Amazon & Carnival Explorer Cruise - Day 12: Kingstown, St. Vincent

Friday, February 15

Today we are docked in Kingstown on the island of St. Vincent.  St. Vincent and the Grenadines is a southern Caribbean nation comprising a main island, St. Vincent, and a chain of smaller islands.  The islands are volcanic and lie between Saint Lucia to the north and Grenada to the south.  Kingstown, where we are docked today, is the capital city of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.  Tony, who we will be taking a tour with later in the cruise, was born and raised in St. Vincent until relocating to Canada so today will be a homecoming for him.

We were up again at 7:30 this morning as we have another early excursion.  Today we sailed to the nearby island of Bequia where we saw some of the sights of the island and did some snorkeling.  After getting ready and eating breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, we got off the ship and looked for our tour.  We were taken to Bequia by a catamaran, which was docked on the pier across from our ship; very convenient.  There were probably 30 to 40 people on the tour so it was a bit more crowded than our catamaran trip in Bonaire, but our boat was also quite a bit larger.  We settled in for the 45 minute trip to the island.  It was windy with pretty choppy seas so we did a lot of rocking and rolling, but no one seemed to mind.

We're on our way to Bequia.

 

Our first stop was a place called the Moonhole which is a unique rock formation of a hole through a cliff.  There were also some interesting structures built into the cliffs.  We weren't told, or didn't hear, what they were, but the tour description said we would see an old whaling station so maybe that's what it was.

We aren't sure of what these old building are, but they may be part of an old whaling station.

 

After that we followed the shoreline to Princess Margret Beach where we were dropped off to snorkel and relax on the beach.  We pretty much had the beach to ourselves, but there was a vendor with drinks and renting beach chairs, which Val and I took advantage of.

We pretty much had the beach to ourselves.

Val and I were lucky enough to be one of the first ones off the boat and got a good spot on the beach and some beach chairs before they ran out.

The snorkeling was a little disappointing as there really weren’t many fish.  The coral shoreline was interesting with lots of sea anemones and sea urchins attached, but overall, not the best snorkeling we’ve done.  Despite the lack of good snorkeling, we had a great time.  It was a beautiful spot with trees along the beach providing shade; just a great place to relax and enjoy this beautiful island.

After a couple of hours, the boat picked us up and anchored a little ways off shore where we had lunch.  Lunch was quite extensive with salad, rice, mac and cheese, fish and chicken.  Considering it was served on the boat and must have been made before we left, it was quite good.  After lunch we docked at the nearby town of Port Elisabeth and were given some time to walk around the small town and visit some of the shops.

Lunchtime

 

We sail into Port Elisabeth

 

After our visit to Port Elisabeth, it was time to head back to Kingstown and our ship.  The trip back was equally rough and we were on the side of the boat that got sprayed a bit, but it was warm and we didn’t really mind.  We were back in our room by 3:30, tired but happy, we had a great time today.

We sail back into Kingstown and the Veendam.

We were both tired and except for downloading our pictures for the day, we did nothing but relax until it was time to get ready for dinner.

As usual it was trivia, dinner and the casino and as usual our team didn't win at trivia, but we had a great dinner and lost in the casino.  We were both tired and headed straight to bed after our trip to the casino.  Tomorrow we will be in Bridgetown, Barbados.