Caribbean 2015:
Day 3 - Anguilla
Day 3 - Anguilla
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Sunday, December 13, 2015: While Debbie was taking a shower, Tom decorated the cabin for Debbie's birthday with some decorations he snuck along. |
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That's why the porthole view was just a little bit more festive than usual. |
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The view was still of St. Maarten, since we were only going a few miles north to the island of Anguilla. |
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After finding no way to register for shore excursions, we tried the purser's office where we were chided that all signups were in the library. We pressed for more details and were told that there is a signup binder in the library. There was no documentation anywhere regarding this so apparently this is just something you have to know. We signed up for two shore excursions, but one was cancelled later in the week due to lack of participants. |
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A Star Clippers cruise is great fun, but the single most frustrating problem is a lack of information regarding the ports and what is available there. We did receive a schedule the night before which was repeated on the white board the next day, and a map of the site and available sports showed up mid-morning, but it was hard to plan your shore time without knowing what it would be like. |
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For breakfast, getting a table for two was pretty standard, since it was open for hours and there were plenty of open tables. Breakfast was always delicious, with all of the basics available plus muesli for Debbie and a delicious tropical shake (in the glass on the left). |
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For those who wanted a lighter breakfast or who simply wanted to get started before the main breakfast was served, breads and pastries were available on the main deck. Note: that round window over the pastries is one end of the pool on the deck above. |
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A fruit stand was available at all hours of the day, ... |
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... as was this well-stocked display of self-serve tea. |
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We still had several hours before we'd be dropping anchor at Anguilla, so we went up on deck ... |
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... in search of the netting attached to the bowsprit. |
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We climbed down onto the netting and made ourselves comfortable. |
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Here's a photo taken by holding the camera just under the netting. We were careful to keep the camera strap attached to us at all times! |
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Here's the view looking up at the beautiful sails. |
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Here's Tom ... |
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... and here's Debbie. |
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Mid-morning, we had a second mandatory safety drill. |
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After the drill, the captain gave a very long speech ... |
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... in which he introduced key members of the crew. |
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Up on deck again, we had rounded the north side of Anguilla. In this photo, Anguilla is the dark, flat island in front, and St. Maarten is the taller, lighter island behind it. |
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Here are just a few of the many, many coils of rope draped over belaying pins around the deck. |
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We got closer to Anguilla and got to see the buildings along the shore. |
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We still had no idea where we were going, so we watched this island with hope at first, and then envy as we kept on going. |
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We had a quick lunch but forgot to take a photo before the plate of food turned into carnage. |
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Since it was Debbie's birthday, she wanted to have some birthday cake, so here it is. |
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After lunch, it was time to go ashore. We were so excited to go snorkeling. We didn't see this map until we returned. If we had, perhaps we might have had a clue that snorkeling wasn't a good idea. |
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We went to our cabin, grabbed all our stuff, including phones, cameras, money, etc., ... |
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... and hopped on the next tender to the island. |
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At this point, we still naively believed that perhaps we were tendering to a private area, but we were wrong. |
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We were brought to a very public beach with absolutely no snorkeling nearby. The water sports team told us that we could walk to either end of the bay to snorkel, which wasn't going to work for us because we had far too much personal stuff with us. |
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We were hugely disappointed, so finally we asked permission to leave our stuff with the sports team and we tried to snorkel right off the beach. |
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In we went. We saw one starfish ... |
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... and one Heineken bottle before we gave up. So, we got out and started walking to the end of the bay. We were stopped by people who had already been out there and declared the snorkeling to be terrible. |
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Had we known, we could have had a lovely day visiting the handful of bars on the beach in our street clothes, ... |
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... but we were wet and disappointed, ... |
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... so we lugged all our wet stuff back to the boat and tried to salvage Debbie's birthday there instead. |
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Ahhhh, yes, a shower and the bowsprit netting makes everything better. |
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This is how relaxing happens. |
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We decided to have some birthday beverages too. |
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At 5:00 PM, it was time to weigh anchor and move on. |
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Setting sail brought the captain and officers on deck, along with many of the passengers. |
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Shortly after the first stail started to be raised, the 1492 theme music started. |
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First, the staysails were set, ... |
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... then the mainsails were set, one by one. |
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Beautiful. |
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Evening hors d'oevres featured delicious spring rolls, which helped tide us over ... |
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... until 2 1/2 hours later when dinner was served. |
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This evening at dinner, we asked for and received a table by ourselves, which was nice. We decided not to stick around for dessert, which turned out to be a mistake. Several days later, we found out that the waitstaff was planning on serving Debbie a birthday cake. |
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We toured the ship a little more before heading back to our cabin and found this ship layout and map near the back of the ship. |
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This map shows all the islands visited by the Star Clipper on our itinerary, which was called the Treasure Islands itinerary. On alternating weeks, it visits the Leeward Islands itinerary instead, which includes Nevis, Antigua, Dominica, Iles des Saintes, and Guadeloupe. It also departs from St. Maarten and visits St. Bart's. |
Copyright © Deborah Schilling/Thomas Bundy