Part Three: Windjammer Yankee Clipper

We are not unfamiliar with the Windjammer experience. This was hubby’s 17th week on board, and my eighth. We love the Clipper as she is a great sailing ship. The crew and shipboard experience is wonderful on any of the ships. We also like that the Clipper is smaller – only 64 passengers as you get to know everyone, and the itinerary is the best (in my humble opinion). So, we were excited to be returning!

Our experience began at Fish Friday, two days prior to boarding the Clipper, when we were approached by Sly (first mate aboard the Clipper). He had not worked that week, as he had broken his arm. It was fun (and surprising) to see him. That is what we love about the ships and crew – it is like going home to see family again. Out of all the people at Fish Friday (yes, it was busy) Sly saw and recognized us. It was such a good feeling to be able to get reacquainted! If you have done a Windjammer before, you know what I mean! You get to know the crew that well…

We boarded the Clipper on Sunday, 6/24 (our anniversary) and were staying aboard for two weeks. The passengers the first week was varied in age, as always, and had many seasoned Jammers aboard. One couple was on week THIRTY! I thought we had quite a few weeks under our belt… It was a fun group, and it seemed everyone had a good time (almost everyone). That first week we visited Bequia, Mayreau, Union and Carriacou. We had great weather, although sailing from Grenada to Bequia many people did get sick as it was quite rough. We kept telling people it would get better, that this was the roughest part of the trip. We had beautiful sails the rest of the week. The second week we made it to St. Vincent. We took the speed boat tour, had lunch at the Pirates of the Caribbean old set, Wallilabou’s. Very good lunch! Did some swimming, snorkeling at a black sand beach, and went out in the speed boat to look for dolphins – which we did see many of. It was a great excursion, and actually the only one we took with the exception of diving trips.

Bequia: Very quaint island – one of my favorites. Had lunch at Mac’s both weeks. No lobster pizza as it is out of season, but all of their food is wonderful. Ate out for dinner at Les Auberge des Grenadines. It was actually a very good dinner, and a new restaurant for us to experience! A band was there after dinner for dancing – very fun. The second week we were there, the band was rained out. It should have been at Devil’s Table. I was surprised that Coco’s is no longer in business. Coco’s has been there for many years. And, the new development for us this trip was Jack’s Bar and Restaurant at the corner of Princess Margaret Beach. There is now a dock as well. They did a nice job fitting Jack’s into the natural environment.

Mayreau: Always a great place! We walked over the hill to Salt Whistle Bay (very hot, take water and good shoes). Snorkeling was good, and floating in the water even better!

Union Island: We stopped at the town for the morning, and then moved to the other side for a beach afternoon. I had not been to the town before, and it was very cute. Some nice galleries and gift shops. Bakeries, fresh fruit and vegetables as well. The main hotel (by the dock) looked beautiful making me think it might be nice to stay a day or two on Union sometime! The beach was gorgeous of course, and everyone enjoyed it. They are building what will be a beach bar/restaurant and I understand they plan to have a small dock there as well. It looks like it will be nice once finished.

Carriacou: Carriacou is not my favorite island for some reason. The town seems very warm to me. This time we just wandered around town. We should have (but didn’t) taken a water taxi to Sandy Island – I hear the snorkeling was the best of anywhere we had visited. There is no shade however (which is why I didn’t go – already had sunburn from the floating at Union Island), but in hindsight – we should have gone anyway. We missed an awesome experience!

If you have not done a Windjammer Cruise before, and you like casual experiences, you should look into this. The cabins are small (yes, it is a sailboat) but air conditioned, the heads are small, but adequate. The food is quite good and it continues to amaze me that this small little galley kitchen can produce the amount of quality food that it does so well. The service and crew are fantastic – fun, and will do whatever it takes to make sure you have a great trip. It is always hard to leave them at the end of the week (or two) – just like family.

I hope Windjammer can handle the upcoming new safety requirements and will find a way to do what needs to be done to keep these old tall ships sailing. They are pieces of history, majestic and beautiful and do not deserve to be dumped into an old boat yard and forgotten. It will truly be a sad day if that does happen!

Part Four – The Journey Home

We knew it was time for vacation to end when a storm approached Grenada – not just minor rain, but major heavy rain that just kept going. That signified the end of about 3 ½ weeks of glorious sun and vacation. We left on the early American flight to San Juan. Our flight to Newark did not leave SJU until evening, so we had time to visit El Morro and Old San Juan. It was extremely warm, and we were carrying around 2 large packs (not conducive to a leisurely day). We did a quick tour of El Morro, walked down to Old San Juan and found the Parrot Club to have lunch. Great lunch! It was cool, comfortable, delicious food and drinks as well! Without our carry on packs, this would have been a great day and we would have explored more… next time maybe!

Our flight to Newark was uneventful. We spent the night in Newark (after waiting over an hour for the hotel shuttle). Apparently there were many cancelled flights due to weather and the hotel was overrun! Thank goodness we got our room. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/snore.gif" alt="" /> We had the opportunity to be bumped from Newark to Seattle, but if we had taken that option, we would not have made it to Juneau until early morning the next day. We decided our journey was long enough and we needed to head home. After about 36 hours we made it home to Juneau, all bags present and accounted for.

Time to start planning another trip now!