Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Last Days in the West Indies

Sunday, January 14, 2018

We docked today in Phlipsburg, St. Maarten, the Dutch section of the island of St. Maarten/St. Martin, St. Martin being the French section.  Even though they are two seperate countries there is no formal border crossing like you would normally  see between countries.  There is just a sign, similar to driving from Michigan into Indiana.  Instead of going on another tour of an island as we have been doing, today we opted to take a cooking class.  The class was held at La Terrasse Restaurant in St. Martin. As our bus took us to the restaurant we saw considerably more hurricane damage then anywhere else on our cruise.  Just outside our dock we saw piles of mangled box car like containers that you see on container ships.  We also passed many builds still in total ruins.  La Terrasse was closed this morning and a long table had been set up in the main dining room providing individual work stations for the 10 of us on this tour.  There was a work station at the head of the table for the chef.  The class was very hands on with all of us participating in the preparation of the two dishes on our menu: Shrimp and Mango tartar (salsa) with tomatoes and balsamic reduction, and Puff Pastry stuff with goat cheese and roasted mix nuts mixed with honey.  The two dishes were easy to prepare and the chef was very pleasant to work with.  After the prep work was done and the puff pastry baked we were able to sit with a glass of wine and enjoy our creations.  As we were enjoying our small meal we discovered that this was the first time our chef and this restaurant had hosted a cooking class.  Not everything went as smoothly as we are sure the chef and restaurant owner wanted, but they went out of their way to make this an enjoyable experience.  We brought home recipes for both dishes that we are anxious to try.  The class lasted about three hours after which we returned to the ship and read while enjoying the wonderful weather.

Monday, January 15, 2018

Our final port of call was Charlotte Amalie, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  We took a bus tour that passed through lovely scenery on the way to the top of a mountain 2100 feet above sea level to visit the Mountain Top gift shop.  Mountain Top's main claim to fame is being the place where the banana daiquiri was invented.  Who are we to argue the point?  Of course we both sampled said invention and thoroughly enjoyed them. While drinking our daiquiris out on the gift shop's deck, we enjoyed scenic vistas.  Our tour guide pointed out a beautiful white sand beach that was once lined with cabanas and bungalows but were now gone, casualties of the hurricane.  We were also shown the location of a large house further down the coastline where President and Michelle Obama had vacationed.  Fittingly, the house was white.  When we returned to the ship we spent the rest of the day packing for our return home tomorrow.

We chose this cruise because all of the ports of call were new to us.  Unfortunately,  there were very few "Wow" moments on the various excursions that we took.  This many have been the result of hurricane damage. In our minds it is more that these are wonderful islands to visit if you are beach fans and are at an all-inclusive resort.  Still, we enjoyed the cruise.  The temperature was in the mid 80's everyday and the food and service as well as the entertainment on board were excellent.  It was way better then freezing in snowy Michigan.

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