St. Kitts

I wasn't exactly dancing in the streets upon our arrival in St. Kitts, despite the fact that we were greeted by a billboard sponsored by upscale jewelry store Little Switzerland featuring John Travolta standing in front of an X-15 jet with the slogan, "Welcome to my world."

I had seen the sign, actually created for Breitling watches, in another Caribbean island on this cruise, making me wonder how Vinnie Barbarino had come to be the symbol of wealth and class.

Not celebrating your blessings when you're on a wonderful Caribbean island with the gorgeous woman you've chosen to share your life is a special kind of stupid, but we all wake up on the wrong side of the bed sometimes.

I wanted to do something other than go to the beach, because Julie, who had spent weeks researching our itinerary to find the best ones to visit, had said there might not be good snorkeling in St. Kitts.  

"The Gribraltar of the West Indies," a UNESCO World Heritage Site built by the British in 1690, seemed like a better option to me as a daytrip, but we boarded a van with other cruisers going to a spit of land between the Atlantic and Caribbean.

I had to admit it had a breathtaking approach view down a hill, despite the sky being overcast early in the day (sorry, no photo of that view).

While we went to South Friars Beach on the Caribbean side, most of the others stayed on the van to go to a beach on the other side. 

The driver dropped us in front of a nice restaurant/bar that's in between a bay for snorkeling on one side and Monkey Mountain, where we were told we could find wild apes in the jungle.

Without needing to walk uphill, we came to a jungle on the beach, but we opted to heed the warnings to stay clear of areas likely to have mosquitoes due to the Zika virus.  Nonetheless, we saw a monkey scamper through a clearing between clumps of trees, and my grumpiness began to thaw.

My eyes opened to the coolness of this reality.

The most likely place to snorkel seemed to be the sheltered lagoon behind the rock break wall, where the water was calm, but there were stairs leading into the water on the ocean side, which I took instead.

It was the best of ideas, but it was the worst of ideas.

I figured I would swim along to the break in the wall, and then come back in the calm lagoon, but as a I swam along, the break seemed much further away than I expected it to be.  Perhaps the tide had receded to close the opening, but for some reason, I missed it.

Nonetheless, the further I went, the more exotic the fish got.  I saw a Smooth Trunk fish, which I usually erroneously refer to as a puffer, about six times as large as any I've ever seen in my life.

Then I saw a gigantic Rainbow Parrotfish that seemed to be well over a yard long, and I became focused on following him.

I spied a spotted bat ray, probably five feet across with a stinger tale that must have been 14 feet long, swimming along the sea floor.

And there were schools of all kinds of brightly colored fish.

I looked at my watch and realized I needed to head back, or Julie would be worried, but the side current had become pretty strong going the direction I was already swimming, so I decided to carry on to find a break in the rock wall.

The gigantic Rainbow Parrotfish came in sight again, and I imagined it to be my dad guiding me along to safety.

A few minutes later, I finally came to an opening to the lagoon.

However, it was nowhere near the one I had seen near the middle but rather beyond the rock cliffs rising on the far side of the lagoon.

Even in the lagoon, however, I was swimming against the current, and though certainly not as strong as it had been in the ocean, it was sufficient to hamper my progress.

I decided to go to the rocky shore and walk back along the cliffs, which reminded me of the kind of place leading to a deep cave where pirates would have hidden their treasure.

I finally came within sight of the other shore, much to the relief of Julie, who wondered what could have possibly happened to me.  Of course, she was torn between being happy to see me alive and wanting to kill me for being so inconsiderate as to be gone for over an hour instead of the standard 30 minute turn.

I lived to tell the tale, and the moral of the story is that you should never snorkel alone on the sea side of a rock wall.

Julie and I enjoyed a great day at the beach after all.  I took another swim in the lagoon, and while the fish weren't as cool as they had been in the ocean, there were some interesting coral formations.

When we returned to the town and looked about souvenir shops, we were suddenly approached by a small parade of festively clad natives, a nice topping to a wonderful day in St. Kitts.