CAPTAIN SLOG STAR DATE 74.13

As I suspected nobody turned up, at least not by 8pm when I happened by. So off to the bar I jolly well, toute suite and forthwith......

I had done a spot of shopping and was a bit encumbered with my Celebrity plazzy bag but decided that I didn't have to be cool on a casual night, so I ordered a Greyhound and settled down to read my new Andy McDowell,  actually the first one, which I have never managed to read. I hate reading books out of sequence. I got so engrossed that I forgot my drink and nearly forgot dinner, so I was last to arrive, well, not really but Pat, having gorged herself (not my words!) at lunch at The Tuscan, wasn't coming down. So I got an empty chair on one side and the delightful Terry on the other. What a nice young chap he is, not your average American at all. Quite refreshing.

I put my suggestion to him for the next big Amazon thing - selling shore excursions to cruise passengers direct and undercutting the cruise lines. He got quite excited and said that he would suggest it, and if it was taken up, he would make sure that I would benefit from it! Oooh, so maybe a free shore excursion from Southampton Docks to West Quay?

The waiters were in an all-fired hurry, bringing out the next course before the whole table had finished the previous one. Height of bad manners in my book!

Talking of books, Mick the Brit has written a fiction book about the Fire Service (his profession before retirement ) and it's self published on Amazon Kindle. He did say that, even if books are reduced by Amazon, the author still gets the amount agreed on publication. I gather from that his book may be reduced, otherwise how would he know?

So with the rushed dinner I was back in my cabin by 10.30 and managed to order brekkie, get ready for my Grenada trip and read a few chapters of my book to boot - and all before midnight Cinders!

Not a brilliant night's sleep and was awake at 6.30 so managed to get dressed in time to watch us dock in St George's,  Grenada. It takes a fair bit of skill to parallel park one of these ships, hats off to them.


Grenada was instantly more visually appealing than Aruba and Curacao. The interior of the island looks quite mountainous and covered in forest, more like St Lucia. The houses are all built on the hillslopes, there appears to be very little flat land. There has been some land reclamation from the mangroves around the port area. St George's harbour is the remains of a sunken volcanic crater, the hillsides above are what remains of the caldera.


End of geography lesson and moving on to history!

It seems the island was discovered by that busy boy Chris Columbus in 1498, giving it the name Concepcion. It was gradually renamed Grenada by subsequent Spaniards and when those dastardly French grabbed it, the name remained. In 1762 we, the Brits managed to show them the door and colonised the place, planting plantations of tobacco, sugar cane etc and finally some bright spark introduced nutmeg, which is a major export today, hence its nickname the Spice Island. Unfortunately there was a lot of slavery in Grenada's past, and we should feel appropriately embarrassed and squirmy about it but it has made the population that you meet there today - and very charming and friendly they all are. xx

It was a five minute drive to our whale and dolphin spotting boat. I immediately went up on top under the bimini roof, you see more up there and the lard arsey ones couldn't get up the stairs. So, all very exclusive.

We set off straight away with two spotters armed with binoculars.


It took about an hour before they spotted something. It was a pod of pilot whales, looking a bit like dark dolphins.

I'm not sure how many there were, maybe a dozen but they led us a merry dance, switching sides, going to the front, dropping to the back but the guys knew what to expect and we all got some photos. Mind you the boat was rolling around all over the place so it made it really hard. Videos were almost impossible BUT .... yes, I got one which I will try to attach to my email to you. Meanwhile, here are the decent photos I managed to get....

There are others but they're the clearest.

We then had a leisurely cruise back to port whilst munching on either tuna or cheese sandwiches and some spiced rum punch.

However, the fates were not yet finished with me and after disembarking, as I stepped over the rope holding the boat to the quayside, the boat moved, tightened the rope and I fell straight onto my 36F airbags! Witness, what Ayla would call, my poorlie



I will survive.


Soup, the name if the man who ran the boat - apparently he used to be a chef, presumably, first course only, was absolutely mortified. He asked me my name and I said Grace. Everyone laughed, but I don't think he got it!

Let's face it, it wouldn't be Jilly on holiday without a couple of injuries, would it?

Tomorrow is Barbados and a Jeep tour and Harrison Caves.