeit broken
into 3 pieces, courtesy of a couple of hurricanes), rather than a foreign
object amidst the natural ocean environment.
In the remaining couple of hours, we went to a tiny
botanical garden, surrounding a former plantation house. The garden, filled with local flowers and a
few fruit trees (bananas, coconuts), was so small that we walked all the way
around it in literally 5 minutes – but as such, it was all the more a perfect
place to sit on a bench and simply drink in the scenery. The garden was situated on a hill, and its
top opened up to an impressive view of the Virgin Islands: not just St. Thomas, but another dozen or so,
out of what must be countless others.
Some of the islands were inhabited; others were merely out-of-place
rocks in the water. But looking up from
our tall vantage point, it was literally possible to see the curve along which
the volcanic islands cropped up out of the ocean, to form the entirety of the
Virgin Island chain.
On our taxi rides to and from the garden, we also found out
a few interesting factoids about the island.
One is about the way cars drive on the island’s roads: the driver sits on the left side, just like
in the U.S., but he drives on the left side of the road, like in Britain! While the convention of right-sided or
left-sided driving is just a convention – there is technically no “wrong” way,
it’s just a judgment call – The U.S. Virgin Islands’ combination is flat out
wrong, since drivers going in opposite directions are on the far sides of each
other. Why, then, the inconsistencies?
The steering wheel placement is obvious enough: the cars are manufactured for the rest of the
United States, so the Virgin Islands just have to take what they can get. What’s more interesting is the origin of the
left-hand-side driving. British
influence would be an obvious guess, but there’s one problem: when the U.S. bought the island in 1917, the
automobile was quite rare. And the U.S.
bought the islands from Denmark, not Britain.
A long time, though, the British did own the islands. And, as it turns out, even in the age of
horses and donkeys, it was still important to have order on the roads. Thus, the British taught their donkeys to
walk on the left-hand side of the roads.
When the islands came under Danish rule, the British left, but their
donkeys stayed. The Danes tried to
re-train the donkeys, but to no avail: the
stubborn animals, having learned the pattern once, refused to budge. Moreover, even newly-born donkeys had to be
trained to walk on the left, for the sake of remaining consistent with the “old
school” donkeys – and the cycle perpetuated itself. When Denmark sold the islands to the U.S.,
the donkeys continued to prevail in their set ways. Even as the island started getting cars, the
cars still had to shared the road with the donkeys, and thus were forced to
conform to the dumb-ass (get it?!) pattern.
And left-hand-sided driving continues to this day…
The taxi driver also explained why cruise ships only come to
the Caribbean in the winter, from October to April. It’s not that the weather is that much better
in the Caribbean during the winter compared to the summer – the temperatures only
rise by 5-10 degrees, which is not that big of a deal. Rather, it’s the rest of the world’s weather (New Zealand excluded) that’s much
worse during that time. So in order to
provide passengers with a variety of destination, most cruise companies will do
their winter cruises in the Caribbean, then take those ship to Alaska and
Europe during the summer.
That evening, when we rejoined the cruise ship, we were
treated to a ventriloquist show. I had
not really known what a ventriloquist was, let alone whether I’d enjoy the
show, but it was fantastic. (For the
record, a ventriloquist is a comedian who can do different voices and speak
with his tongue only, without opening his month – thereby being able to engage
in a very realistic conversation with puppets, puppet socks, or even a
microphone stand). We so enjoyed Ronn
Lucas’s show, that we want to see it twice, and it was quite interesting to see
the subtle but significant difference between the two live performances. Most of the humor was too involved and
situational to describe, but one episode was short and self-contained enough to
jot down:
Cowboy puppet: I know the
captain, he and I are buddies.
Ventriloquist: You don’t know
him, we only arrived a few hours ago onto the ship, and you’ve been in the
trunk most of that time.
Puppet: I met him in the
shower. He showed me his tattoo.
Ventriloquist: I’d seen the
captain, he does not have a tattoo.
Puppet: Yeah he does. He wears it under his watch.
Ventriloquist:
What? Why would you wear a tattoo
under your watch?
Puppet: [shrugging]. Absolutely no idea. It wasn’t that pretty, either. Just four words. Starboard – right; port – left.
Ventriloquist (after waiting for
laughter to calm down): You are so making this up. If you met the captain, you’d at least know
his name. What’s his last name?
Puppet: Um. Hum.
Er… [most staling sounds, and spectacular gestures]. Oh I got it.
Yeah. Its “Speaking”.
Ventriloquist: “Speaking”? “Speaking”?!!
It is not!
Puppet: It is too, he said it
over the intercom when the ship was about to sail. [Imitates deep English voice]: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain
Speaking”.
[Part VI – the final blog post in the Caribbean series, about Half Moon Cay and the Everglades –
will be posted in just a few days. Don’t
want to miss it? Subscribe to my blog
via email (see sidebar, towards the top of the page)]
Thursday, December
29, 2011: Antigua: Kayak and Snorkel.
Antigua was smaller, less mountainous, and less lush than
Dominica. Curiously, whereas Dominica
boasted of 365 rivers, Antigua rallied with 365 beaches – the numbers, again,
seemingly too perfect and too evenly matched to be true. All the same, Antigua’s coastline was indeed
vast, and our shore excursion took us to a remote part of the island’s
coastline, composed of countless miniature islands. These mini-islands – some merely a few
hundred feet in diameter, and rising just barely above the water – were
surrounded by mangroves, to the point that it was unclear which came
first. Did the mangroves form around the
existing low-lying land mass, or did the mangrove’s root systems, latched onto
the shallow surface of the water, trap enough sand that it eventually formed a
budding island within its perimeter?
Our excursion began with a scenic boat ride amidst the
islands, till we came to a spot where the tour company’s kayaks were stashed. Once we were all aboard our respective
sit-on-top kayaks, our excellent tour guide led us along the coast line, and
told us many fascinating stories about Antigua’s ecology. The man groves, apparently, are essential for
preventing coastal erosion and for harboring fish; they are also remarkably
efficient at filtering out salt water. 90% of the salt is filtered out at the
roots, and the remainder is processed by the leaves. Once a leaf has absorbed a certain amount of
salt over its lifetime, it turns yellow and drops off; it is then eaten by the
fish that live in the shelter of the mangrove roots, returning nutrients to the
ecosystem.
As a teenager, at one of nearby islands, our tour guide
witnessed two rare sights related to sea turtles. The first was when he and his family chanced
upon a mother turtle giving birth. After
digging a sufficiently deep and wide hole, the turtle labored in a trance for 3
hours, producing 150 gold-sized eggs. Through
all this time, her eyes were streaming with tears, giving a very human feel to
the proceedings (the biological function of the tears is to prevent sand from
getting into the entranced-mother’s eyes).
Once the eggs were all safely deposited into a hole, the mother buried
the eggs and meticulously covered up any traces of the site, plopping on it
over and over again until the ground looked perfectly level and
indistinguishable from the surrounding sand.
Sixty days later, at nighttime (animals instinctively tend
to hatch under cover of nightfall, which they can sense by the temperature
fluctuation of the sand), the guide and his family returned to the island. They waited a few hours, and right as they
were about to leave, the father pressed his hand to the sand and felt movement;
within moments, the sand visibly stirred, and 150 little turtles came marching out
of the ground. Once out in the open,
they swarmed haphazardly, unsure where to go, unable to see the reflection of
the moon in the water on this cloudy night. But then the guide’s family put
their flashlights together into one collective beam and pointed it at the shore. Something in the little creatures’ minds
clicked, and they marched, single file, into the water and out of sight.
After an hour of kayaking and listening to the guide’s
stories, we took another boat ride to Bird Island. Granted, most of the birds come to the island
at night, but our guide told us of one species of bird that is a poor fishermen
but an excellent pirate. The bird will
soar up in the air, far above the water; but when it sees a smaller bird get
away with a fish, it will drop out of the sky like a rock, screeching a battle
cry. Hampered by the extra bulk and
weight of a struggling fish, the smaller bird invariably will release its prey
and fly for dear life, while the pirate will swoop down to pick up the booty,
often in mid-air, or right as the frazzled fish strikes the surface of the
water.
At Bird Island, the plan was to snorkel, but the large waves
that were rolling onto the island made the visibility very poor. The water was so sandy that even the coral
reefs, only 5-10 feet below the surface, were enshrouded in a brownish daze; as
for fish, they had long escaped into their little hiding holes. On the boat ride back, however, we saw a few
pelicans with their ridiculously huge beaks, and back at the tour company’s
headquarters we were greeted with tropical punch, fresh banana bread, and a
friendly parrot to keep us company. It
was a fun tour.
We still had two and a half hours when we got back to the
cruise ship, so we took a cab to Turner Beach, which the guide had recommended
for snorkeling. Unfortunately, the same waves
that beat against Bird Island pursued us here, too, so we gave up on snorkeling
and merely swam into the completely beige-colored sea, not even bothering to
dip our heads under water. But as the
water swelled and fell around us, we glimpsed cascades of water roll down the
nearby rocky shore, and also witnessed pelicans diving into the water, somehow
discerning fish though all that murk. I
just hoped that the pelicans – and, sharks, for that matter – would not mistake
our disembodied limbs for food!
PS: Happily, no
shark jumped out of the water and bit off my arms. As testament to it, see Part V – about St. Thomas.
Wednesday, Dec. 28th, 2011: Dominica.
Visiting a Carib Indian Village.
After the aristocratic St. Barthélemy, with a purely
European feel, manicured yards, and seemingly more yachts than people, Dominica
was a wild jungle. The island was much
poorer, the housing almost shack-like, and the driving downright haphazard,
with much traffic jams and outraged honking.
But the scenery was much more impressive: tall mountains, lush greenery, and constant
flowing water (allegedly, Dominica has 365 rivers, one for each day of the year
– though I wonder if the river vs. creek distinction for some of those was more
based on getting the number right rather than measuring actual water
volume). Dominica – which is not to be
confused with Dominican Republic, by the way – is geologically amongst the
younger of the Carribean islands, and so the forces of erosion from the frequent
rain have not yet worn down the jagged landscape.
An aside: during my
last semester at Indiana University, I took a mathematical modeling class,
where my end-of-semester project was precisely the simulation of land erosion
as a result of rain. My goal was to
start as simple as possible, and work from the ground up. So the first model was essentially just like
acid rain – I began with an already formed mound, and then had random
“droplets” mysteriously dissolve the top-layer “grains” of earth into nothingness. What do you think was the result? Nothing pretty – in fact, it looked like a
toothbrush. But as my model became more complex,
and I started accounting for water accumulation and having grains flow
“downhill” rather than just dissipate on the spot, I was able to get a much
more convincing landscape. Here it is
below, for your viewing pleasure.
Still, despite my scholastic attempts, Dominica was by far
more rugged, natural, and beautiful than my model could convey. And our excursion took us to the very heart
of the island’s natural beauty, to a Carib Indian Village.
The Carib Indian tour – and more importantly, just their way
of life – was inspiring! There’s really
no other word for it: the peaceful
scenery of the village, set in a valley; the pastoral way of life, with
subsistence farming and countless “urban medicine” plants growing in every
yard; the gurgling creek that flows through the center of the village,
providing water for drinking and a place for the kids to swim (we had a chance
to go swimming as well). Everything.
Our tour guides were a Carib Indian couple. The husband – a former tribal chief, who is
thinking of running for office again – told us that there are 3000 Indians in
the tribe in total, of which 84 live in this village. Land is semi-communal, though the passing of
it is also hereditary (the chief’s house, for example, is on his grandfather’s
land), so I’m not sure I understood how that works: maybe its communal status is only with
regards to farm land beyond the village? Tourism is actually a very recent addition to
the village’s way of life, but the Chief hopes that it will expose tourists to
his people’s unique culture, while at the same time providing villagers a way
to supplement their income without having to leave for the big cities. On our tour, we visited three families that
are “pioneering” this project, but the Chief’s grander vision is to have the
project encompass other households as well, with each family sharing some unique
aspect of the Carib people’s way of life.
The Chief was a thoroughly welcoming host – and, I think, a
very forward-thinking and dedicated leader of this people. He had studied in England and traveled
extensively throughout the world (partially as an ambassador of the village,
obtaining funds and partnering with other Indiana villages), and this
experience gave him an understanding of what it takes to form and maintain a
community. He was also very concerned
with preserving the village’s culture – and even resurrecting their long-forgotten
native language (currently, the villagers speak English, with bits of Creole –
and a fair amount of Creole-esque accent – thrown in). That language had been lost some 400 years
ago, but it had been written down by a missionary before it got wiped out. Tracing through the history of the language
in search of a common “descendant” that is still spoken today, the Chief and a
university researcher had settled on a language to adopt as their own, and the
village is just now starting to phase it in.
For now, they’ve begun by giving each member of the village a nickname
in the lost tongue, to go along with their English name (the Chief’s, aptly
chosen, was “courageous”). There are
over 80 people in the village, the Chief announced proudly – so that’s already
80 words! But he’s still figuring out
how to work bits of grammar into everyday life…
As he took us on a leisurely stroll through the village, the
Chief pointed out various plants and trees, and graciously gave out samples of
star fruit, coconut, cocoa plants, and countless herbs. One of the villagers
showed us the process of sugar-cane squeezing (squeezed via his own hand-made
wooden press); another grandfatherly villager, with a huge smile that
admittedly missed half the teeth, showed us various medicinal plants used by
the tribe against rashes, aches, sunburn, itching, and other maladies. He and
his daughter also described the process of making traditional woven
baskets: from cutting down the
grass-like plants in a nearby rainforest, to drying them on the roof of their
house, to dipping strands of the dry grass into mud for black or brown colors,
or coloring them with a fruit dye for red.
The girl then offered already-made baskets for sale, asking just $5 for
small baskets that took her 2-3 hours to weave.
She could have obviously charged more – after St. Barthélemy, tourists
would have easily paid double or triple for the delicate hand-made baskets –
but it was not the Indiana way, and I really respected the tribe for that. The Chief’s ultimate vision was to foster an
appreciation for the Carib culture and to make the experience reciprocally
enriching for both parties. The
graciousness of our hosts really made us feel welcome in their village.
At the end, we gathered in the Chif’s back yard around a
campfire, where his wife showed us the making of traditional bread out of one
of the local fruits. We were then
invited for a meal in his house:
coincidentally, a very basic structure, with studs showing through the
walls, and with draping extension cords for electric outlets. But the house felt welcoming, especially with
two long tables that were set for us, laden with local food: fish, taro pancakes, the freshly-made bread,
a coconut desert, and lemon-grass water.
On one wall hung a black-and-white photo of the chief from 25 or 30
years prior, an ornate staff at hand, when he had first been elected for the
office. On the other wall hung a Tourist
Prayer:
Heavenly
Father, look down on us,
you humble, obedient tourist servants,
who are doomed to travel this earth,
taking photographs, mailing postcards,
buying souvenirs, and walking around
in drip-dry underwear.
Give
us this day divine guidance
in the selection of our hotels,
that we may find our reservations honored,
our rooms made up, and
hot water running from the faucets.
We
pray that the telephones work,
and the operators speak our tongue.
Lead
us, dear Lord,
to good, inexpensive restaurants
where the food is superb,
the waiters friendly
and the wine is included in the price.
Give
us the wisdom to tip correctly
in currencies we do not understand.
Forgive us for undertipping out of ignorance
and over-tipping out of fear.
Make the natives love us for what we are,
and not for what we can contribute
to their worldly goods.
Grant
us the strength
to visit the museums, the cathedrals,
and the palaces and castles listed as “musts”
in the guidebooks.
And
if perchance we skip
a historic monument to take a nap after lunch,
have mercy on us, for our flesh is weak.
FOR
HUSBANDS ONLY
Dear
God, keep our wives
from shopping sprees and protect them
from “bargains” they don’t need or can’t afford.
Lead them not into temptation,
for they know not what they do!
FOR
WIVES ONLY:
Almighty
Father, keep our husbands
from looking at foreign women and comparing them to us.
Save them from making fools of themselves
in cafes and night clubs.
Above all do not forgive them their trespasses
for they know exactly what they do.
The chief’s teenage sons, on winter break, also came out to
greet us, and later joined us for swimming in the river. The older one, 17 years old, with a long
braid and a very peaceful and thoughtful face, looked like a movie star as he
scaled the rocks surrounding the river.
Kat asked him if he likes where he lives. “Of course”, he replied, almost surprised by
the question; “What’s not to like?!”
Towards the end of our visit, the Chief took us nearby his
house, to what he hopes to make into a small outdoor amphitheater – to be used
both for village meetings, as well as for putting on occasional shows for
guests. For now, the amphitheater is
just what Mother Nature has provided: a
grassy/woody slope on three out of the four sides, naturally focusing the
attention onto the flat center “stage”.
And what stands on stage are a few remnant huts from “Pirates of the
Caribbean II”, that the chief got to keep for his tribe’s involvement in the
movie. The Chief had heard from one of
his many contacts that the movie needed some extras for the set, and – against
some opposition from another chief, who was hesitant about involving the
villagers with the outside world – got the tribe involved in the movie. One hundred and seven of them, including the
Chief’s wife, served as extras for 9 weeks of filming, having great fun,
getting free meals, and making some money to boot. For farmers who make close to 100% of their livelihood
off of the land (and really, the land is incredibly fertile and does a lot by
itself), it was a great deal. Go Chief!
After the tour, we still had an hour and a half before the
Cruise’s all-aboard time, so the bus driver agreed to take Kat and me to the
island’s famous Champagne Snorkel beach.
Fish-wise, the snorkeling was pretty similar to what we’d seen as St. Barthélemy,
but the reef did have an unusual geographical feature: a constant stream of bubbles coming out of
the ground, due to volcanic activity deep down in the earth below. We had a fun, albeit rushed, 25-minute swim,
before speeding back to get to our ship.
There, with a time-crunch deadline, the island’s erratic
traffic patterns emerged in full view: People
stopping in front of cars, bicycles wheeling in and out of the road, cars
parked in the middle of the street, constant honk blasts… But what topped it all was a truck we were
stuck behind for ten minutes, which was slowly carrying a huge unstrapped cargo
container. A man stood on the
container’s roof, and his job was to ensure that the low-hanging electric
wires, crisscrossing the street, did not catch the front of the container. In practice, since every other wire was
hanging too low, the man’s job was to haul the wires up as soon as they got
caught, before they could get snagged and get ripped off of their posts. “Dangerous job”, remarked our taxi/bus driver
casually. “If one of those wires gets
frayed, he could get electrocuted.” Then
again, he assured us, electric companies do try to keep the lines in good
shape, because otherwise they’d get sued.
Oh, no problem then.
Still, for all of its economic inequity compared to St. Barthélemy
or even Puerto Rico, Dominica left us with a definite feeling of progress for
the island. Both the Carib villagers and
our bus driver spoke of their island with pride: that, yeah, it might not be perfect yet, but
the island’s government is working on solving problems, and that things are
much better than 10 or 20 years ago, and far better than when the island was
under British rule. The island also
seemed to be aware of its rare natural beauty, with dedicated nature preserves
and supposedly excellent biking trails.
Of all the islands on the Caribbean, this would be the one we’d be most
interested in coming back to someday.
Tuesday, Dec. 26th, 2011: Puerto Rico.
Rainforest drive.
Porto Rico must be a long way from the Bahamas – and the
cruise ship, I suppose, can only go at about 20 knots, or a little over 20
miles per hour – because we arrived at Puerto Rico a little past noon the day
after Christmas, 46 hours after we left Nassau.
Porto Rico itself – from what we saw on a guided 45-minute
drive to the El Yunque rainforest – looked rather poor and congested. But when we got to the rainforest, it was a
true haven of nature. Frogs chirped in
the trees, orchid-esque flowers hung from canopies, and impatiens (which in
Spanish are known as the “look at me pretty” flower) flourished
everywhere. Water – a great abundance of
it – flowed in creeks, down waterfalls, and occasionally from the sky. The air felt moist and fresh. I would happily have spent our entire time on
the island just escaping into this wilderness.
After a few hours at the park, our tour – partially because
the park closes early in the evening, and partially because this was a
“rainforest drive”, not a “rainforest hike” – turned back. With still a couple hours left in San Juan
(the bus got us back at 5:30, around sunset), Katrina and I embarked on an
ambitious encirclement of the “Old Town”, tracing the ruins of a 16th-century
citadel. At each bend, we kept hoping that
we’ll be treated to a good view of the sunset – or to the post-sunset, or to
the post-post-sunset. But the wall of
the citadel kept stretching relentlessly onwards. Even once we came upon a hill – where, be it
on that particular day or on any occasion, hundreds of kids were flying kites –
the good view was still blocked by a “don’t-proceed-beyond-this-point”
fence. It was way past sunset that we
finally made our way down to the ocean, to enjoy the last ambers of color
fading into the night.
Wednesday, Dec. 27th, 2011: French island, Saint Barthélemy. On our own.
When we woke up the following morning, our cruise ship had
just anchored off the coast of Saint Barthelemy, the island of the rich and
famous. You may think I jest, but we
were anchored right across from the largest privately-owned yacht in the world,
owned, coincidentally, by a Russian, Roman Abramovich. Aside from its slick design, which we
witnessed firsthand, the internet reveals that the Eclipse (good name!)
features a missile-detection system, two helipads, and a miniature
submarine. The other vessels around us,
while smaller, looked every bit as chic.
Roman Abramovich's yacht (courtesy of Wikipedia)
With the cruise ship anchored half a mile from land (for all
the yachts, it’s a rather small island, originally meant for vessels of smaller
scale), the crew had to operate a tender boat to ferry passengers back and
forth. Once we were on shore, lacking
the riches and fame of our fellow travelers and native inhabitants, we walked
half-way across the island to the famed Columbier bay, rather than taking a
taxi. We had expected the walk to be
through pleasant French-esque countryside, and the beach to be a remote place
of natural wonder. What we forgot is
that the island was meant for yachts, not pedestrians – the road leading to
Columbier was just a road (no sidewalks, quaint houses, etc), and the remote
beach, while remote for walking, was perfectly accessible from the ocean. Dozens of yachts were anchored along the bay,
each operating its own tender service on tiny inflatable boats. I wondered, vaguely, if the yachts we saw
here were themselves tenders of even larger Abramovich-like yachts, in the
fashion of stackable Russian dolls. And
also, what would Steve Jobs’ yacht have looked like, if he’d had the chance to
finish it.
As it turned out, only one of Columbier’s bays was crowded
with boats: the other, facing the wind
and lacking a beach, held little allure for the yachts. However, it also offered little hope for
snorkeling: the water was too turbulent, and we’d risk being smashed into the
rocky shore. So, following the advice of
a yacht-owning Englishman (we met him on a hill between the two bays, where he
and his family were out for a walk; when he found out how far we’d come from,
he had only word: “intrepid”), we chose
the yacht-favored bay for snorkeling. It
was a good choice, and our first encounter with Caribbean fish, who were colorful
but not quite as plentiful as in Hawaii.
Particularly memorable were His Honor the Neon-Blue fish, His Honor the Foot-Long Skinny-Alligator-Like Fish, His Honor many many others (“Fiddler on the
Roof” reference, for those who think I’ve just lost my marbles). There were also some corals.
After an hour, we got out and followed a 20-minute trail
around the picturesque second bay. There
we came upon a tiny beach, much more open to the ocean than where we’d just snorkeled,
so we used the opportunity to get a good swim, instead. It was great fun, riding on the shoulders of
waves that would lift us a good 5ft into the air; there were also impressive
mushroom-looking corals below us, and some corals that intuitively resembled elephant
brains (not that I’d ever seen one). We
swam a few hundred yards out into the ocean so we could see around a protruding
cape, and then, pressed for time, turned back.
Having “intrepidly” walked half-way across the island to get
to Columbier, we did not fancy re-tracing our steps all the way back. The problem was, we had no idea how to call a
taxi, or even where we’d find a payphone.
Katrina saved the day with her French fluency; she approached a
receptionist at a nearby restaurant, and – since neither the receptionist nor
her coworkers knew how to call a cab – the girl volunteered to take us to the
dock herself, refusing payment (and they say the French are rude heartless
people!) And so, in this most expensive
of the Caribbean islands, we got to visit some of the most remote spots on the
island, and spent a grand total of 2 Euros while ashore – on one postcard and
two stamps.
Map of the Caribbean (from http://www.locationcaribbean.com/caribbean-map)
Over Winter Break, Katrina and I took a cruise with her parents to the eastern Caribbean islands. Out destinations included Nassau (in the Bahamas), Porto Rico, St. Barts (a French island, known to the French as Saint Barthélemy), Dominica, Antigua, St. Thomas (in the U.S. Virgin Islands), Half Moon Cay (Holland America’s privately-owned island in the Bahamas), and the Florida Everglades (back in good ol’ USA). All in all, the 10-day cruise covered about 2,500 miles, but the distances between the islands were pretty small, only a couple hundred miles (and often with many an island in-between our destinations). It was all the more intriguing, therefore, to see just how different those islands could be, both geographically and culturally.
Our cruise started and ended in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida – but my impressions from the trip started a little earlier, on our first flight out of Indianapolis. As we approached Atlanta, the darkness gave way to a dazzling orange streak of light, which gave way to a calmer pink hue that spread over the sea of clouds below us. I have seen clouds from airplanes before, of course, but here the likeness to the early-morning sea – with foaming pink wave crests, and sprays of mist below – was breathtaking. And so, even before I had stepped onto the cruise ship, I experienced the joy of being at sea.
The second flight, from Atlanta to Ft. Lauderdale, also became notable as we approached our destination. The city dazzled us with its abundance of water – first with wetlands and marshes on the outskirts of the city, then with Amsterdam-like canals running alongside streets and highways, then with ponds and fountains surrounding nearly every suburban home. Again, even before I had stepped onto the cruise ship, I was surrounded with water!
Our ship – when we got to it – was Ms. Maasdam, operated by Holland America. Compared to other cruise ships, it was on the medium-small side (700 ft long, 100 ft wide), with about 1200 passengers onboard (served, by the way, by 550+ crew members – essentially one crew member per couple!). When in port, alongside other larger and newer ships, the Maasdam seemed to lack a little bit in grandeur, but we were quite content with it: its veranda offered good views of the sunset, the dining room and show room were magnificent, and our room –windowless, but with a curtain over one end of the bed, to give a very convincing illusion of a window – was quite comfortable. Add to that some wonderful meals and entertainment aboard the ship, and some new and exciting destinations while on shore, and there was little else we could wish for.
Our first island was New Providence (best known for its city of Nassau, which is the capital and commercial center of the Bahamas). We had arranged our own (non-through Holland-America) excursion that day – a Dolphin Swim on the privately-owned island of Blue Lagoon. After a short taxi ride to the ferry terminal, a 20-minute boat ride took us to the island. As the shoreline of Nassau stretched alongside us, we passed some dazzlingly expensive-looking beach-front homes and yachts, which contrasted sharply with shirtless black fishermen we saw along the way. But, on entering Blue Lagoon island, all other thoughts washed out of my mind. We were in Dolphin land!
After donning on a wetsuit and a lifejacket, we jumped into the rather chilly water, and two dolphins – two dolphins for a group of six of us: Kat and I, her parents, and another couple – came up to greet us. The trainers were sitting at the water’s edge, motioning to the dolphins exactly what to do (and tossing in an occasional fish, to sweeten the deal), so the interaction was not particularly spontaneous. But, spontaneous or not, this was the first time I’d ever petted a dolphin, or hugged one, or danced with one (hanging on to the pectoral fins on the dolphin’s side, while the dolphin jiggled back side to side), or got squirted with salt water by one (this happened while Katrina’s dolphin was giving her a kiss on the lips, as a way to distract the jealous husband… very funny, I’m sure it was the dolphin who thought of that, to the complete surprise of the trainers!) Katrina’s dolphin also gave her a Christmas present: a tiny pebble, hardly the size of a cherry. According to the trainers, it’s the smallest present they’d ever seen the dolphins bring up (the other person in our group received a hefty rock the size of an orange). On the other hand, that guy looked at the rock and tossed it back in the water (this lack of gratitude earned him some blow-hole squirting as well, as a token of the dolphin’s displeasure), whereas Katrina’s rock was small enough that she kept it all throughout our trip.
Then came the dolphins’ final behavior, the Incredible Foot Push. And incredible it was. Lying on my stomach, feet a little apart, I had two dolphins swim up to me, put their noses in the arch of my foot, and accelerate to 25 miles per hour, lifting me clear out of the water with my arms at my side. It was pretty incredible how strong – and also how coordinated – they were. The trainers said that this behavior takes six months to a year to teach, with a special emphasis on safety: dolphins need to learn to let go if person bends their legs (a sign to stop), to aim at a particular target (a white flag on the other side of the pool), and to avoid ramming the person into the other end of the pool (also good). But the resulting behavior really was, just as advertised it, pretty incredible (I also can’t imagine the trainers complaining too much)! I was the first person in the group to do it, after which the dolphins took a little rest (for them this is the equivalent of a hard sprint), and then proceeded to launch each of the others into the air, superman-style. All-in-all, the actual interaction time was short (and I wish we could have had time to just swim in the water, while the dolphins did their own thing), but I’m very glad we got to do it.
(Fun "after hours" video from Dolphin Encounters, our dolphin tour operators)
At the end of our dolphin interaction, we still had another hour left before the Blue Lagoon’s shuttle boat would take us back, so we set off to explore the little island’s shoreline. As it later turned out, we had ventured into the “no swim” shore, which explains why it looked so pristine. There we frolicked on the rocks, and swam after fish, and looked into the big wide ocean, which looked so inviting and untouched from our vantage point. It was only for fear of missing the shuttle boat, and consequently the cruise ship and the rest of the cruise, that we forced ourselves to go back to the dock and – after a half hour of waiting, for the ferry seemed to operate on loose Bahamian time – ride back to the bigger and far more crowded Nassau.
Back on the ship, the evening’s performance at the Showroom at Sea was an hour of Broadway songs and dances. I recognized just a few of the songs (e.g., the Phantom and Sound of Music themes), and experienced the old-but-forgotten feeling of cultural ignorance – I had thought, over the last few years, that I had caught up on the classics of American culture. Ah well, most of the fellow passengers onboard had a good 50-year head-start on me in the way of experiencing American culture (or going to the theatre, for that matter). I was thoroughly impressed by the singers’ voices, as well as the nifty stage-lighting effects (all the more impressive for being on a small stage, and on a ship, for heaven’s sake!)
Later that evening, a few volunteer choirs staged a performance of Christmas carols. Most memorable was the Filipino choir (essentially, composed of members of the kitchen and housekeeping staff), who sang beautifully in their own native tongue. Amidst their own people, in festive costumes, and on stage, they proudly shared their cultural heritage with us, and it felt good and proper to have them be the stars of the show, rather than the usual smiling but somewhat class-separated servicemen of the ship. There was also a very spirited performance of “This Christmas” by the ship’s African-American DJ, with much clapping, tapping, “c’mon ya’ll”-s, and a very good voice.
Christmas Day (at sea):
Christmas Day was one of our two days at sea, as the ship covered the significant distance between the Bahamas and the actual Caribbean islands (beginning with Porto Rico and heading south-east). As there were no ports – and hence no shore excursions – that day, Kat and I tried to catch up on various fun activities that we’ve been meaning to do for a long time, but haven’t had a chance. The day began with a tennis game on the very top deck of the ship (thank you, Kat, for appeasing my whim!). It was a slightly disorienting feeling, playing on a little court that rocked gently beneath our feet and was subject to random wind fluctuations, but it was fun all the same. Then, when I realized I was paying more attention to the distant waves than the tennis ball, we headed down to the open-air veranda for a leisurely stroll, watching waves strike the front of the ship and explode in a shower of mist. We concluded our walk with a visit to the deck at the very front of the ship for a bit of frolicking in the wind (actually, the wind did most of the frolicking, particularly in Katrina’s hair!)
The cruise organized various events for the day at sea (and for other days too, though most of that time we were on shore, exploring the islands). This time, however, we attended an amazing towel-folding demonstration: a form of origami, if you will, but with unique constraints and possibilities owing to the coarse, thick, and bendable nature of the material.
I should preface by saying that every night of the cruise, house-cleaning would leave us a fun towel creation on the bed, be it a lobster, elephant, or monkey. The first couple of nights, they started out simple (what our Indonesian instructor called the “10-second animal”); after the demo, perhaps by popular demand, we got the more exotic animals (e.g., the said elephant; a “1-minute animal”). There was, of course, always room for improvement: during the demo, he showed us a swan creation that Holland will do for guest celebrating their 25th or 50th anniversary, complete with a lovely flower bouquet and a bow tie attached to the male swan (and an imaginary wine bottle and two glasses at the swan’s side). This, he said was the “5-minute animal”, a true pinnacle of towel-folding ingenuity. But the most important part, for any towel-creation animal, was the googly eyes – it gives the viewer an immediate sense of personality to the animal (and, for that matter, an immediate grasp of where’s the head!) Other accessories, such as eye glasses for an old grandma-monkey, or real peacock feathers for a peacock, obviously help too (if no peacock feathers are to be found, our instructor assured us, the peacock can easily be dubbed a turkey). But the googly eyes – those are essential. “What would you bet I can make a 1-second animal?”, our instructor dared us? “With googly eyes, no problem. Start your stop watch.” He slammed two googly eyes onto a hand towel, scrunched it up, and held its center an inch from the tabletop, waving the towel gently up and down. There, in front of us, was a pretty convincing jellyfish!
You had to be there to appreciate just how awesome the demo was, and how charming was our smiley, slightly-self-mocking Indonesian instructor, with a dismissive “oh, it’s really easy”, and fun terminology for the interim towel-folding stages like (“big carrot”, “small carrot”, and “roast turkey”). Other notable towel-creations, in addition to the above, included a droopy-eared doggy (a perfect likeness to Hazel) and a penguin. The penguin actually was pretty easy to make – so simple that our instructor called for a couple of volunteers to come up and repeat after him, and I did. My penguin ended up being a little on the floppy side (I didn’t roll my “carrots” tight enough), so he had a hard time standing; but, once he fell down, he made for a good sprawled-out sea turtle! The trick, by the way, for at-home towel folding is that the towels have to be stiff: it can’t be new, and it has to have been washed without any fabric softener (our instructor winced at the mere mention of this product). And, of course, a detailed Holland America instruction book – for sale at only $14.99 – doesn’t hurt, either! (We immediately bought it).
After dinner (with, once again, incredible food, and even smoked salmon!), the Showroom at Sea featured a really funny musical/sitcom, “Goode Company”. I had assumed that this is a well-known play, but, now that I’m writing the blog post, I can find absolutely no information on the internet about it. Perhaps the cast wrote it themselves – if so, even more power to them! The show was about four guys who now work as marketing consultants for a shoe company, but who keep reminiscing over their experience as a rock band together. Each guy has a favorite decade – the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s – when the music and their lifestyle felt “right”, and the show kept flashing back to the music, consumes, backdrops, and hairstyles of each of the decades. It was really fun (and featured some songs that even I knew, like “I will survive” and “Footloose”), and the actors really impressed me with the different personas (and decades) they could seamlessly transform into.
We must really have been enjoying the music and the person-transformations, because, immediately after the show, Kat and I and her parents headed down to a piano lounge, where Berry from Boston was hosting a highly-addictive and interactive “Name-That-Toon” game. Berry was incredible, from his piano skills, to his engaging role as host, to his actual singing (though he may have been using a voice synthesizer to twiddle his voice to the appropriate pitch and likeness of the famous singers he was imitating; at least, he twiddled something on a box by his microphone between each song). The game was so entertaining, that I stayed for its full hour-long length, despite recognizing exactly 1 out of 25 songs (Kat’s parents recognized and named 15 of them).
And then, on a whim – quite characteristic to the way we had spent the whole day – Kat and I played an hour-long game of chess on a Microsoft Surface table. “And there was evening, and there was morning – the day at sea”.
