St Maarten

What a beautiful island St Maarten is!

We arrived early in the afternoon, and anchored offshore. Then our passengers were able to go by tender to the shore, and spend a little time browsing the tourist gift shops and sampling the local cocktails. It was, in my mind, a perfect start for their Caribbean cruise. But as usual, there were some who weren’t at all appreciative. Our itinerary had indicated that we would arrive in the morning, giving them more time ashore, and as we have a limited number of tenders, some passengers, it’s true, had little more than 30 minutes on the island. We told them that the itinerary was incorrect due to a typing error, and as a measure of goodwill, we treated all passengers to a complimentary rum cocktail.

These rum cocktails have proved to be an outstanding success. We normally wouldn’t make anything complimentary, not least cocktails, but we were fortunate to obtain a large quantity (in fact five barrels) of high-quality rum for a very low price from the Gamalia Rum Factory. Our purser negotiated this with the owner (a cousin of his) and all credit to him. Apparently the rum was surplus stock, as the factory has now switched most of its production to alcohol sanitizer. Lucky for us!

The truth of the matter about the itinerary is that once afloat and on our way, the chief engineer reported that our fuel tanks were only half full, due to some cash flow difficulties. This presented a bit of a crisis, as I assumed we had enough for the cruise without refueling. Then I had a brainwave. I gave orders to immediately slow the vessel down. This reduces the amount of fuel we are using, and after a quick calculation on the back of an envelope, the chief engineer was fairly sure that we could complete the cruise, if “we cut a few corners”. Our policy of course is not to trouble passengers with such technical issues, and we decided that it was in their best interests not to know of itinerary changes in advance.

So on we go to the next island, Antigua.