Tuesday 9th February

Sea Day

We keep hearing from people back in the UK that the weather's freezing and getting even colder - brrrr! I've no idea what the temperature has been on the sundecks here today but it has to have been in the 90s, with zero breeze. At 1pm we had to retreat to the cool of our stateroom for a couple of hours - even on our balcony it was too hot.

We had a lie-in this morning then went down to the restaurant at 10am for a sea day brunch. The only place where I've seen so much food is on other cruise ships. It struck us that some of the people pigging out there might well already have had breakfast! But it worked well for us - eating later meant that we completely skipped lunch and hardly missed it :o)

I've had something of an epiphany these last few days. Gill's excellent 'Caribbean Cruises' book says that cruise lines can present something of a problem for small, tourism-dependent island economies, in that pretty much everything that passengers could need is provided on board to the extent that little money is spent with the locals themselves. For instance, it argues that you should try to arrange excursions with locals when you arrive ashore and not pre-book with the cruise company as this allows more money to trickle down directly into the local economy.

Until now, I've been weary of the constant hassle that you get from itinerant traders when you step ashore, but sometimes it's better to buy from them than in shops at the quayside. Either way, spending money ashore can be seen as A Good Thing. Gill's always been good at

doing this, but now I've caught up with her :o)

On Tobago we saw a local selling carved 'vases' made from sections of bamboo. He wanted $10 for the one that Gill liked best, and we agreed that a) it would be cheap of us to haggle with him and b) it'd make his day if she bought it, so she did. I took a photo of her standing with him - he said happily, "She mine now!" And then yesterday on Grenada, as we were relaxing on the beach, and old chap with a guitar came up to us singing calypsos (remember Cy Grant, Reg?) that he was clearly improvising according to his audience. He sang to Gill that she looked 18, and other flattering stuff, so we gave him $1 and I took a photo of him and Gill - everyone was happy :o)

So from being a miserable old so-and-so who usually ducks things like this I've been won over to the other side by reason and altruism - that's an ephiphany of 'Road To Damascus' proportions!