I have yet again been invited aboard the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship, but this time instead of Alaska, I will be in the Caribbean. My role aboard is to give presentations to the guests about my global adventures, expeditions, and to teach them about interesting natural phenomena, some of which we may see on this voyage.

 

I'll keep updating this page each day as the voyage progresses. I'm excited to visit numerous islands that I have never been to before.

Got up very early (3:45AM) and went to the airport. The flight was uneventful.

After getting settled in at the hotel in Miami, we took a walk along the waterfront for a bit, saw a crocodile warning sign and some feral urban chickens, then we went to lunch at a cool food truck (Francisca). The weather here in Miami was warm with cloudy patches and the sea breeze was nice. Tomorrow we board the ship.

Had some time to kill today, so we took our time, then went for lunch at Sky Coffee, 2 blocks north of the Hotel. It's made from an old commercial jet fuselage, and the whole thing is airplane themed. Had a great ham & cheese omelette sandwich and a cappuccino. There were several chickens and roosters just wandering around the patio (in downtown Miami!). We proceeded to the cruise ship terminal and boarded the Queen Elizabeth. This is my 4th time aboard this ship, and she's starting to feel like an old friend.

We had dinner in the Britannia restaurant, and since today was American Thanksgiving, of course I had to have the turkey dinner. Some thunder & lightning crashed through to see us off as we left the port and headed out into the Atlantic.

The cloudiness continued this morning as I gave my second presentation of the trip. Attendance was great, with an almost full house, which is something, considering the size of the Royal Court Theatre. I believe that part of the reason there were so many people was because coming up right after me was actor Hugh Bonneville from Downton Abbey. I've never watched the show, but it is obviously very popular with the mostly British crowd on this ship. I'm happy to have him help draw some people in to see my talk.

Tonight was the first gala evening, this one with a black & white theme.

The weather has improved dramatically. Sunny and hot today in St. Thomas. After breakfast we went ashore and walked into town, stopping at a few shops here and there. It was odd to see cars with left hand drive, driving on the left side of the road. This was my first time visiting the USVI. I'd like to come back and explore more.

Back aboard, the sun was getting low, so I went up to deck 11 to photograph the sunset.

Another gorgeous day. We went ashore and walked around the downtown port area, through the narrow, busy streets, and around the bay where I photographed a cattle egret, and a great egret along the shore. We stopped by a tree with many red flowers & spotted a couple of hummingbirds, but never got a clear shot to get a photo of them. When we eventually wandered back towards the ship, we stopped for a drink in the shade on a patio.

Back aboard, I went up to the top deck for the sunset. It was really nice, with a view of the island of Nevis to the west, and to the southwest we could see Montserrat. As the sun dipped low, I could start to see some distortions of the light as it touched the horizon. As the disk of the sun dipped below the horizon, I managed to catch the rare green flash on camera.

We arrived around 10:00 and the weather was fair. Interestingly, the Queen Mary 2 was docked right beside us. I imagine that it isn't too often that 2 "Queens" are in the same place at the same time (I was aboard the Queen Mary 2 back in October). I arranged to meet up with friends who lives on the island and they met us at the cruise ship terminal entrance after they'd gone to the local fish market to buy some tuna and red snapper.

We drove out to their place, which is a lovely open-concept home on a hill overlooking a golf course. We all hung out, chatted and had lunch (the fresh snapper). Unfortunately the heavens opened up and it really started to rain, and it didn't really let up for the rest of the day.

After lunch, we took a drive to their beach house. Along the way, we came across a group of invasive green monkeys that somehow came over from Senegal. They were cooperative enough that I was able to get a bunch of photos. At the beach house, we walked out in the rain to the beach to where sea turtles had recently come ashore and laid eggs in buried nests.

We were planning on snorkeling, but the weather was too bad so we just took the scenic route back to the ship. A really nice day. This was my first time in Barbados, I definitely need to return.

The last time I was here in St. Lucia was way back in 1997, when I was in my 20’s.

We went ashore with no real plan in mind. The skies were overcast, which was great to keep that intense tropical sun at bay. There were a few drops of rain, but thankfully, that was it.We wandered around the little bay by the port in the capital of Castries, then worked our way back towards the downtown. Vendors were selling fruits, vegetables, a variety of spices, hot sauces and much more. We came across a place called the “Super Sexy Restaurant Bar/Grill. Unfortunately, it's closed on Wednesdays!

Today was a sea day, sailing from St. Lucia to Saint Maarten.

In the morning, I watched a few of the other speaker's presentations, one about Buddy Holly, then one by a former Space Shuttle astronaut. I gave my 3rd talk (Skyscapes At Sea) at 12:15. It was very well attended despite being in the lunch time slot, and immediately following two other lecturers. I made sure to include pics from the green flash I saw the other day as we were leaving Antigua. It went over well, and I had lots of people showing me their sky photos.

I did some more trivia in the afternoon, and tonight was the 2nd gala night, so we got dressed up and got a table for 6 for dinner. The weather was good for whole day, but there was no dramatic sunset.

We got up early because we were on one of the excursions. Nice weather to wake up to in Phillipsburg.

We got on a mini bus and our driver took us north, crossing from the Dutch side of the island to the French side (2 new countries in 1 day!). It was interesting to see the signs shift abruptly from English to French. We stopped along the water on the west side of the island in the town of Marigot.

The driver dropped us off and gave us an hour to wander around. There were plenty of vendor stalls along the waterfront board walk, so we checked out some of those, then walked along the water’s edge where we spotted several big iguanas, sunning themselves on the rocks. I managed to get quite a few good photos of some of them. One in particular wasn't afraid of me and allowed me to get pretty close.

Time was running out, so we walked back to our rendezvous point, but not before stopping at a stall to get some coconut water, straight from the coconut. It was so refreshing & delicious.

Back on the bus, we continued to our next destination, to famous Maho beach at the end of the airport runway on the Dutch side of the island. Maho beach is world-renowned because it when planes land, they come in just incredibly low, right above the beach. When they take off, the blast from the jet engines powering up is like brief hurricane that slams into the beachgoers.

When the mini bus arrived, a bunch of us decided that it was going back to the ship too early, we wanted to make sure we had lots of time for plenty of landings & take-offs, so we let the driver know we were going to stay behind. 6 of us were going meet at 3:00 and share a taxi back.

The beach itself was crowded and narrow. This is one of the top tourist experiences on the island, and there's barely any space between the road and the water. The sandy beach is literally a narrow strip. There were lots of incoming planes, some huge ones too. It was eerie to be staring down a giant jet as it's coming in for a landing straight at you.

We tried to figure out the timing of the arrivals and departures, but didn't have much luck. Every schedule I looked at, online or posted at the nearby bar was wrong. There were lots of planes that were actually early, and some that didn't seem to be listed at all.

We found a good spot, right in the middle of the flight path, where the incoming planes fly directly above us, and the ones taking off would hit us with their jet-wash. Everybody there was very friendly, helping each other take photos etc. One concern was that the road between the rocks and the airport fence was so narrow that it was dangerous for pedestrians to walk. The ever-present danger of being hit by a car made it treacherous to say the least.

After a while, it was getting really hot in the sun, and we needed a break. We left our spot and went to one of the nearby bars for a drink. While we were there, the planes continued, and I was able to get a few cool shots from the side, aimed at the beach with the planes directly above the beachgoers as the came in for their landings.

There were some interesting characters there. One local woman was wearing a sash with Birthday Queen written on it. There was also a huge group of local sorority girls, all wearing bright red dresses. The whole place had a real party atmosphere.

The highlight was when one big jet was taking off, the thrust from the engine was intense, I estimate we encountered at least 60mph winds. We totally got sandblasted. There was another big KLM jet scheduled to take off, but we ran out of time. There was lots of traffic returning to the ships.

Sunset was really nice, caught yet another green flash. Small but bright. That's 2 for this voyage alone.

Slept in a little bit this morning, and got ready but Michelle was feeling like crap. Probably a combination of migraine + a deep tissue massage from the other day + being out in the sun all day yesterday. She stayed in bed.

I went ashore by myself, and walked around Road Town, the capital of the British Virgin Islands. It was sunny and hot out, which was nice, but there really wasn't a lot to see within walking distance of the ship. There were some shops around the docks, but walking into town was a bit disappointing. I'm sure other parts of the island are spectacular. I eventually turned around and headed back to the ship where I grabbed some lunch, went for a swim in the pool, and joined my team for the 4:30 trivia. I was hoping for a decent sunset, but some passing tropical showers put an end to that.