St Kitts today, it was a lovely morning approach into Basseterre where we had a 09:45 rendezvous arranged with our tour at the end of the pier. So after breakfast we made our way off the ship and onto the waiting coach then off for a quick tour of St Kitts, heading out to our first stop which was the Amazing Grace experience.

This was in a church out past Sandy Lane, and was the story of the hymn Amazing Grace. The links between John Newton, the hymn’s author and St Kitts was pretty tenuous, but it was a good story and an entertaining presentation. From there we headed to Romney Manor where there were beautiful gardens to view and a Batik factory where they made the distinctive dyed cloth. Jane took a fancy to a sun dress, not cheap, but it was pretty and it was locally made.

The tour dropped us off in the centre of Basseterre at Independence Square and we walked back to the ship from there. The Cruise Terminal was a mix of tat shops and duty free diamond places and U felt it offered nothing for the local economy as all the visitors seemed to stay there, pushing the tat shops out into town would have pushed the cruisers out into the local shops which would have benefited Basseterre better.

We never found a local restaurant to eat in yet again, which has been a disappointment for us on the trip, Jane was looking forward to eating locally caught fish when out, but the only place that looked like coming close to this was in Bridgetown. St Kitts has some very good fish restaurants, but they’re only open in the evening.

We had a late lunch in the buffet, then Jane headed on deck for sunbathing while I snoozed on the steamers and watched the punters on the Carnival Fascination (or maybe Fantasy) which was berthed opposite us.

Jane had steak for dinner and I had roast pork, very nice yet again.

St. Lucia today and we are anchored out in Castries bay, so we will be tendering ashore today. We weren’t on any excursions and had decided to have a stroll around Castries. Getting off the ship was a bit of a chore, excursion travellers had priority so we had a bit of a wait and eventually got ashore about an hour and a half after leaving the room. We had a proper Caribbean welcome, with a steel band playing Christmas carols on the dockside.

Castries was a big change from Bridgetown, no where near as clean, with broken and uneven pavements, and open storm drains. We walked out through the cruise terminal, out past the veg market and around the tat market which had hundreds of stalls all selling the same tourist souvenirs. We did a bit more walking around the shopping streets before heading to the Caribbean Pirates bar above the cruise terminal. I can see why they named it so, it was $20 for four small Carib beers, but the bar was pleasant enough and the steel band give it a good vibe.

The rest of the day was a mixture of snoozy time on the steamers on the promenade deck and reading in the cool of the Carinthia lounge. We had no drinks this afternoon, Jane’s was taking it easy today, well easyish, sharing a bottle of Chardonnay with dinner and a glass of port with her cheese and biscuits.

It was a Caribbean theme to dinner again with Rasta Pasta for Jane and a beef pepperpot for me. Both were excellent.

We woke up to an announcement over the tannoy system explaining that several excursions have been cancelled because of an expected heavy swell, needless to say ours was one of those cancelled. That’s the third tour we’ve had cancelled on this trip so we were in a bit of a quandary, just go for a walk around Bridgetown or get a cab to the beach. A quick look at the map showed that we could do both of those things easily. So after breakfast we headed ashore on the Noddy train transfer that was provided to the cruise terminal. It was possible to walk it, but we decided to conserve energy given the heat.

We were looking at walking to Brownes beach on Carlisle bay, but a $4 taxi ride seemed cheap enough. The beach was beautiful, soft white sand and a clear azure sea. The beach sellers wanted USD 20 for two beds and a parasol, and as we were only going to be there for an hour or two, we declined and walked along the beach to a clear spot and placed our Cunard beach towels on the sand. After a couple of hours the sky started to darken and we made the correct decision to head to a cafe for a drink. It chucked it down, not for long but it was very typical Caribbean rain.

While sheltering in the cafe with a coffee, two ladies came in and it turned out they were on the Azamura Journey that was berthed alongside us. The were enjoying their all inclusive ship, but they were very happy to have WIFI in the cafe as the internet on their ship costs £20 per day.

Once the rain had finished we walked back to the town centre, purchasing some postcards on the way and stopping for a beer and to write them in a little bar on Broad street. Suitably refreshed it was time to head back to the cruise terminal where Jane bought some tat, then into the ship for a late lunch.

I like Bridgetown a lot, it was clean and well laid out, and not too expensive.

There was Jerk chicken on the menu for dinner that evening, and I wisely gave it a miss because as I expected there was no heat to it. I had a wild mushroom risotto which was very tasty.

Dominica today. We had an excursion booked to a plantation house, which unfortunately had to be cancelled because of road works, so we changed it to a Waterfalls and beach excursion instead. So it was an earlyish start, 09:10 in the Britannia for check in. We then had a slightly chaotic scrum to get on the coaches that we going to take us up into the highlands and the Waterfalls part of the tour.

Jack Falls was our destination, a very picturesque waterfall at the bottom of a steep descent into the river valley. The concrete steps down were sound and not slippery at all, but the wooden bridge was. After the waterfall we headed back over the mountains to the seaside where we spent a couple of hours on a beach of black volcanic sand, shade and beds were provided.

We arrived back at the ship with enough time to get some lunch, we did have a look around Roseau to find somewhere for lunch, but as today is Sunday there wasn’t any where we could see open.

After lunch Jane headed up to the deck eight pool area and the padded beds the have there, I just grabbed a steamer chair and dozed in the sun before heading into the Carinthia Lounge for tea and cake.

There was a rather nice Victoria sponge on offer, it had a very nice lemon and cream filling.

It was a fishy dinner for me smoked fish cake followed by grilled shrimp and then a lime chiffon cake.

It was a glorious day to be in Tortola, hot and sunny. We were up nice and early for breakfast and a quick jaunt off the ship. We don’t have any excursions booked today, so we just went for a walk around Road Town, with the intention of possibly getting a cab to Long Cane Bay for the beach. The cabs were advertising it at USD 8 for the ride. As it was I had forgotten my cap, and there wasn’t a whole lot of shops selling hats so we just went back to the ship for a bit of sunbathing on deck eight.

That set the tone for the rest of the day, sunbathing and eating until it was time for the sail away party. We had a couple of drinks listening to Purple Haze and, once we set off, we retired to the Commodore club for a last drink. Jane’s drinks of choice were a B&C, a Rum Runner punch and to maintain the rum theme a Mai Tai. I stuck to beer, but tragically they’ve run out of Doombar.

Dinner was excellent again with one caveat, not enough lamb chops in the rack of lamb. Two lamb chops do not a rack make!