Our cruise wrapped up with two stops in the US Virgin Islands before we headed home by way of Puerto Rico. Our guides explained that the US bought these islands from Denmark for $25M in gold shortly after the Spanish-American War. True to form for all of the West Indies, the islands were beautiful with plenty of beaches and amazingly clear blue water. The US Virgin Islands also seemed more prosperous than many of the other islands we visited. Prosperity and the creation of wealth are complicated matters to explain, but history shows us that governance is an important ingredient. Before swerving off into a geopolitical discussion, let’s look at some photos:
Some of our fellow passengers went on physically demanding excursions, while others would take a taxi and chill out on the nearest beach as soon as the ship docked in each port. We had tried to find a middle ground, but finally grabbed some beach time on St. Thomas at the place shown above. The water was a little cooler than we expected, but still amazingly clear and calm.My favorite tourist relaxing in the sun. Not to worry; there were shade trees nearby for when the sun became too warm. And not too much of a crowd sharing the beach.View of the harbor, with our cruise ship near the left side of the photo. As noted before, the community looked prosperous compared with other islands, with roads and buildings kept in good repair, hurricanes notwithstanding.More of the harbor, with clear, deep water and sandy beaches.Private yacht moored near our cruise ship; you can see this yacht in the earlier photo showing our cruise ship. The neighborhood was nice, although the island showed the effects of invasion by US restaurants such as McDonalds, Wendy’s, KFC, and so on.Switching islands, here is the old brick fort guarding the harbor at St. Croix. A close view reveals some of the old cannon, still positioned to fight off pirates or invaders. The cruise ship season was winding down, and a surprising number of businesses were already closed or operating under reduced hours.One final view of the clear blue water that surrounds this and the other islands of the West Indies. We hope you enjoyed our cruise vicariously though this series of blog posts. This is certainly a beautiful part of God’s creation!
Our next stop was the port and town of St. John’s on Antigua. Along with its neighboring island, Barbuda, this was a British headquarters for the region during the colonial era, but Antigua and Barbuda are now an independent country. None of the West Indies islands we visited asked to see our passports, much less stamp them upon entry or departure. Much more convenient, but I guess the days of stamped passports have disappeared into the digital age, along with the idea of passport stamps as cherished tokens of travel. Nostalgia aside, here are some photos from Antigua:
Nelson’s dockyard was part of our tour of Antigua. The British navy needed a harbor where they could repair, resupply, and maintain their warships during the colonial era, and this was the place. Many of the stone building have survived the years and are open to the public. And they have an interesting selection of cannons on the premises.We are no experts when it comes to naval or land-based artillery, but here was a small cannon on display. Not a mortar, but certainly small and short compared to the other naval guns.Looking out over the harbor at Nelson’s Dockyard. No warships to be seen, but plenty of yachts and sailboats. The topography for this and the rest of the island is relatively flat, suggesting a non-volcanic origin. And although Antigua is covered with vegetation, it is not as lush as most of the other islands, so this one probably gets less rainfall. I think that our earlier ports of call were on the Windward Islands of the West Indies, and this is one of the Leeward Islands, which would go with the idea of the climate being a bit drier.View from a high hill behind the dockyard, showing the relatively flat terrain compared with the greater relief seen on the volcanic islands. Antigua claims to have 365 separate beaches (each little sandy alcove counts as a beach), and the shoreline is gorgeous.Nelson’s Dockyard seen from the overlooking hill, with a view towards the larger harbor near St. Johns. Makes you wonder if everyone on the island either has a sailboat or wishes that they had one. Even though we were coming to the end of the cruise season, two other cruise ships were in the harbor with us, which was a burden and a blessing to the Antigua economy. This photo looks back towards the harbor as we set sail for our next ports of call: the US Virgin Islands.
Dominica was perhaps the most volcanically active of any island we visited, and also one of the poorest. We were told that nine volcanos make up the island, and geothermal activity creates hot springs both on shore and in the adjacent sea floor. A lush rain forest covers most of the island, although enough land has been cleared to allow for growing a few crops, including a limited amount of coffee. As far as we could tell, all of the crops are used locally and few if any are exported, so tourism is the backbone of their economy. Here are a few photos:
Sunlit clouds during our early-morning approach to Dominica. We were the only cruise ship to arrive that day.This started out as the rainiest day of our cruise, but the rain stopped soon after our arrival. We found this beautiful rainbow waiting for us as we made our way along the pier from ship to shore.Typical street scene as we rode through town on a small tour bus. Many of the buildings on this and other West Indies islands have flat roofs with gutters and drains designed to catch rainwater. Some of the richer islands have (or are building) desalination plants, but most residents still store rainwater in cisterns, or have wells. A hurricane grounded this ship a few years ago. We saw hurricane damage on this and other islands, usually in the form of buildings abandoned after winds blew away their roof. Materials and skilled labor for repairing wind damage are limited and costly, so repairs go to the highest bidder.Jacko Falls, running full after rains the night before. That’s my favorite tourist gazing at the falls. Our guide was a member of the local Carib Indians, living on native-owned property on the east side of the island. Our tour started and ended in the capitol of Dominica, on the west side of the island, and she planned to hitchhike back home after her work day was done.Red hot cat’s tail, also known as chenille plant or foxtail, growing in a clearing near the falls. I think the locals see it as a weed, but it does add color to the landscape.View of our ship, the Viking Sea, from a hill overlooking town. The area with white markers in the lower left corner of the photo is a cemetery. Above that, and just this side of the ship, is a large building missing its roof, probably due to hurricane damage some years ago. The multi-story building with the green roof near the center of the photo is probably a tourist hotel, and the surrounding buildings are shops and businesses. Surprisingly, the people we met could tell you which hurricane hit their island and when it happened, and they could do this for the past 30-40 years or more, but they usually could not say who pays for their education, health care, or roads.Afternoon view looking south along the coast from the top deck of our ship. The clouds had given way to beautiful, breezy weather, and I expect the snorkeling would have been wonderful.
Sunset on the Caribbean as we set sail for our next stop, Antigua and Barbuda.
Barbados is a former British colony, and the British influence still runs deep. Cricket is a favorite sport, traffic drives on the left side of the road, and the Anglican church is probably the largest Christian denomination on the island. Barbados is not a volcanic island, so it is flat and low compared to many of the other West Indies. The bedrock seems to be mostly fossiliferous limestone, with karst topography such as caves and sinkholes. Nevertheless, the island has beautiful rain forest interspersed with tracts of sugar cane.
We spent most of our time on Barbados touring two botanical gardens. Maybe we should have taken a taxi to the nearest beach and spent the day as beach bums, but we wanted to learn about the flowers and plants we were seeing on the various islands, and this was the way to do it. Our first stop was Hunte’s Botanical Garden, where we found this large display of Bird of Paradise, a variety of heliconia.These are Flamingo-lily plants, also known as anthurium. Sometimes we see these for sale at Costco, but I can’t say that we have ever been successful at keeping them alive for any real length of time. Wax begonia, with a pair of honey bees. We did not see very many insects during our visits to the islands, and no mosquitoes, for which we were grateful.Time to take a breather near the end of our walk through Hunte’s Garden. The garden was built/planted in a large limestone sinkhole, and the usual breezes did not reach in to keep us cool. Our hosts offered us rum punch, which was good but left us thirsty. I asked for water, only to have the hosts suggest that we should not drink the local water. Good to know.Copper kettle that the sugar plantations used to boil sugar cane sap (juice?) in the process of making sugar. We saw a few abandoned sugar cane mills, but did not see any currently operating. Maybe we just missed them, since we did see sugar cane under cultivation.View towards the sea from our second stop, a botanical garden called the Flower Forest. This is the most rugged terrain we saw on Barbados, but this was not nearly as rugged as we had seen on the volcanic islands.Orchids we found along our path. We saw several different colors of orchids, and these were particularly striking.Closeup of blooms on an African Tulip Tree, with a Green-Throated Carib hummingbird visiting the flowers. We saw these trees, also known as flame trees, blooming on several of the islands, and they were always spectacular.Jade vine. Birds love to eat the jade-colored parts of the blossom, but they had not found this one. Yet.After our excursion to the gardens we were back on board the Viking Sea, and almost ready to set sail. This much larger P&O Cruises vessel had moored across from us. Viking’s ocean cruises usually a little more than 900 passengers, and feel quiet and roomy. The larger cruise ships, like this one, might carry 3000 or more passengers, and have a different feel to them. This is a case where bigger is not better, at least from our point of view. Notice the tugboat idling in the middle of the harbor. I think the insurance companies (or cruise lines?) require a tug boat to be available and ready to take action when a cruise ship prepares to sail in case anything goes wrong with the ship’s engines or navigation systems. If something were to go wrong, the tugboat can assist rather than letting the cruise ship drift.Here is another safety measure: whenever a cruise ship enters or leaves a port, a local pilot who knows the harbor and its approach channels navigates the ship. A small boat like this brings the pilot out to the ship as they approach the harbor, and when they leave, a boat like this picks up the pilot after they are out of the harbor. And now we are ready to sail to our next port of call, Dominica.
St. Lucia is another volcanic island in the arc of West Indies volcanos. Practically speaking, that means mountains, waterfalls, and cliffs punctuating the rain forest. We also visited non-volcanic islands, which are typically flatter, lower, and made up of limestone and coral rather than volcanic rocks. I will point out some of the features when we get to that point in the blog sequence.
Front-on view of our cruise ship, the Viking Sea, moored in the harbor at Castries, St. Lucia. There was one other cruise ship in port at the time, and we were told that this was almost the end of the cruise season for this part of the world. Most of the West Indies depend on tourism to support their economies, but don’t see many tourists during hurricane season, which runs from June through November. Cruise season starts in December and runs through March, more or less, and this brings money to the islands.Looking down at our ship (not the freighter!) and the harbor from a nearby ridge. Castries, the capitol of St. Lucie and home of this harbor, seemed prosperous compared to some of the other places we visited. The community was busy, we saw lots of construction in progress, and the roads were in heavy use. Of necessity, most West Indies ports are multi-purpose, with cruise ships, fishing boats, pleasure boats, and freighters all sharing close proximity. Few ports had the massive cranes for containerized cargo that we see in large industrialized harbors, so smaller cranes on board or adjacent to the cargo ships did the loading and unloading.Chapel in a Dominican Monastery on the ridge overlooking the harbor. Every community we visited had a Christian presence in the form of Catholic, Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal, or nondenominational churches. Typically, if the British had colonized the island, Anglicans would have a strong presence. If it was French, then it would be Catholic. The people we met were polite and almost always genuinely friendly, and it was a pleasure to talk with them. Perhaps more so for the extroverts than the introverts, but that’s human nature.In case we were not already getting enough time on the water, we took a tour on a large catamaran south along the coast to see the Pitons (more about this in a moment). On our way, we passed a port for tankers, and a tank farm for oil and refined petroleum products. This serves as a transfer point for oil, diesel fuel, gasoline, etc. that arrives here by large tanker and then goes by smaller tanker or barge to other islands. Many of the villages along the Yukon River, for example, get their electricity from diesel generators, and the fuel comes in by barge once or twice a year. Electricity for much of the West Indies is generated in a tropical equivalent of the Yukon’s situation: diesel generators with fuel brought in periodically by barge or small tanker. The day may come when mini-reactors replace diesel generators for this kind of local application, but we are not quite there yet.Here are the Pitons (pronounced “pee-tons”). These are old volcanic plugs that resist weathering to stand above the sounding landforms. Think of Shiprock, New Mexico, but in the tropics and near the sea rather than standing in a desert. The ride along the coast to get here involved a bit of rocking in the swell, but was not really rough. And we got to see a large leather-back sea turtle, but I was not quick enough with the zoom lens to get a decent shot. But at least we saw it! By the way, the white triangle in the lower left of the photo is the front of one of our boat’s twin hulls.Interesting patterns in the cliff as we sailed back up the coast. These look almost like some kind of giant petroglyphs, but they are natural rather than man-made. The rocks are volcanic in origin, I think, and may be some kind of ash-fall tuff from an old eruption, now cut away by the sea.Tropical beach resort in an almost-hidden bay, south of the tank farm. Lots of clean air and lots of clean water.We were tempted to stop in, but our tour had a schedule to keep. From here our catamaran went back to Castries, and that night we set sail for Barbados.
Our previous stop, St. Martin, is governed by France and Holland. St. Kitts and its companion island of Nevis are an independent nation, though, and perhaps the smallest country in the Americas. Like many islands in the West Indies, European colonialists tried raising different crops before finally settling on sugar cane. Sugar and rum were once the mainstays of the local economy, but tourism is their main cash crop today.
View from our cabin once we docked at Basseterre on the island of St. Kitts. The mountainous topography on Nevis and St. Kitts reflects their volcanic origin. The West Indies lie along a subduction zone boundary between the Caribbean and Atlantic tectonic plates, and the region has experienced earthquakes and volcanic eruptions from time to time over the past few decades. Fortunately, things were quiet during our visit.Fairview Great House, an old sugar plantation house on St. Kitts. Today, this sprawling frame construction on a stone foundation serves as a museum and botanical garden for visitors. Wide verandas provide shade, and there are lots of windows to allow cooling breezes to blow through the rooms. However, the shutters are functional rather than just for looks; many buildings on these islands have sturdy shutters to protect windows and doors against hurricanes. While there we sampled a fresh Johnny Cake, a local fried bread that reminded us of a Mexican sopapilla, but without any honey or chocolate sauce. Nevertheless, it was tasty. We discovered later that, like sopapillas, Johnny Cakes come in somewhat different varieties based on family recipes and the cook’s techniques.Desert rose, also known as mock azalea, planted near the plantation house. The “PictureThis” app on my phone made it easy to identify various plants and flowers. By the way, we did not see any irrigation systems for the flowers or for the sugar cane fields, so we suppose that these islands get more rain than other places where we have seen sugar cane cultivated. St. Kitts has a large number of vervet monkeys; locals say there are more monkeys than people on the island. The monkeys steal anything they think might be edible, and do a lot of damage to fruit trees and gardens. Here are two monkeys with Dorcas. Notice that the handler gave them cucumber slices to keep them occupied so they would (hopefully) not bite, scratch, or steal something like a cell phone.I snapped this photo through the window of our small bus as we zoomed down the road. These are egrets nesting in the tops of thorn trees; the thorns prevent monkeys from raiding the nests.Sunny view along the coast. This was the leeward (or dry) side of St. Kitts, and you can see the outline of some cactus on the arid hillside.A rare photo of the photographer! Dorcas shot this while we were relaxing on board our ship. I am holding my Canon with zoom lens attached, ready for the next shot. Every tool has its use, though, and while this equipment is excellent for distance and macro shooting, sometimes my iPhone camera is better for wide angle shots like landscapes.We noticed these mostly black birds soaring over the shoreline (and sometimes over our ship), and I used the zoom lens to pull in a close shot. This is a “Magnificent Frigatebird,” or just a frigate for short. The “Merlin” bird ID app on my phone was a great help in figuring out what kinds of birds we saw or heard.Parting shot of St. Kitts as we sailed away towards our next port of call, St. Lucia.
Philipsburg, St. Martin was our second port of call, Puerto Rico having been our first port and point of departure. St. Martin is split, with France governing half of the island and Holland the other half. Philipsburg is in the Dutch side of the island, giving rise to its alternative spelling of Sint Maarten. Historically, the island exported tobacco, salt, cotton, and sugar at one time or another, but tourism dominates today. Here are some photos from our day on St. Martin:
Early morning entry to Philipsburg, our port of call. The clear air, lush green hills, and clear blue water greeted us as we tied up to a cement pier. Even though it was getting late in the cruise ship season, two larger cruise ships followed our ship (the Viking Sea) into port and tied up at the dock to the left in this photo.View from hillside above the shore. A brisk wind forced us to hold on to our hats, use a chin strap, or risk losing hats and caps to someone downwind. As at many other West Indies islands, a large diesel generating plant provides most of St. Martin’s electricity. You can see the exhaust stacks near the center of the photo, and a tanker delivering fuel oil anchored off shore. Tropical showers fall in the distance; these showers popped up and then dissipated at seemingly random times every day. The frequent wash-downs may be why the air is so clear despite the diesels.Another view of the turquoise and deep blue waters around the island. Hillside vegetation was an interesting mix of cactus and lush plants, perhaps reflecting overlapping microclimates affected by elevation and the trade winds.Banyan tree trunks near a local restaurant. Again, much of the vegetation reminded us of Hawaii’s tropical flora, but with some exceptions. Like Hawaii, much of the weather rides in on the prevailing trade winds, so each island has a wetter side and a drier side reflecting the rain shadow effects of topography. These effects are more pronounced on the larger islands.We could often hear birds, but they were hard to spot. The islands do not have large mammals in the wild, but they do have three or four kinds of snakes and even a few kinds of lizards. Here is an iguana, perhaps three feet long from nose to tail, munching on a lettuce leaf.Tourists near the beach on the south side of St. Martin. It was a beautiful day, but we still needed protection from sun and wind. And chin straps on those hats!A steel drum band came on board to play for us during supper that evening. We heard a smaller group play earlier in the day while on shore, but this band was bigger and better. Here is one of their drums up close; the tones are a happy sound, although I suppose it could be overdone. Regardless, the group played for almost two hours and then quickly packed up and left before we sailed for our next stop, the islands of St. Kitts & Nevis.
We have often heard about the beauty of the Caribbean and its tropical islands, but Hawaii is closer to California. To paraphrase a line from the movie Sabrina, Hawaii is always a good idea. However, having heard so much about the Caribbean, this year we took a Viking cruise, the West Indies Explorer, to visit nine different Caribbean islands. This post and eight following posts will share some of what we saw, island by island.
Our cruise started and ended in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It takes about five hours to fly from San Francisco to Hawaii, but we spent more than twice that amount of time to get to San Juan. No direct flights that we could find, so we took a redeye flight to the East Coast and connected from there to San Juan. Here we are shortly after embarking our ship, the Viking Sea, enjoying the coffee as we tried to overcome jetlag.On our first full day in Puerto Rico we visited the El Yunque National Rain Forest. This is one of the national forests administered by the USDA, and the only rain forest in the system. El Yunque had a fine visitor center, trails, and an observation tower for looking out over the area. The air was warm and moist with an occasional rainshower, but this is sort of what we expected. Here are some lobster claw, a variety of heliconia (I think), confirming that we had indeed arrived in the tropics.We hoped to see Puerto Rican parrots in the wild, but they are too scarce and hard to find among the greenery. The visitor center had a large cage with some of the parrots, though, and I was able to get a photo through the wire mesh. Beautiful birds, but I would hate to find out how hard they might be able to bite!Here is the watchtower I mentioned. This was perched on a hill about 1700 feet above sea level, located on a very crooked road that tested your resolve to reach the site. A spiral staircase inside the tower goes up to an observation deck where a cooling breeze provides relief from the humidity.View from atop the tower, with lush, dense vegetation in all directions. You can see the Caribbean in the distance, a few miles away.Tourists clustered around a waterfall in the rain forest. The island gets a lot of rain during hurricane season, but this was March so we were probably in what the locals would call the dry season. Nevertheless, passing rain showers keep everything moist. Old fortress guarding San Juan’s harbor. We had set sail and were on our way out to sea. It was late in the afternoon so the sun was at a low angle, adding some dramatic shading to the view.Caribbean sunset as we sail away from Puerto Rico. God makes the best colors and the best scenery! Our next port of call will be Philipsburg, St. Martin.
Yesterday I attended a friend’s memorial service. Many thoughts come to mind as I reflect on his life and our 45 years of friendship.
We were different in several ways. He grew up on the West Coast; I grew up in the Midwest. He was a bit of a jock; I am a bit of a nerd. He was good at sports and a big fan of baseball, basketball, and football; I was always picked last for any team (for good reason) and the professional baseball team I liked left for another city. He was a perpetual extrovert and never met a person who was a stranger for very long; I am more of an introvert but can manage brief sprints of extroversion (is there such a word?) when necessary. He battled health issues for much of his adult life; I have had it easy with relatively good health. Most of these differences were obvious to anyone who knew us. So how and why were we friends? What did we have in common?
At the most important and most fundamental level, we have one thing in common that overrides any number of differences. We both love Jesus. We both know that God saved us to be His children. God’s love for us and in us creates ties that bind, and drives a lot of other things, too. Love for God’s Word. Love for family, and in particular our wives, children, grandchildren, siblings, and parents. A strong work ethic. Speaking truth in love. Careful and yet bold use of resources God gives us. Love for our home, community, and country. Thanksgiving for God’s day to day providence of things we take for granted. Our understanding of objective truth, beauty, and the creation around us.
Was my friend, or am I, perfect in living out all of these things? Of course not! But God knew this even before we were born. As Psalm 139:16 says, “And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” In other words, God knew our lives before we were even conceived. And He sent His son Jesus to save us from our failings.
My first thought when my friend died was that he is face to face with Jesus. Like many partings, though, this one is only temporary. My turn to die will come sooner or later, and then I will join my friend and many others in God’s presence. Meanwhile, by God’s grace, I will live out the days, and run the race, that God marks out for me. I thank God for my friend, and I thank God for the ties that bind.
A previous post explained that I am consolidating my photo gallery on line at https://jesseyow.picfair.com/ This gallery, “Electrons are Cheap,” does not include nearly all of my photos. For example, it contains only a few of the travel photos narrated in vacation posts in this blog. On the other hand, it does show many of my best images, and I add more from time to time. Please take a look and enjoy the pictures!
Someone asked how they could obtain a photo from my Electrons are Cheap gallery. Maybe they wanted to hang it on their wall at home or at work, maybe they wanted to give it as a gift, or maybe they wanted to use it in something they were writing or posting. Regardless, Picfair makes it easy to buy my photos for a reasonable price. Here are two options:
If you want a photo printed on canvas or as a framed print, you can select it on the gallery web page, put it in your cart, and then navigate to options to have it printed and delivered into your hands. However, maybe Picfair does not offer the print options, format, size, or price you want. Or maybe you want to use the photo in some other way. In that case, go to the second option:
As an alternative to buying a finished product through Picfair, you can simply buy a licensed copy of the full-sized electronic image file. Choose the photo, put it in your cart, and navigate to the option to buy a licensed electronic copy. Picfair will deliver the file to your electronic address. Then you have the choice to use the photo as you wish under terms of the license. You can put the picture in something you are writing or creating (e.g., a publication, web page, or advertisement), or you can send it to the vendor of your choice to make it into a canvas print, metal or glass print, or a framed photo. Each format has its pros and cons; feel free to contact me for perspective on the advantages and disadvantages of each.
If you choose to buy a licensed copy of a photo, you have options for where and how to print it. If you own a really good printer that will provide high-quality color and resolution, you can print it yourself. If you want a professional-quality print, though, I suggest that you consider Shutterfly, Canvas on Demand, Walmart., or a similar vendor Each one offers somewhat different choices of format (canvas vs. metal or glass vs. framed print), size, price, and delivery options. I have used all three, and there are certainly other vendors, but I usually go back to Canvas on Demand because they offer a really large range of formats and sizes. Bear in mind that while their list prices are high, they often offer significantly lower sale prices on certain sizes and formats. If you don’t like what they offer and have time to wait, give it a couple of weeks and check back to see if they have a sale price that meets your needs.
To summarize: if you like a photo and want to use it, the best choice might be to buy a licensed file and then have it printed and mounted the way you want it. We have a selection of canvas prints, metal prints, and a few framed prints in our home, and we swap them in and out to update our decorating whenever we take the fancy. Whatever you do, please enjoy the artwork!
