When we got up this morning we were already in the Caribbean
Sea at the island of St Maarten, on the Dutch side, moored up in the port which
was ready and waiting for the passengers from several huge ships. The sea was a
gorgeous turquoise blue and very very calm.
Breakfast on board this morning was another real treat with
a delightful couple called Barbara and Brian McIntyre – such kind and interesting people. What lives they have had! How we got to common ground went something
like this. Brian asked: Is this your first world cruise? Yes, I said the others
have been 3 weeks or less. Where were
the others he asked – I said Mediterranean, Norway and Brazil. He said
Barcelona is nice…….next thing we were talking about the football ground, that
he played football and a few other very interesting facts emerged. He said he could have been professional in
England as he was offered Portsmouth but “couldn’t afford it” (He looks about
70, maybe a little bit older, so there wasn’t the money in the game) Then came
more football stories, like playing charity matches with Bobby Charlton, Bally,
Hurst, Hunt, Banks and Peters at Wembley, collecting memories of the 1966 world
cup squad, having signed tickets by all 11 players from that winning match. He said those tickets are now all at the Manchester
Football museum after he had them valued at the Antiques Road Show for £20,000!
His own footballing experience has all
been in the far east, Singapore, Phuket, Hong Kong. He has also written his autobiography
entitled Have Boots will Travel – to be published in March 2015. I can’t wait, so many funny stories, there was
even a morning with Ronnie Biggs in there somewhere on a visit to Rio. Talk
about a lovely start to the day. I am now looking for his autobiography "Have Boots will Travel" but perhaps it hasn't been published yet
On port days there’s no yoga class so I did a gentle stretch,
and there’s no art class, so I have started another painting in the cabin, and
there was no dance class – no practice done
Then came our day in St Maarten. Moored in Philipsburg we walked but not fast as we need to acclimatise a bit to this wonderful tropical heat and baking sunshine. It was a factor 50 day, and we have changed colour a little bit, taken lots of photos, hit the markets, the shops and 2 restaurants with free wi-fi. If you are on Facebook the photos have beaten the blog today. The first restaurant was run by two incredibly busy and hard working French women, with a great sense of humour – the café was called Delphine’s. The second was a bigger complex on the shore called Chesterfields. This had some good rock guitar music playing nice and loud. The rest of the day was palm trees, ripe coconuts, youth steel bands, loud singing, crowds of passengers. Today’s acquisitions include a new sun dress for me and a very brightly coloured short sleeved shirt for Khachik for tonight’s Caribbean night. Look how we roll!
Signing off for now. St Lucia tomorrow.
