Windjammer Cruise PART 1

Windjammer Singles Cruise Trip Report April 1994…..

Part One

My first Windjammer Barefoot Cruise

Arrived at St. Maarten airport at 1:30pm on Sunday. Getting from the airport to Philipsburg was a breeze. A Windjammer Representative named Colleen who was the Activities Director was at the airport and directed a bunch of us into a local cab which took us to the Captain Hodge Wharf in downtown Philipsburg. I was a few hours early till the launch would be able to take me aboard the Polynesia but was able to drop my luggage with one of the Windjammer crewman on the wharf who took it aboard the ship and placed it in my cabin. So off I went browsing through Philipsburg walking along the beach and checking out the stores. There sure were a lot of stores for anyone who wants to shop till they drop! I ended up meeting other people who were sailing on the Polynesia that week. We went to a bar and got friendly. Philipsburg is a duty free port with some if not the best buys in the Caribbean. If you want to shop go on both Front Street and Back Street, these are where the shops are located. About four oclock we headed back to the wharf and waited for the launch to take us aboard the Polynesia. Once aboard we were given the free welcome aboard Rum Swizzles, matter of fact we were given quite a few Rum Swizzles which made us loosen up quite a bit. We were instructed about how we could pay cash or charge anything on our credit cards for the bar purchases and ships store where you can get tee shirts and all the other windjammer stuff, ship arranged tours and were told our cabin numbers. So off we went to our cabins to unpack our gear. Well unpack is not quite the word as it ended up. It seems that there was not all that much room to hang things up or shelves to store odds and ends, just one shelf per person and a few coat hangers, nothing like the big cruise ships I was use to in the past. As I learned during the week, the "Poly" was unlike any cruise ship I have ever taken before! The head (bathroom) was a classic, the head was the shower, toilet and sink rolled up in one. When you took a shower you got everything all wet, the toilet and sink too! As for the temperature of the water, slightly cool would come to mind at first and hardly any water power second. It sure made for an interesting way to wake up in the morning. When you take a shower to wake up, it kind of made you wake up yelling YIKES in the mornings. No locks on the doors, no safes and the beds were long enough but god help the person who is use to jumping up to get out of bed in the morning, they would have more lumps on their head then they ever had in their life! As I learned during the week locks and safes were not needed. Not with the type of people who sailed on a Windjammer ship!! Okay, enough of the luxury cabins. Back up to the deck for some more rum swizzles and to meet my fellow passengers. Interesting group of folks, quite unlike the people I met on those big cruise ships I was use to taking. First of all there was only 126 of us, not the normal two thousand of your best friends like on most cruise ships. They had a buffet ready for us, so we ate. The food was pretty good. After dinner we once again started to introduce ourselves. This time we had name tags on, the only problem was that the passengers wrote their own names and some of us tend to write on the sloppy side which made for interesting ways to interpret someone’s name. The rum swizzles stopped and we started to buy the drinks from the bar. I swear that they made the first night drinks extra strong! The price of the drinks was cheap when compared to most local bars and much cheaper then any of the traditional cruise lines. But Windjammer is not a normal cruise line or even what I would call a cruise line at all, its just Windjamming on a Tall Sailing Ship. Back to my trip report… After a few drinks at the bar, up to the top deck we went where a local band was setting up. More and more people were coming on board and that meant more and more names to remember which of course I ended up forgetting the next day. . Dusk hit the island and the band started playing, or at least they took about 30 minutes to try to start playing. Seems they were short a guitar and keyboard player, but they made do and rocked the night away with Caribbean style music which was very danceable. Each song they played seemed to be at least a half hour long and when you danced you really danced!! I ended up taking off my deck shoes and danced in my bare feet that night. I paid the price the next few days for that idea! Blisters on both toes, ouch! It was a blast that first night, everybody getting to meet each other, dancing the night away, it was simply great. When I first was at Hodges Wharf I met up with Jimbo and later that night Dave Bracher came aboard. He missed out on some of the first night fun. I was really surprised that another guy named Jim Kannen introduced himself and had mentioned that he read my notes and questions, plus whatever else was written on the Windjammer Subject here on the Travel Board in Prodigy. Seems a LURKER was uncovered! Jim has been instructed to stop his lurking and write something. But time will tell… The next morning we left Philipsburg early, around 10am and I must say that the raising of the sails and the playing of the song Amazing Grace was a real neat experience which even became better as the week went on. What an experience to listen to the song and watch the sails go up! Really loved the raising of the sails at night under the millions and millions of stars. WOW!! We sailed out of St. Maarten and headed toward a cove in St. Barts that afternoon for some beach time. We arrived about two o’clock in the afternoon and spent the afternoon beaching it. I noticed that Dave Bracher mentioned in his trip report about it being very windy. That was a word used a lot during the whole week. I loved the wind and it seemed about normal to me but the sand did fly on some of the beaches, but not all that much. Anyway, there was a beer chug a lug type thing on the beach, snorkeling and of course swimming. Great afternoon. After the beach time was over and we had dinner I was turkey and the strangest stuffing I ever saw or tasted before, it seemed to be cut in square shapes, but was not bad just different. After dinner we walked ourselves to the bar. We set sails that night and were all in a spirited mood. It was great, even better then the first time! Hoisting the sails and listening to Amazing Grace was a terrific event. Watching the stars, feeling the wind of the sea was just great, something that I will always remember. A lot of us ended up staying up real late that night and did a lot of partying. The next day we pulled into the main harbor of St. Barts. I was up early with only about hour hours sleep and was lucky enough to be able to sail the Polynesia into St. Barts Harbor. I put my hand on the wheel and sailed her right into a perfect anchorage. Of course Captain Marcel was of some help. Before we disembarked the ship Capt. Marcel had story time which during the week ended up being very informative. Before every port of call we had story time. The captain told us about the history of the island, places we might want to visit and places that we could eat at without paying out our life savings. St. Barts can be a very expensive place to visit if you don’t watch yourself. St. Barts was by far the best island we visited that week and one of those islands that you will never forget, ever! Me and Dave Bracher rented a MiniMoke (over sized golf cart), Dave was nice enough to let me drive. I guess he figured that since I was able to sail the Polynesia into St. Barts that I would make an excellent driver. He learned that he made a wise decision! We met up with Jim and Dennis at the rental place, they had a slightly bigger vehicle, some kind of jeep thing. We followed them to Saline Beach which was great for body surfing, some of the best body surfing I ever did. The water was warm but not too warm and there were great waves breaking at the right sports. We body surfed for around an hour or more. Great beach, its a must see and do. Also we did notice that some of the folks did not have any swimsuits on and a lot of ladies were at least topless. Its a french thing that you tend to get used to on french style beaches. I must say it was a rather pleasing sight! A lot of beautiful women were on that beach that day.. When we left Saline beach, me and Dave separated from Jim and Dennis. That is when I showed Dave how good a driver I was! Going around those hilly roads and taking crazy turns was an exciting and fun experience! I know that Dave must agree Back on our way into town we did pick up some hitchhikers who worked on a boat that made daily trips from St. Maarten to St. Barts. Lucky passengers!! These two girls were Dutch and very beautiful!! Nice too. We left off the hitchhikers in town and allowed them to have their pictures taken with us. Kind of nice of me and Dave. We ended up eating lunch at a place the Captain recommended called LeSelect which was an open air eatery. The hamburgers were $5, the fries $3 and the drinks were $3. This is a good deal by St. Barts standards. The food was decent. We then did the Dave thing….Shopping…After what seemed like hours and hours of walking from ship to shop we finally left for another beach. Of course I ended up buying more then Dave did in those stores. Oh well, it was Dave’s first time in the Caribbean and he just had to look (which he did all week) for stuff to buy all his friends and relatives. It sure seemed like he knew a whole lot of folks!! We went to a beach right by town called Shell Beach, very nice little beach, no body surfing, Waves were great for just swimming and floating. They sure had a lot of sea shells, but only the real small ones were left for us. Also it was once again a typical French beach when it came to swimwear. Nice views. We lasted about an hour or so at Shell Beach, then we headed to the airport to get some pictures of the planes landing at the airport. What a sight, very small runway and the planes flew right over your head! Afraid we were kind of tall and had to do a lot of ducking. Of course my camera decides it does not want to work anymore so I ended up not getting the great pictures of the plane’s landing. . We ended our day by returning the Mokie to the rental place. They dropped us off at the pier where we waited for the launch to pick us up and take us back to the Polynesia for wine tasting then dinner. I intended to come back into town later that night but Dave made me miss the first sitting of dinner by making me believe that a certain lady wanted to meet me. It ended up that he wanted to meet her. After all of this confusion I ended up missing the first meal and had to settle for the second sitting which ended the idea of going back into town. When dinner was done. I spent some time by the bar. We set sails at 11pm. Time to raise the sails and leave for our next stop St. Kitts. Like the night before and the nights later, the raising of the sails and the playing of Amazing Grace was always a highlight. You have to be there to appreciate it!! Off we sailed. Again another late night meeting and talking to people. The third day we arrived at St. Kitts. A very pretty island, I would recommend that you have your camera ready as the ship sails along the island in the morning. Standing on the deck looking at the rolling sugar cane filled hills is really nice in the morning. I took some good panorama shots. First we anchored off the main dock and were ferried ashore to waiting taxi’s for tours around the island. Mary Lou and Kate had this thing about visiting the Batik factory all week, so we stopped there first. They loved it. Of course to me it was just tee shirts and fabric stuff but to Kate, Mary Lou and Dave it seemed to be heaven. The clothes and fabrics reminded me of someone going to Hawaii to watch a Don Ho concert or if you went the other way you could say the colors reminded me of something a person would wear to a Grateful Dead concert! Very colorful clothes. But there was one real wide and beautiful tree right outside the factory (which was more like a manor house) that would make a great picture if you had one of those throwaway panorama cameras. Really cool tree. Big, wide and beautiful. From the Batik factory we went to Brimstone Hill which had a lot of history about it. It was a fortress that the French and British kept taking away from each other. A lot of fighting and killing went on there. Finally in the end the British won and kept it. About time! Of course I would not have minded if the French took the fort, then the beaches would be French style . The fort is way, way up on a huge hill with outrageous views. You can see seven different island nations from the fort, but I was able to see five. They do say seven. Here are the five I saw. Saba, St. Maarten/St. Martin, St. Kitts, St. Barts and Nevis. Of course St. Kitts is right there so maybe that is a bit of cheating. Great views, so bring your camera. Just standing at the fortress you can imagine the British or French (whoever held the fortress at the time) shooting those cannons at the enemy. There was quite a few cannons surrounding the fortress. I could picture some of those cannons blowing up ships (not be mention soldiers charging up that huge and I mean huge hill) down below in the Caribbean sea. Pirate ships got their’s too! It is a great place for viewing. History buffs would love the place. From the Fortress we went into town and ate lunch at the center of town. Good meal at excellent prices, but watch out for the tips already being added on to the bill under taxes. Had to ask if the tip was the tax and was told yes. You will notice that we had to ask. This is not new in the Caribbean. Getting double tips is their favorite pastime. I forgot the name of the town but it was the main town by the pier in St. Kitts. It was a nice clean town and the place we ate lunch was right in the center. It had a British look to it. The town center that is . Also we were up on the second floor overlooking everything. Nice view. They have the usual tee shirt places and stuff there. We went back to the Polynesia from there. The Poly had moved to a beach for the afternoon, so we took the taxi to that beach. Decent beach time again. I had bought a ticket for Parasailing ($40) but the guy never showed up, it seemed that his boat broke down. Anyway it was typical beach time. Swimming, snorkeling and sun time. The Poly was anchored right off the beach. We took a launch back to the ship about five for the normal five o’clock free rum swizzles, then took a shower and had dinner. The Polynesia moved back to town and this time docked at the pier so she could get fresh water. You were able to just walk off the gangplank to land. Some Scottish guy brought some jewelry and other hand made items aboard for the passengers to buy. The prices and quality of the work was good, so I bought a thing-a-ma-bog that looked like a sailing vessel which was real neat. It was made out of cow bones. Reminds me of the Poly when I look at it. The music highlight of the week was that night with a 14 man steel band called the Coronets. They played for former President Reagan and other heads of states a few years back when there was some kind of economic summit. They were excellent! Once again lots of dancing! The songs were real long so that meant sore legs and feet again the next day. In-between dancing I relaxed on the deck talking to different passengers. I might add the word passengers seems outdated by now, it was more like talking to the many friends I made. After a whole lot of dancing, drinking and talking the band finally left (11pm) and we set sail for the island of Saba. Again the sails were raised under the millions of stars and the song Amazing Grace with one version sung by Judy Collins. Wow!

On to Part Two