Tales of the Great Holt-Ysses - Part 7 "Barbados"

Barbados. A nice Island with some interesting history. No one knows why its called Barbados since it means "Bearded Ones"...Who knows, maybe the native indians had beards. In any case we enjoyed this place because we got to do Snuba. Snuba is a variation of scuba except your air supply comes from an air tank sitting on a small raft and a 20ft hose. You wear all the other stuff you would normally wear in Scuba and you breath like you would normally breath with scuba gear. We get to our dive place and get fitted in our gear. We go on a little boat and go out just a few yards from the dive place. We were told that there were several sunken ships in this location and sure enough there were. Before we get to that though I have to tell you about Amy's experience trying to get under water. First thing was that she had to get her breathing and ear pressure regulated under water. This almost didn't happen and after about 10 minutes she was about give up. Finally she relaxed and with her guides good patience she finally was able to dive. I was proud of her! A regular Jacques Cousteau. The only snag we really had was when Amy accidently kicked me with her fin and pulled my hose and regulator from me. I sucked in some water and nearly got sick. This proved to be a not such a good thing since the water that I sucked in made it into my lungs and ultimately caused me to have pneumonia a few days later. Amy was really trying to send me a message that I better straighten up or she will drown me. She's tough like that. Don't worry honey I hear ya!
So, about those sunken ships. These were probably all ships that sunk due to hurricanes or on purpose but in any case they were down there and all of them were cool to see. They were also good because fish liked to hang out by them and there were some really cool fish. Lots of colorful fish and a few eels. Eels are creepy but at the same time cool.
There were some other cool things about Barbados but I think the diving excursion was enough to talk about.
Next post. Going home!

Tales of the Great Holt-Ysses - Part 6 "St. Lucia"

St. Lucia = cool island! This was about as much fun as we had the entire trip. We didn't know what to do in St. Lucia but we got off the boat and took on the huge huddle of excursion salespeople waiting to take our money and stuff us in a cab to some unknown destination. We decide to take a boat ride that would take us along the coast line to an awaiting cab, who would then take us on a trip to a volcano and a big waterfall. The boat ride was good but the island was great. Very tropical and with lots of mountainous terrain. We get to our dock and walk along a black volcanic sand beach to our cab. We get in the cab and drive to the volcano in the area of Soufriere where they also have a great waterfall called the Diamond waterfall. Amy got into the waterfall pool even though the water was pretty cold. She just wanted to say that she did. The volcano was neat. You actually drive to the middle or surface core of the volcano. It's not as you would picture it since its really not volcano shaped. The side of the volcano where we drove in was blown out years ago so it looks like a regular shaped mountain except it has an area that steams and has boiling mud coming up from underground. It smells like sulfur which smells like rotten eggs. Stinky! You get pretty close to the hot boiling mud but not too close. They had a tour guide fall into a boiling pit one year and it burned him up pretty bad. The smell of the sulfur made you want to snap a few pictures and get the heck out of there. So we did!
We then made to the Diamond Waterfall where we enjoyed the waterfall and a little rain. The rain was almost warm and definitely appropriate since we were, after all, in the rain forest. We left there and got back on the little boat heading for the big boat. We thought we had to be back on the big boat at 5:00pm and it was 4:00pm when we left for it. It took is 30 minutes to get back and we casually stroll onto the cruise ship with a smile at 4:35pm. We didn't realize that our departure time for the ship was actually 4:45pm. Ooops! We almost missed our ship and Amy's dad was pretty hot about it. I don't blame him in hindsight. We looked like we were irresponsible idiots even though we thought we weren't. Amy's dad still gives us a hard time for almost missing the boat. I've missed the boat before but definitely not literally. Oh well!
So we get cleaned up, have dinner and watched the nightly show. By the way we saw some really good but cheesy shows. Each one was at best, way off Broadway quality but still entertaining. The first night we saw the cruise ship on-board singers and dancers and they were pretty good. The next night we saw a comedian and he was pretty funny. On the third night we saw a little polish woman who could play the strings off of a violin. On the fourth night we saw a guy named Mario and his wife sidekick who did this variety magic, juggling, balancing and dance show. It was pretty wheels off but on the other hand the guy worked his tail off and for his efforts alone I give him a score of 7 out of 10. The final night the dancers and singers did a medley of music and dance from different eras and it was pretty good. The MC was this young guy who was very confident but always the MC...if you know what I mean? He's perfect for a cruise ship...again if you know what I mean?
So anyway St. Lucia was great. Oh and to my father in law...sorry for giving you the small heart attack. I also hope the therapist can help you with those constant visions of ringing our neck that haunt you in the middle of the night. Next stop: Barbados!
Brian

Tales of the Great Holt-Ysses - Part 5 "Antigua"

Ok so I said in my last blog that we would be talking about St. John or St. Lucia in this blog part but my wife reminded me that we went to Antigua not St. John. I'm such a guy! Anyway so we went to Antigua and although you want to pronounce it Ant-ee-goo-a it's actually pronounced Ant-ee-ga. A nice little island. It's one of those English Caribbean islands in that it was the English who threw down their flag in the sand and said "For the Queen!" Like all the other islands it too was inhabited by some peaceful natives who lived a simple life but were basically booted out and Africans were brought in to harvest a growing sugar cane industry. I forget that if you were an early century explorer you basically lived your life looking for ways to make money. They didn't just sail for the fun of it. Oh well, imagine that? So anyway, about my time there, it was nice and it was the only place we really spent laying on a beach on the ocean. Here's the catch...our beach was only 50 feet wide and 100 yards long. Allow me to explain! We get off the boat and were immediately attacked by some island sales guy who wanted to send us clear to the other side of the island to a beach that was supposed to be too good to be true. I smelled something fishy and definitely expensive so I told Amy that we would just do a beach near the boat and I was sure it would be fine. So we find this other person who hooks us up with one of his relatives and takes us on a short drive to a little party hut/restaurant on this big stretch of beach and I'm thinking that we hit the jackpot. So we get out and tell the cab driver to pick us up in a few hours and head for the entrance of the hut. We get there and are greeted by another person who wanted to sell us something and we simply say "no thank you!" We get in and three other guys run to us and offer us lawn chairs and an umbrella. We find out that each cost $10 so we just opt for just the lawn chairs. I look up and around and realize the beach that we are allowed to enjoy is only 50ft wide and 100yrds long. The rest of the beach is owned by a nearby Sandals resort. We find a little spot (and I mean little) on the beach and get to soaking in the rays. Everything is great! Peace and quiet with only the sound of the waves crashing in. It was perfect UNTIL...we get our first visit from a vendor selling beads and shells. We take the bait and buy something. This was a bad idea. All of a sudden every 5 minutes we were visited by a vendor selling something. It ranged from shells to jewelry to aloe vera to hats and handbags made from palm leaves. We said "no" so often that the message became clear and finally they simply passed us up and quit asking. Aaaahhhh! Finally we get some peace and quiet. The sun was hot and the water was perfect. Let the tans begin. Just when everything seemed to be great we hear something in the distance and we see one of the lawn chair draggers heading our way with a whole slew of chairs and bunch of kids and moms following behind. They have more beach to settle in so I wasn't worried about them crowding our space until of course they parked right next to us and crowded our space. It was like they were part of our family and as a matter of fact they acted like it. The kids scooped sand and threw it all over us and of course they were LOUD! The mothers acted like the kids were not doing anything because they too busy talking. After a few grimaces from me, the moms figured it out and told the kids to quit throwing sand and instead went into the water to swim. We decide at this time to go for a walk along our 100yds of beach, however we decide to be rule breakers and walk on the Sandals side of the beach. This was the couples resort and we saw lots of couples. Imagine that? The beach was nicer than our little beach and they had water sports to boot! I truly believe we could have grabbed a pair of Sandals lawn chairs, posed as one of the couples and been just fine. Heck they might have even offered us a cool beverage with one of those little umbrellas in it. But that's ok, that wouldn't be right and besides those little umbrellas always go up your nose when you take a drink....I guess! At this point we were ready to go on back to the ship so we head for the taxi spot. By that time the 50ft by 100yrd beach was full of people and we weren't going to get peace and quiet anyway. The drive was nice until we get to down town Antigua. This whole island of Antigua is a little underdeveloped and the downtown area is really third world. The people seem a little more aggressive too. Like they go day to day to get thier next meal. They probably do!
We got on the boat. Got cleaned up, had dinner and enjoyed a night of dancing at the disco with a rotating bar. Amy and I were smokin hot on the dance floor doing some truly classic 70's dances like the "Shuffle" and the "Bump". We also did some YMCA movements to the Village People classic song. I must say that we were so good that we the ship's film crew came up and took video of us. Ok so they were doing that anyway but let me just assume that they were filming because they admired our fancy footwork. Fred and Ginger got tired early from too much sun and fun and wrapped up the night around midnight!
Next stop St. Lucia! Funny story about St. Lucia since the boat nearly left us there!
BDH