Vacation 2014: St. Lucia

Best Towel Animal Ever!

I had a super fun time at the White party, which should be renamed "Tighty Whitey" party, but that is another story. At the end of the stumble of shame, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my cabin steward, Diane, had me in mind when she was creating tonight's towel animal. A fitting end to a great day.

Although it was a late night for me, I was still up around 8:00 for coffee and bloody maries with Jay. There is nothing quite like spending your morning chatting with friends over spicy bloody maries and coffee while sailing into the next exotic port. Today's stop is St. Lucia.

Sailing into St. Lucia

St Lucia: Port Entrance

Beautiful blue skies, breezy, warm. Perfect! 

A member of the ship's Water Sports Team (insert joke here)

The only thing I knew about St. Lucia before arriving is that Oprah has a house there and this year's runner up on Top Chef is from here. The approach to the harbor is spectacular. The volcanic peaks at the water's edge are breathtaking. The skies were a perfect shade of blue against the deep tropical green forests. From the water the island and port appear almost magical. We were excited to get on shore.

 Of all the islands we visited on this trip, St. Lucia was perhaps the most "un-touristy." Obviously, the large ships do not dock here, so the port area is not set up with duty free liquor shops or, to be honest, any shops at all. There did not appear to be many ex-pat residents or other tourists in town. Since our group had no leader, we just wandered around like a flock of chickens without a rooster - a flock of very exotic roosters based on the number of people staring at us as we wandered around.

In the center of town there is a church built on the former slave auction grounds. In the middle of the church yard is a memorial to the run away slaves that were executed on these grounds upon their recapture. There were several people from our ship wandering around the grounds taking pictures. Later we heard that some of the locals felt by our taking photos we were not showing proper respect to the memory of those executed here. That made me sad.

Waiting for our beers: Jay and Brad

Having seen the local sites, we found a bar on the harbor and had a local beer to commemorate our visit. Of course we logged into Facebook to update our status. I mean really - how else can we remind our friends at home that we are having a great time in the tropics while they are digging their way out of another snow storm?

We were soon back on the ship. There was packing to do and I wanted to get some information on next year's trips - plus there was still a bit of liquor behind the bar that had not yet been consumed.  LOL.


As part of the sail away party, the crew took the tender out for people to capture pictures of the ship. This was taken by a shipmate and posted in our Facebook group. Looking at this picture, I am once again reminded that I am a lucky guy to be living this life. I would not change a day of it for anything. After all, when I was growing up in a small NC town, I never ever dreamed that one day I would be cruising through the tropics with some of the best people I know on a ship straight out of central fairy tale casting.

There was a festive, yet bittersweet feeling as we watched the sails being raised for for our last sail away. Everything we did that day was a last of one sort or another: Our last bloody maries before breakfast, our last crumbly tater tots, our last new port, our last sail away, sunset, dinner, etc. But these "lasts" make us savor the experience even more.

Lanny

Skipper

Sailing out of St. Lucia

John B.

Chaz, Bruce, and Lanny - Kings(?) of the world

The final scheduled event of the afternoon was a group shot of everyone assembled under the crow's nest. Needless to say, getting all those men together was like herding butterflies, but how else can you get your face on the website? We all signed releases and this was our last chance...

Here we come!

After the photo shoot, someone pointed out that there was a rainbow behind us in the port. Of course there would be rainbow - what else would you expect with this many fabulous men gathered in one spot? However, this rainbow was unlike any I have ever seen. So brilliant you could see every color. And, as we sailed away and the afternoon showers came and went over the island, we were treated to a full double rainbow. It was so beautiful it appeared to be fake. But you can judge for yourself from the pictures.

The first rendition

It only gets better

Can you believe this? It looks like it was Photoshopped.

Upon his arrival home, Jay described this moment much better than I ever could: 
"This past Friday I saw TWO of the most amazing sights that God and Mother Nature can create. The first was that spectacular double full arc rainbow connecting two beautiful lush green mountain peaks rising majestically out of the azure Caribbean Sea on St Lucia. Oh how I wish I could have gotten that whole view in my camera finder, but it will always be in my head. So breathtaking, it's unique and powerful beauty made me cry. Yeah, I've gotten goofy in my old age!

The SECOND awesome sight that God and Mother Nature created? I turned around and saw a jubilant crowd just shy of 200 people with as many descriptive and/or annoying labels as society can throw at them and as exist in the larger population, celebrating a moment, a week, a life together. Old/young, black/white/Latin/Asian, East Coast/West Coast/Midwest, American/Canadian/European, bear/muscle bear/polar bear/twink/gym rat/otter/silver daddy, male/female, single/married/divorced/widowed/still frantically looking, professions ranging from student to judge to military to minister to retired and every religion or lack thereof known to our culture, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and grandfathers, maybe even a great grandfather or two, all unified by one trait that for some reason causes some to fear and hate. We're gay"

Yep, it was the best day ever.

Heading back into rough seas on the way back to Barbados