Cruise Ship Dock

1TDOCK02
Originally uploaded by Karlek.

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There are three items relating to the Cruise Ship Dock.

First, it is now open for walkins from the land side, so you can drive up to the building and shop without having to show an identification. This will help the stores.

Second, Dr. Adams has produced a little book with pictures and histories of some of the major buildings in Kingstown. It has a map so tourists can wander around without getting lost. 15ECD or 6USD. Pocket sized. Not as much chat as my walking tour of Kingstown at

http://svg.karleklund.net

But a lot more convenient to carry around.

Third. We understand the Queen Mary 2 will be docking tomorrow (Dec 28,2005). That should be a hoot!

Orchid

Orch108
Originally uploaded by Karlek.

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One of Sally's orchids. For more orchids go to http://pix.karleklund.net and search for orchid. In this picture note the size of my finger.

Sally & Dave

Sally & Dave
Originally uploaded by Karlek.

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Sally talking to Dave (whose last name I didn't get) when we were having Christmas Day breakfast at the Paradise Inn.
Dave says he is going to start a construction crafts program for a developer who is going to develop Buccamen.

S&K12 14 05

S&K12 14 05
Originally uploaded by Karlek.

Sally and Karl Eklund in their front orchid garden on December 14, 2005, a warm sunny vday in Villa, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. They hope you had (will have) A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. They certainly intend to.

Rain, Rain, Gov Away

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has been pretty lucky this hurricane season, the last Caribbean hurricane blew over as a tropical wave. What we have had has been noncyclonic thunderstorms. We don't have freezes, which lets them run water pipes on the surface, but we do have mudslides with volcanic rocks in them that take out the water pipes. I had to go out at dawn to fix the valve on the cistern (which gets filled by public water through a float valve like a toilet tank) so we could have a trickle to cook with. Showers will wait till they fix it!

The tropics aren't all marguerite's and beach chairs when you live here. At least this year I got the car checked and inspected and insured and relicensed before December. Usually that gets done on Christmas Week involving a four hour wait.

We are having election day shortly, so we'll stay out of Kingstown this week, not wanting to get caught up in the excitement. We are peaceful old folks, you know. My source tells me that the Prime Minister Hon. Dr. Ralph ("De Comrade") Gonzalves expects 14 wins in the legislature and is hoping for 15. I hope he stays in because he was a college roommate of Fidel Castro, and Fidel and Chavez of Venezuela are helping build an international airport just to thumb their noses at Uncle Sam. Most of the big airports down here were built by the US in World War II to protect the Panama Canal (Remember "Rum and Coco-Cola" "Workin' for the Yankee Dollar"?) and you remember the airport Castro built in Grenada and Reagan went to war for.
Little islands get tourist airports only as a result of international tension. It will turn Saint Vincent and the Grenadines into a tourist island, but the US has helped Chiquita and Dole kill the European banana market so the island has to have some source of income. But that's a couple of years away yet.

In the meantime it is interesting seeing the outside world penetrating this peaceful paradise. Not always wonderful, but interesting. If you want to visit a Caribbean Island that isn't completely touristified you have a couple of years. It is worth struggling a bit with transportation.