Tuesday, 3rd March, St Vincent, cloudy 24 degrees

Had a lazy approach to the day as we have nothing booked. We will just explore. Looking out of our cabin window I think we must gird our loins for steep hills. Our thinking is maybe a taxi to the fort at the top of one of them and a wander back – we shall see.

In the event we got outside the terminal gate and were confronted by a number of people who wanted to take us on a tour of the island, but that is not we wanted to do. After a think and having taken the advice that going to Fort Charlotte and then walking back (our original thought) was not a good idea, we decided on an island tour. We had got the ‘vibes’ that St Vincent was not.perhaps the place for wandering on our own…..

St Vincent and the Grenadines is in fact a chain of 32 islands. St Vincent is the main island. It is very hilly with a cluster of housing around each bay we found on our tour.

It is certainly not as sophisticated or tourist friendly as Granada although it sees tourism as its main industry these days. It is quite small – 133 square miles in total. It has a live volcano and its beaches are black sand. The Sandals hotel chain has set up a new development in one area and has shipped in white sand, ostensibly because black sand is hotter on the feet, but perhaps because it looks better?!? Just as an aside some of the more expensive accommodation in the complex is $2,000 a night, with one one suite costing reportedly $14,000 per night – it apparently has a glass floor where you can watch the fish. Perhaps snorkelling might be cheaper….

We learnt these Sandals facts from our driver Tony, who we decided in the end should take us on an island tour…..

We set out through the town of Kingstown. There was plenty of evidence of local ‘colour’

and lots of churches of various denominations, although we were told the main ‘religion’ was the 84 % alcohol rum which is made on the island.

St Vincent is another island with a chequered history of occupation. Although Christopher Columbus sighted the islands in the late 1500’s, the local indigenous population fought off any attempt by Europeans to settle for 200 years. At one stage in its history it became a haven for slaves that had escaped from other islands in the area. It became British in 1763 and when slavery was abolished in 1834, Portuguese and Indian labourers arrived to fill the gap in terms of working the plantations.

There was evidence of the British occupation at various spots on our route, particularly in the Catholic Church which could not have been anything else!

Although it was a bit cloudy, we stopped on a high spot to look out to other islands. One of the most notable was the island of Mustique, with its royal connections. It can just be seen in this photograph…..

This is a view looking down on Kingstown, with Mustique to the right of the island in the mist.

There was an interesting mix of buildings as we travelled up and down the narrow roads. Many were built on stilts to accommodate the hilly terrain, but the standard varied from almost mansion status with multiple cars parked outside to shacks with doors falling off and chickens pecking in the dirt outside.

Like Granada and the other islands we have been to, they were all sorts of colours.

Bananas used to be the main export from St Vincent to the UK but this is no longer the case and tourism and fishing has taken over, but we saw evidence of the old banana plantations as we travelled along.

Tony stopped to buy us bananas to taste and I have to say they were delicious and much more juicy and sweet than those we get in the UK.

Our final stop was the area where Johnny Depp filmed Pirates of the Caribbean – a place called Wallilabou. Although the site could have been maintained as a ‘go to’ location, there is nothing there to denote the the filming except another lovely bay. Something of a missed opportunity perhaps but there is definitely a laid back air about St Vincent that gave the impression that making a decision to do something like that was just a tad too taxing!

Perhaps it is that rum and the frequent marijuana use that gives rise to this other worldliness. It certainly has some beautiful scenery.

When we finished our tour, which was very enjoyable, we went walking around town and found Vee Jays where we thought we would have lunch in our time honoured tradition of trying the local dishes.

First of course we tried the rum punch which tasted quite harmless – but had a cumulative disastrous effect which I found when I stood up having consumed three of them!?! But I did not realise that until later…..

We actually arrived just before lunch time and we weren’t quite sure of the approach to lunch at first as It was quite a small place, with a bar straight ahead when you walk in. There is no sign of food. However, at about noon the whole atmosphere changed.

At noon, the whole world and its wife seemed to appear and queues – and there were two – formed behind us. These snaked out into an area at the back of the bar. Investigation was required and after a brave reconnaissance mission by my trusty food investigator, we were able to give advice to another of our ship’s company – who of course we had never seen before – who had also dropped in for lunch. On the basis of the growing numbers, Keith went to get our meal and returned with two giant plates full for the grand cost of $10 for what looked like food mountains!

I was immediately overwhelmed! Keith manfully tackled most of his and I performed woefully inadequately and left a lot of mine.

We had just completed our marathon food fest, when who should arrive but our Bridge partners! They are always good fun so we joined them to free up a table for others. Perhaps two hours later we left. With something of a wobble on my part, I must admit, but what a fun couple of hours they were!

For at least half of that time the food queue did not abate! We did find out that you could have a wrap which appeared to be all of the items we had mixed together and enclosed in a pancake for ease of carriage. This was what a lot of the queuers were taking away and what we advised Maria and Matt to have.

I did manage to get a couple of street scenes on the way back to the dock

It was interesting to see the food on sale by street vendors mainly wrapped in plastic bags. This was a nicety we haven’t seen elsewhere, but the traffic was pretty heavy so it may have provided some protection from the dust.

We then had some, on my case much required, quiet time before I took off to see a performance by a current member of the Hollies, a group of my era still going I understand. I guess from the era of a lot of the people in the ship too as the theatre was packed to the gunnels with people standing. A bit of a trip down memory lane.

Tomorrow we arrive in Barbados.