The last 10 days have been a bit of a blur as we wake up and find ourselves moored at a different Island each morning. Unlike River Cruises where all “excursions” are included in the Cruise package. With Seabourn all extensions are “extra” and to avoid disappointment, need to be booked and paid for in advance from quite a wide selection of options.

Anyway cut a long story short this means that one only gets a brief opportunity to explore each port of call. Most days the ship moors off the coast of each island which necessitates much faffing about with Tenders (read lifeboats) back and forth from ship to shore.

As will become apparent from my narrative, life onboard is 4-5 star. However this is an experiment that I probably wont repeat as for a number of reasons the ocean cruising crowd are a very different bunch to the more civilised and friendly river cruisers that I have become used to. I should have stuck to my “maximum capacity of 100ish” limit and will revert accordingly in future !!

Having said that, it has been great to get some sun on the old bones and to escape from the endless cold & dank English winter. Not to mention the ongoing management issues at Flete House that have dominated Max and My retirement for the past 3 years. More of that may appear as a rant in a future blog posting. You have been warned !!!!!

So back to the Cruise….

Tortola

It was 40 years ago when I spent (or rather misspent !) Xmas in Tortola with Roger & Nicky during a break in what was a three year Pink Floyd Tour and we rented a couple of Bungalows in Cane Garden Bay. Hurricanes and tourism have since taken their toll but it’s still not too shabby and was the first stop in our Cruising schedule.

St Kitts

Next stop St Kitts for a Day on the Beach, after a quick coach tour of the Island, including a very colourful Batik factory and shop. This was followed by a Barbecue on the beach with the entire ship’s company (all 500 ish) and the Seabourn “signature event” of Caviar in the Surf which fell somewhat short of expectations so I escaped back to the Ship before sand permitted every crevice!

A day at Sea and then Guadeloupe, Martinique & Bequia.

A rather tedious coach ride around Guadeloupe and a Botanical Garden

A visit to a large Rum Distillery with Tasting and Shop – There is one on every island !

Followed by a quick tour around Bequia.

This is where I started to loose track of which day – which Island and which Rum. So will publish this and resume later …..

I never got around to completing my Moroccan blog earlier this year. No excuse really but hopefully those of you that were following it got the gist of it ! Anyway I couldn’t face another English Winter without an escape plan so am embarking on a 4 week Caribbean and Mexican adventure.

Back in the day when RWP was still in action, some of you may remember that the 90s involved a seemingly endless stream of extravagant Cruise Ship Naming Ceremonies, in Southampton for Cunard, P&O, Princess and various other Carnival Cruise lines. One of which was Seabourn Sojourn which we brought up the Thames from Dover, past Greenwich and Twiggy was the bottle smashing “Godmother”. I had previously issued an edict to my long suffering team, that is I was ever seen setting foot on any of the massive behemoths, they had my permission to shoot me !!

Well sometimes such rules have to be ignored, and having exhausted the majority of the Winter river cruising destinations, I set my sights on Seabourn and a 20 night Caribbean Cruise from San Juan to Barbados taking in a plethora of Island on the way. Then a quick dip into the Yucatan in Mexico to see some Aztec ruins and hook up with an old mate before heading back to Blighty to wait for Spring to arrive.

As always when I try to resume blogging, I find out that WordPress have “updated the software and the “rules”. Now that AI has managed to infiltrate everything, hopefully you will be able to access and follow my exploits as they unravel.

I will hope to issue weekly postings. Apologies in advance if there are any glitches but am wrestling with a new iPad which seemed like a good idea at the time…..

Set off from Devon last Friday by train to London and onto Heathrow. A night in a hotel at the Airport before catching the Virgin flight to JFK and then onto San Juan for another night in a hotel before joining Seabourn Ovation – my home for the next 3 weeks. JFK was a total nightmare with what could have been a 5 hour queue at immigration and a missed connection, which I somehow managed to circumnavigate by joining the “disabled” queue and charming/pleading with the chap trying to order me back to the back of the queue. Still took a while to get into the USA and then straight into another 2 hour queue to get out again and onto my flight to Puerto Rico (which of course is still in the US !! Grrrrrr !! Finally got into my hotel at around 02:00 which my brain (what’s left of it) thought that it was 07:00. Up and off to the port and the safe haven of Seabourn Ovation..

Much larger that my River Cruising ships/boats and well in excess of my self prescribed 100 passenger limit but at least I managed to avoid one of the horrendous monster ships that seem to dominate the world of cruising these days !! All rather plush and managed to decant my 3 bags (yes 3 !!) and set up my base station. Wi-Fi was a somewhat costly exercise but needs must so that I can blog away as we embark on 3 weeks of island hopping.

Tortola

My previous visit to Tortola was a much needed break around 30 years ago in the middle of a 3 year Pink Floyd world tour. Since then much has changed and a couple of major hurricanes have taken their toll. However it seems to have recovered and has brought back some fond memories of my mispent youth and various exploits and adventures !!

A copious selection of soaps, washes and scrubs as well as reams of lists of “activities” that I will do my best to avoid. Fellow passengers (4-500 ish) are an eclectic and multinational bunch in a variety of interesting and sometimes bizarre combinations. Great people watching though and the Food is amazing and a tad OTT !! Trying not to succumb to the omnipresent alcohol but the Caribbean would not be the Caribbean without a tot or two of Rum !!

A quick tour around the Island followed by a couple of hours of snorkelling then back on board for and to our next stop – St Kitts.

I will post this now. Please let me know if i gets through OK