FIVE DAYS, FIVE DEWS

December 14, 2015


After tonight there are five more days, and I have five more bottles of Mountain Dew.  Just enough!

Today we wandered ashore into Castries, capital of St. Lucia, and wandered around with the eventual goal of visiting Derek Walcott Square.  Walcott is a Nobel Laureate from St. Lucia, having won the prize for literature in the late 1990s.  The square which honors him was closed, as was most of St. Lucia, in celebration of their independence day.  We passed a huge old cathedral, that is under repair, which took up most of a city block.  I jiggled several doors, but the cathedral too must have been in on the celebration.

Your favorite cruisers stopped at several places along the walk to sip cold water while sitting under shady trees.  We passed three cruise ships in port – and a small docking area it is – a C&O and an MSC, and ours.  We’ve sailed on neither, and I can’t tell you what the initials stand for, although I was booked on back to back sailings on an MSC which were cancelled – one sailing was bought out by a company for its annual meeting, and I don’t remember why the second one was cancelled – I may have told my agent that not doing back to back made little sense (7 days each).  Oh well.

We sauntered through the tourist trap just off of the ship where I found free wi-fi (I learned that the Pirates traded Charlie Morton for a prospect – I learned it by reading DkonPittsburghSports, not by being informed by any Pirates fans I know) and Bonnie went souvenir shopping, and secured one souvenir for herself – a carved coconut that features a bowl and two birds feeding at it.  She says it is a bird feeder and she will put it out for the enjoyment of the feathered creatures at 233.

Speaking of birds, Bonnie had jerk chicken with black beans, rice, and pineapple salsa for supper, and Black Forest Cake for dessert.  I had Chateau Briand (WordPerfect says that is misspelled, but offers no alternatives, so we’ll go with it – a very delicious cut of beef), medium rare, with assorted high falooting veggies, and Grand Marnier Souffle for dessert.

While I was napping (before supper) Bonnie went to the movies – “Fred Claus.”  She pronounced it humorous.  The funniest thing was that a theater which seats a thousand had about 10 people in the seats.

Tonight’s show was “Sweet Soul Music,” featuring classics from Motown.  An excellent production.  Then we went to the Piazza where we listened to Latin music for a while, before adjourning to 71018 for the night.

Tomorrow is Barbados, but since I have a talk at 4, after we sail, I don’t think we are going ashore.  If we do, it will just be a brief taxi ride into town, stay an hour or so and come back so I can rehearse.

Until tomorrow night ...

TTFN