Note: These would've been posted much earlier if the Costa Fortuna's WiFi had gotten along even slightly better with Joomla, the software with which we run our website. As it was, we got these things all ready to go and then stared at our computer monitors, waiting for some sign of life from the internets. Such signage was not forthcoming, so these are coming to you late. Sorry about that. To make up for last week's Swift shortfall, here's a picture of Randi at the beach.
The remainder of my diary from The Amazing Adventure 5 after the jump.
Friday
Right now we’re docked at Grand Turk. The water is a light and lovely blue outside our cabin window, and we can see a beach flanked by renters’ cottages next to what look like the big boat hangars of a marina. Soon, many JREFers will be snorkeling among the coral patches now surrounding the ship. Not me. Randi, Jeff, Paperskater, Penn Bullock and I will be on the beach, catching rays. (Jeff hints that he has an alternative adventure in mind for those who wish to participate, but he’s a mysterious guy, and has so far skimped on the details.)
Two days ago, the Costa Fortuna docked at St. Thomas. I was expecting tacky-touristy; what I got was an idyllic tropical town built in layers scaling a hillside. We bused to “Blackbeard’s Castle” (which is neither Blackbeard’s nor a castle) while Jeff readied a talk on the facts and fictions of Caribbean piracy. Lots of interesting history there, and if you’re kicking around St. Thomas, you can do worse than spend a couple of hours checking out the old Danish tower, built above a fort, which was used in the old days to spot threats miles out at sea. “Blackbeard’s Castle” also features what look like 17th- or 18th century manor houses (I’m not sure which, since I didn’t take the tour), a rum factory, a funky little bar, and a big pool with a kickass view of the port.
Illustrative snippet of life on St. Thomas: The fellow who tends bar at “Blackbeard’s Castle” is also the Castle’s resident artist. He showed me his portfolio, and his portraiture is extremely moving. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, and reports that he’s perfectly happy painting in the evening and slinging rum all day. His pictures are sold in Blackbeard’s Gift Shop.
Illustrative snippet of life on St. Thomas, part II: One of the complex’s managers told me about a question on the St. Thomas drivers’ license exam
If you are driving your car and you see someone on the side of the road with whom you’d like to speak, you may stop and converse with them for:
A) 1 minute
B) 2 minutes
C) 3 minutes
D) A while
The correct answer, apparently, is “D.”
Yesterday we docked at San Juan. Very cool city. Old, European, pastel colors, romantic decay. Full of food, too — the whole place smells like a bakery. It was pouring rain when we disembarked. The boat supplied us with blue plastic panchos, but they were not entirely adequate as we followed Jeff across half a mile of the historic downtown to the old fort on the city’s northeast end. As we filed through the fort’s long entrance tunnel, I heard a low squishing sound; the sound of 80 or so skeptics’ feet sloshing around in soaked shoes.
The fort, San Cristobal, is like an architectural palimpsest. It was in use for nearly 500 years and has been built over, decade by decade, to meet the needs of its successive eras. San Cristobal was last active through WWII, so from certain angles you can see 70-year-old radio rooms built atop 16th century battlements. Standing on an old barracks in the rain, Jeff gave a brief talk on the fort’s haunted guerite, or watchtower: “La Guerite del Diablo.” As the rain let up, Penn Bullock, Richard Orbeck and I set out in search of local flavor. In a single establishment, I found both the best homemade lemonade and the best fish sandwich I’d ever consumed. I wish I could remember the name of the place. It’s an unpretentious lunch counter on San Francisco Street. Look for it.
The JREFers have utterly taken over the outdoor 9th floor lounge toward the rear of the Costa Fortuna. JREFers reported a whale sighting back there the other day, and those who weren’t spending their afternoons sucking down Caiprinhas missed it entirely. A good argument for daytime boozing. (Alas, Randi and I were in the 11th floor gym, getting ripped.)
There are a lot of young skeptics on this cruise. My guess is that almost 40% of our guests are under 30. The youngification of the skeptical movement becomes more apparent every time we hold one of these big events, and that’s part of the reason we decided to keep this cruise close to home on the relatively inexpensive Costa Fortuna — what our travel guru, Joe Wagg, describes as an “entry level” cruise ship. That’s what must be done to get the Gen Yers into the fold, and it seems to have worked. Our onboard conversations are better for it. Last night, sitting in the cigar lounge, I toggled between a discussion of opera with a 60-ish English libretticist and a political debate with a 20-ish American libertarian. The conversations fused sometime around 1:00 a.m., and by 2:00 had morphed into a free-wheeling exchange of information between six people born in five different decades on three different continents. Very heady.
Now — to Grand Turk!
Saturday
This is the last day of the cruise. More lectures this morning, then a get-together in the onboard discotheque. Then the rest of the boat will don togas and do whatever it is that one does at a toga party. I will not wear a toga, but I shall try to convince Randi to do so. If I am successful, I will post pictures immediately.
Grand Turk yesterday. Randi, Jeff, Paperskater, Penn and I sunbathed about a third of a mile down the beach from the port. Randi hung out for an hour or so and then returned to the ship. In the hours that followed, JREFers gradually made their way to our part of the beach. Jake and Patrick, two rockabilly musicians in their early 20s, brought their guitars and played rock’n’roll and old timey folk music. Bart arrived: He, Jeff and I took a cab into town to grab beer and libations.
I don’t think tourists are supposed to see the interior of Grand Turk. The place has a dusty, abandoned feel — like somebody tried erecting suburbs on the island and gave up mid-way through. Most businesses in town seem closed, and there aren’t many people on the streets. We saw a fleet of painfully thin horses nibbling some crab grass near a deserted church. In town, we got our beer in a hurry and departed.
The local beer, Turk’s Head, is extremely good — a crisp amber beer with a warming, barley-ish taste. Maybe the islanders will market the stuff abroad and become obscenely rich. I hope so.
Later
Hokay. I haven’t gotten a chance to post any of these notes because the Joomla program that runs Randi.org is snail-slow on the ship, and for some reason it’s impossible to tell whether a web page is loading or just sitting there, remaining contentedly blank. Sit for five minutes looking at the monitor: Maybe your desired page will come up, maybe it won’t. At some point you’ll hit “Refresh” and wait another five minutes to see if anything happens. Meanwhile, the whole thing costs $0.75 per minute, and after a while you begin thinking you’ve fallen prey to some piratical IT guy’s cruel profit-making scheme.
Oh, well. TAA5 won’t be remembered for slow Joomla load times. It will be remembered for the really fantastic diversity of people gathered here. There’s an aura of community and fraternity surrounding and enfolding all assembled, and you can feel it the moment you slip into the Deck 5 cigar bar where the skeptics have lately set up camp: a warm wash of fellow-feeling, pulling you over to one of a half-dozen tables where you can sit with people you’re only just beginning to know and set off on a freewheeling intellectual expedition that could go anywhere at any time. It’s a good thing. It rallies the troops, ourselves included. I’m going there now.
See you on dry land…