Gustavia, St. Barts...NOT SO MUCH – January 2

too many gazillionaires blocking us

bobbing and waiting

Weather…the wind is unnoticeable on a 50-ton
cruise ship, but apparently not so much for tender boats, 27 degrees, blue skys dotted with cotton ball clouds

us V them

Just as we were getting ready for today’s tour, we hear the dreaded “bing-bang-bong” on the room’s speaker. When an announcement comes right into the room it’s serious. The captain proceeds to tell us that we aren’t fancy enough to hang with the fancy

see the chopper?

people in St Bart’s today. What seemed like a relatively smooth sail into St. Bart’s waters wasn’t smooth enough for us to be anchored closer to shore. The numerous yachts, mega yachts, and super yachts anchored in the harbor prevented us from being close enough to

making the best of it

shore to get any protection for the tenders to operate safely. We anchored at 8:00 and by 9:00 the whole operation was called off. We could see the tender operation right below our balcony and the swells were big…2-3 meters apparently. We saw the little boats bob around in the water just waiting to get back on to the ship.

We’ve been on tenders in swells like these and it’s not pretty. Once we sat in one right at the ship and waited and waited for the conditions to be just right for slowly, slowly each passenger to be off loaded. What looks like nothing from the ship is plenty in a tender.

these are some biggies

So…we spend some time admiring the comings and goings of the yachts including at least one with a helicopter perched atop…we should have a helicopter for times like these…I’ll mention that on my comment card.  All of this while eating a room service breakfast – I order room service on most mornings when we have a tour, not nearly as fancy-schmancy as yesterday!

no champagne or caviar here

I’m not at all sad about our situation
today. Sure, I was looking forward to our excursion on a semi-submersible boat/vessel. We were supposed to see sea life which I’m a bit starved for this trip. We’ve seen a fair amount of land fauna, but considering we’ve been sailing for 2 weeks, I’ve seen NO sea life. We were told not to expect, but that there are usually sea turtles, angelfish, sergeant majors, spotted moray eels and tarpon. I don’t even know what all of these are, but I know I want to see them.

from last time we were on

I was also looking forward to eating a $40USD cheeseburger in paradise…a comment made by one of the onboard lecturers about how pricey St. Bart’s is. We’ve experienced our fair share of pricey world spots and wanted to add St. Bart’s to the list…next time!

sun setting

A further note on the tender operations…the tender workers from the Philippines blow my mind! We once took a tender IN THE DARK in Australia. We had just come from freezing our asses off seeing penguins nesting for the evening. Then we got onto tenders back to the ship. Because it was dark, there had to be a
tender worker on the bow of this little boat in the cold, plus the wind created by sailing, plus rain…WOW! I can only imagine how cold hat must have been. All of this, not to mention the care with which they interact with all of us, getting us on and off. Tendering is serious business… disaster always seems close…one false move and that would be THAT! There is a small space between the tender and the ship’s platform to cross, as the tender bobs in the water the space grows and shrinks. The workers assist absolutely everyone whether you like it or not. Let’s face it, all of us need! Why not take the help…they know what they’re doing…they are the boss!! Of course, they do all of this with smiles on their faces.

more setting

The rest of the day was spent as most sea days are. We wanted to stay on our room’s balcony – while we were at anchor we were in the shade and the balcony was glorious, once we started moving, we turned to face the sun and it was just a tad roasty. We were able to find a spot at the pool in the shade. We were lucky to eat lunch outside at the back of the boat just as we passed through a shower…even that was charming!

and...

Tonight’s show was by one of the ship’s guest performers who we’ve seen a few times. He plays piano, guitar, and sings. He plays current and not-so-current stuff and we’ve really enjoyed listening to him over a drink. Until tonight he has been in the ship’s lounges, tonight he is in the ship’s main theater.

We welcome any chance to hear music from our lifetime. Anyone looking around this ship can tell we aren’t the main demographic, but COME ON…last night we heard the Doors and thought… “ooo, modern”…this gives an idea of what we are dealing with! None of this is a surprise to us of course…and the musicians are really good, I’d just like to hear maybe 10% of the music made in the last 50 years!!