A taste of St. Lucia

The woman at the cruise ship Shore Excursions desk tried to discourage our friends Duane and Margie from going into town or doing any touring not officially offered by the cruise ship. Too dangerous, she said. So, naturally, that made the four of us want to go on a tour not officially offered by the cruise ship.

Duane and Margie are experienced travelers, used to taking off on their own. Plus, my travel pal from Santa Fe, JohnG, has sailed in his own boat to St. Lucia several times and he recommended leaving the beaten path that's preferred by cruise ships. Unfortunately, we had to be back on ship by 2:30 PM, but at least we were able to hire a taxi to show us as much of the island as there was time for.

It's a really beautiful island. We drove to the highest point on this side. At the top are several schools and a community college. The local vendors were pretty disappointed that the cruise ship was going to leave by mid-afternoon. Our taxi driver was dismayed that the ship told passengers that downtown was dangerous.

In about an hour, Robin gives a presentation on the Shakespeare Authorship Question. Can't wait for that one, even though I've seen it quite a few times.


Robin enjoys the view of St. Lucia from the Crow's Nest bar on the ship.


A local club on a local road.


A cove tucked away on St. Lucia.


Margie, Duane, and Robin at the highest point of this part of the island.


The cruise ship from a local road.

More photos of Philipsburg, St. Maarten

Front Street of Philipsburg runs along the beach.


A view of the beach from where we had lunch.


It's a 5-10 minute water-taxi ride from town to the cruise ship.


Our ship is on the right.


Obama and me in St. Maarten.

Philipsburg, St. Maarten

When we awoke Monday morning we were docked at Philipsburg. We cancelled our planned rental car with friends Duane and Margie because Robin was worn out from her busy schedule of presentations the first several days of the cruise. But we did leave the boat late-morning, took a water-taxi to Philipsburg, and strolled around town for a couple of hours.

A pretty little town. Very hot and humid. This is the Dutch side of the island. You can take a taxi or rental car to the French side, where bathing suits are optional on the beaches. Sounds fun, but we decided we'd already seen enough topless action while walking down Front Street (below).


Topless joint on Front Street.


Robin enjoys a view of St. Maarten while using the Wi-Fi connection in the Crow's Nest bar on our ship.

Another Day At Sea

Robin gave two presentations today; one about Macbeth and another about All's Well That Ends Well. The Macbeth presentation was very interesting. Since I'd helped with a practice run-through of the All's Well presentation back in Santa Fe, I wandered around the ship with my iPod blasting some Trans-Siberian Orchestra while I shot video of stuff like sun-worshipers who shouldn't be wearing bathing suits in public, and people snoring in deck chairs. You can't get footage like this just anywhere.

I also sat in on an interesting presentation about the history of pirates in the Caribbean.

At 5 PM we went to a two-person "Macbeth" performance by John Tufts and Christine Albright, Oregon Shakespeare Festival actors. They're the two fairies, Puck and Titania, that have been successfully passing themselves off as mortals for years now. The performance was in the form of a deeply disturbed Macbeth talking to his psychiatrist. Very interesting.

Tomorrow, or sometime during the night, we arrive at St. Maarten. We'll dock there for the day. We're going to rent a car with friends Duane and Margie from Ashland, Oregon, and explore the island, rather than take one of the regular tourist tours. Details tomorrow.


Robin teaching Macbeth.


John Tufts and Christine Albright answer questions after their Macbeth performance.

Now Is The Seasickness Of Our Discontent Made Glorious Summer By This Pill Of Meclizine

The seas were a bit rough this morning. Enough so that I left breakfast without eating, and slept through Robin's first presentation of Why Read Shakespeare? After a two-hour nap and a magic pill I felt great the rest of the day, even before the seas calmed down.

I forgot to bring the cable that connects my Garmin GPS to my laptop, so below is a pretty bad shot of the GPS device showing our position at the moment (7 PM Saturday night). We're scheduled to sail all night and all day tomorrow before we get to our first port of call (St. Maarten on Monday, November 10).


Trusty GPS. The white triangle is us. The red line is a track from last year's cruise. The small red dot behing the white triangle is a track from yesterday.


The ship's Atrium.

Puck Is Here!

Once again, I'm not kidding. John Tufts, the actor who fabulously played Puck (also known as Robin Goodfellow) in this summer's Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, is here and I spoke with him.

For me, he defined the role of Puck. So now it's like he's actually disguising himself as a mortal so he can walk around undetected. And it doesn't help that the woman who played Titania, Queen of the fairies, is with him (using the cruise-ship alias and disguise of Christine Albright).


Puck and Titania sometimes disguise themselves as John Tufts and Christine Albright, or even as Romeo and Juliet, as shown above.

The Staff Deck

As the Noordam left the Ft. Lauderdale harbor, Robin and I searched for the access to the bow of the boat so we could have a good view. It seems the bow of the boat is for crew and staff only. It also seems that if you ignore staff who say you can't get there, and if go through several heavy metal doors and up some hidden-away steel staircases, you eventually go through the tiny Officers Club Bar and onto the deck at the bow of the ship.


Robin impersonates a Noordam staff person.

When we left the bow, we had to go back through the private officers club. Too bad no one was there. I wanted to ask the Captain about the stripper pole (for pole dancing) in the middle of the tiny dance floor (I'm not kidding), and when the music starts.

Or maybe it's just to hold onto while drinking in rough seas.