Finding our course

"They just love life. The people love the life they have, albeit meager compared to ours. They treated us as guests, and were anxious to share their culture and history with us."

The Bird is back in town! Had to get away for a bit over a week and do some searching. What - soul searching? Yes, maybe some. But mostly to search out and explore places which we have not seen before. I know - many have already been where we visited. But we had not as yet. Was it worth it? Yes, in a great many ways.

We went into the eastern Caribbean. We started out in the Bahamas (don't worry - I have a nice article I wrote on that day), then on to the Virgin Islands, and finally a stop af the Leeward Islands. One of the more interesting parts of this trip was it almost was not a trip. The route the cruise ship took, skirted the areas which were devastated (and I mean devastated) by one, some, or all of the hurricanes this season. In fact, the main island we were suppose to visit (St. Martin), is still in worse shape than Puerto Rico is.

While in the Virgin Islands, we docked at St. Thomas. There was still some damage from the close call they had with one of the storms. However St. Johns was not so lucky. There was an excursion over to St. Johns that some folks took. The reports which came back were bad. St. Johns was no where near ready for tourism. But here is the conundrum. Most of these islands in the Caribbean rely strongly on the tourist dollar. It is their # 1 industry. In fact we took a sunset excursion on a catamaran while in St. Thomas. At the end of the tour, the guide thanked us for not cancelling our cruises after the storm damage was publicized. They need every tourist dollar possible to help recover.

But the main thing on this cruise, just like it was on our last cruise to Panama, was the people. No matter if it was South America, Central America, or on this trip, the Caribbean, the people were some of the most real I have ever met. Why? They just love life. The people love the life they have, albeit meager compared to ours. They treated us as guests, and were anxious to share their culture and history with us. One caveat however, if you have never been south of Florida - these people are hard core Christians. And - they are not afraid nor ashamed to tell you about their faith.

More to come, as well as many thoughts I had about our country, our state, and our future. I just wanted to give an overview of where we were the past week and some general thoughts I had. I have one article I wrote while on ship which I am going to transition to this blog this week. It really peels back the onion on life in the Bahamas. 

In any event, Christmas is coming and I still need to unpack (my suitcase that is). In addition, I will "unpack" my pent up articles as the week goes along.