Phillipsburg, St. Maarten, Netherlands

OK, so St Maarten isn't actually it's own country, but rather split evenly between the Netherlands and France. In fact it is the smallest island in the world that is owned by more than one country.

We arrived at the port on the Dutch side, and immediately caught a taxi to one of the most famous small airports in the world.

Airport beach or Maho beach. A small but nice beach if you don't mind the jumbo jets over your head.

If you put up a sign like this, you know its going to draw a crowd.

The Sunset Bar at Airport beach claims that topless women drink for free. Karine called them on it.

Frigate Bay, St. Kitts and Nevis

St. Kitts and Nevis is the smallest, least populated sovereign nation in the Western Hemisphere. It's sort of the Liechtenstein of the Americas. And much like Liechtenstein, it attracts many foreigners with tax bills to avoid, or a sudden need for a passport other than their home countries. If you can afford to invest in $350,000 worth of real estate, and pay a nominal $35,000 processing fee, you can have Kittitian citizenship within six months.

Karine, Lindso and Emilie
We had signed up for our only Carnival-run shore excursion of the trip, an overpriced $60 tour of the island. The first stop was a boring tourist trap called the Romney House.
The second stop on our tour was the awesome Brimstone Hill fortress. Finished in the 1790's, the Brits protected the island from pirates and the French with it. It is a World Heritage site today, and only interesting architectural site we saw on the cruise.The island of St Eustatius off in the distance.

near Frigate Bay
Of course the afternoon began (and ended) with a Carib.

Crane Beach, Barbados

Barbados did not work out the way we expected. Lindso and I planned to catch a cab to the capitol city of Bridgetown, rent a car, and spend the day driving a lap around the island. We got into a van full of cruise passengers heading towards Bridgetown, and were informed that Prime Minister David Thompson had died of cancer the previous week, that today was his funeral, and that the entire country was closed for business to attend. No rental cars available.

Some guys in the back of the van had a plan to go to some swanky resort with a beach. Since that was where the van was headed, and we were already in the van, that's where we were headed. After an hour ride, "The Crane" resort told our van to get lost. Chaos ensues.

Our driver mentions his birthday is Monday. My birthday is Monday. The cabbie is exactly twenty years older than me to the day. Strange.

Finally, with our newfound friends Arie and Karine we got a ride "Cutters" restaurant. Arie immediately orders a round of rum shots to celebrate finding any business open on Barbados.

And then another round. And then Banks beers. And then rum punch. Did I mention it's only 10am? We finished lunch, purchased every cold Banks beer the owner had, borrowed his cooler, and then he even drove us to the beach!

http://www.cutters.bb/Friends.html

Crane Beach was indeed fantastic.

And a cooler full of Banks and rum punch didn't hurt. The rest of our van companions were please to have beer delivered.Soon it seemed like a good idea to climb a tree.

It was like living a Corona commercial. Except with Banks.

Roseau, Dominica

We docked in the musty tumbledown capital of Roseau, Dominica. Dominica is the poorest Caribbean island save for Haiti. There is a visible lack of development compared to the other islands we would see. In Roseau not much has changed in the last thirty or forty years. It has a crumbling charm, but I wouldn't want to be out here after sunset.

We were immediately met by Nahjie, our guide from Extreme Dominica. I had pre-booked us an all day hike, 12 miles up and down mountains into the interior of the island, to a boiling lake. We drove for nearly an hour into the World Heritage Site of Morne Trois Piton National Park. Beautiful vistas of forest and jungle surrounded us. From there we hiked up and down up and down for 2 hours to reach Boiling Lake

The volcanic mud supposedly has great exfoliating qualities for the skin. I felt like Nahjie was having a laugh at us.

The hike was very tough. I was a bit out of shape, and I fell behind a couple times. I'd compare it to climbing an easy 14er in Colorado. Nahjie had no problems.

On the way back we climbed down into a hot spring waterfall fed pool.

At the end we drank a couple Kabuli beers and swam into a cold crystal-clear freshwater stream that ran through a 20 foot high smooth rock wall canyon to a waterfall. Amazing!

We were very happy with the service provided by Extreme Dominica. It wasn't cheap at $80 per person, but we really enjoyed our day. Give em a try. http://www.extremedominica.com/

Finally dropped off in Roseau we were immediately cornered by a hulking Rasta man offering us weed. Thankfully, he did take no for an answer, and we crossed the street to some bar that had been built out of cast-off plywood and corrugated sheet metal. The service was slow, the beer was cold, and our time was short. Back to the ship we ran.

St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, USA

On arrival in Charlotte Amalie, we walked a loooong hot mile from the port to the center of town, then wandered aimlessly until we found our way to "Blackbeard's Castle". An obvious tourist trap, we allowed ourselves to be suckered in at $12 each. It turned out OK, they had a pool, and a bar, and those two things fix almost any situation.

Label states: "confusion and plotting developed if Blackbeard's men were sober, but all was calm when they had enough ale" Well said.

If someone is going to go to the trouble to erect a cheezy photo-op billboard, then it's the least I can do to oblige.
Lindso decided she likes St Thomas and declared victory over the island