We, my wife, Joycee, and I, just returned from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. They are a wonderful set of islands about 3/4’s of the way from here in Florida and South America. We spent three nights on St. Vincent at the Beachcomber Hotel (http://www.beachcombershotel.com) which is beautiful. The entire grounds are like a small garden of lush tropical plants that are kept trimmed and clean by a crew of local men. The interesting thing was that 80% of the plants they have, we also have in our yard in St. Petersburg. Ours don’t look as good as theirs..Hum, it must be the volcanic soil they have, or the tropical showers.
St. Vincent is a volcanic island with steep hills and the volcano is on the North end. In the center is a valley called the Mesopotamia Valley that is the most beautiful place for growing fruits and vegetables that I have ever seen. The rich soil frequent showers and topic sunshine make it like the Garden of Eden must have been like. Our driver, Desmond, grew up on the island, so of course knew the best places to go. He took us to the best, first. The highlight of the first part of our trip was a visit to a place called Montreal Estate Gardens. Here is the website, but it doesn't do it justice. (http://www.montrealestgdns.f9.co.uk/). I have traveled over most of Europe and North and Central America and I have never seen any garden, formal or otherwise to match this one. The number of species and variations are incredible. The colors are spectacular. If I ever figure out how to put pictures on this site I will put them on here. But they won’t show how beautiful they really are.
Then we got on our yacht, a 44 ft. Lagoon sailing Catamaran, and headed South to the Grenadines. The sailing was great and easy and we lived real easy. We stopped at several islands to look around, and dine at top notch restaurants like Bazel’s on Mustique Island. We snorkled some beautiful spots, swam with turtles, caught fish while traveling from one island to another, and visited a former whaling station. The boat was the perfect size for four couples. The captain, Mike, and his wife, Hiya, who served as host, were very hospitable, and she is a wonderful cook. They are very nice and Mike is a supremely competent captain.
There were other two couples on the yacht with us and they were great fun and added to the experience. Arnem and Yvonne are newly weds on their honeymoon and are from St Vincent but lived most of their lives in England. They are retired and are settling in their new home on the island. Linda and Gustavo are a young couple from California and are a blast. We will continue to keep in touch with them. In fact I talked with Arnim and Yvonne already on SKYPE just a day ago.
After the week of sailing we spent two more days on St. Vincent and went to Dark Falls. These two falls are in the jungle close to the volcano. The trail is steep, muddy and has some tricky spots in it, but the trek is well worth it. These falls are very high and beautiful. We love falls and took lots of pictures to frame for our house.
Then it was time to come home. We had a wonderful, restful, and fun vacation. We recommend the sailing vacation we had with our Festiva sailing time share. It was all that was promised and more. Look up Festiva Sailing Vacations at:
( http://www.festivaresorts.com/fsv.php)
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Travel and timeshares
It has been a while since I have been able to write, so here is what has happened.
Taxes followed by the end of school seemed to overwhelm us. My wife was overloaded with work, closing down her new program for summer and doing exams. I had my hands full opening new avenues of revenue on my web stores, and both of us getting ready for a two week trip to North Carolina. We were heading up to Blowing Rock to watch Joycee’s grand neice ride in the horse show there. We stayed at Blue Ridge Village, an RCI timeshare place where we stayed last year. It is a great place and has lots of amenities. There is a large pool and spa in an enlclosed area, putt putt golf, a fishing pond with paddle boats and much more. Try it, you will like it.
Other than the horse show, which is the oldest continous annual horse in the country, the highlight of the trip is the bike ride down the “Virginia Creeper Rail Line trail”. The trail is a former narrow rail line that hauled freight and I belive coal line that traveled for about 30 miles on a grade that averages 3%. In the middle of the trail is the town of Damascus, Virginia. If you look for it, it is at the corner of Virginia,Tennasee, and North Carilona. From there you can go up or down the trail. When we arrive there we (there were 8 of us) rent our bikes, and helmets and are given a bottle of water. The bikes are loaded on a trailer pulled by a van into which we all climed, for the ride to the top of the trail. At the top we get our bikes and coast 17 miles down the trail back to Damascus. The ride runs thru the mountains, along steams with trout, along cliffs, paralleling the Appalacian Trail. It is wonderful and reminds me of riding my bike along the fire trails and logging roads of these same Blue Ridge Mountains,up further North, in Shenandoah County back when I was a kid, except I had to ride up first. (At my age now its easier to go down the path rather than up.)
The horse show was great and Tory won several ribbons and we all had a great time
I also spent time with my twin sister and her husband, in Martinsville, Virginia, and each of her children, Mark and Jennifer and their families, on the trip so it could not have been better.
So now we have been home for three weeks and leave Wednesday for a holiday in the Carribean. We will go to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. For one week we will be sailing on our Festiva timeshare yacht with three other couples, a Captain and a hostess/Chef. On each end of the sail we will spend three days in a small beach hotel on St Vincent to acclimate. We have found we enjoy this plan better than running in and out. You might want to try it.
Yes, we have timeshares. We find them very convenient and give us a great deal of freedom. We have used them in the islands, Europe, Central America, and of course here in the states.They also save us money, which in these times is always helpful. We have never had a time when we were not able to get what we wanted when we choose to use them. We choose not to use them sometimes, like last year when we went to Grand Turk, and wanted to stay specifically at the Salt Raker Inn. I love that place. It is so origional and fun. By the way...the diving on the wall is the best I have ever done. Blue Water Divers have been there over 20 years and are the people to go with. PS; I don’t get a commission from any of these people for recommending them. I’m just giving you a recommendation based on my experience.
I get back to you in two weeks, when I return.
Taxes followed by the end of school seemed to overwhelm us. My wife was overloaded with work, closing down her new program for summer and doing exams. I had my hands full opening new avenues of revenue on my web stores, and both of us getting ready for a two week trip to North Carolina. We were heading up to Blowing Rock to watch Joycee’s grand neice ride in the horse show there. We stayed at Blue Ridge Village, an RCI timeshare place where we stayed last year. It is a great place and has lots of amenities. There is a large pool and spa in an enlclosed area, putt putt golf, a fishing pond with paddle boats and much more. Try it, you will like it.
Other than the horse show, which is the oldest continous annual horse in the country, the highlight of the trip is the bike ride down the “Virginia Creeper Rail Line trail”. The trail is a former narrow rail line that hauled freight and I belive coal line that traveled for about 30 miles on a grade that averages 3%. In the middle of the trail is the town of Damascus, Virginia. If you look for it, it is at the corner of Virginia,Tennasee, and North Carilona. From there you can go up or down the trail. When we arrive there we (there were 8 of us) rent our bikes, and helmets and are given a bottle of water. The bikes are loaded on a trailer pulled by a van into which we all climed, for the ride to the top of the trail. At the top we get our bikes and coast 17 miles down the trail back to Damascus. The ride runs thru the mountains, along steams with trout, along cliffs, paralleling the Appalacian Trail. It is wonderful and reminds me of riding my bike along the fire trails and logging roads of these same Blue Ridge Mountains,up further North, in Shenandoah County back when I was a kid, except I had to ride up first. (At my age now its easier to go down the path rather than up.)
The horse show was great and Tory won several ribbons and we all had a great time
I also spent time with my twin sister and her husband, in Martinsville, Virginia, and each of her children, Mark and Jennifer and their families, on the trip so it could not have been better.
So now we have been home for three weeks and leave Wednesday for a holiday in the Carribean. We will go to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. For one week we will be sailing on our Festiva timeshare yacht with three other couples, a Captain and a hostess/Chef. On each end of the sail we will spend three days in a small beach hotel on St Vincent to acclimate. We have found we enjoy this plan better than running in and out. You might want to try it.
Yes, we have timeshares. We find them very convenient and give us a great deal of freedom. We have used them in the islands, Europe, Central America, and of course here in the states.They also save us money, which in these times is always helpful. We have never had a time when we were not able to get what we wanted when we choose to use them. We choose not to use them sometimes, like last year when we went to Grand Turk, and wanted to stay specifically at the Salt Raker Inn. I love that place. It is so origional and fun. By the way...the diving on the wall is the best I have ever done. Blue Water Divers have been there over 20 years and are the people to go with. PS; I don’t get a commission from any of these people for recommending them. I’m just giving you a recommendation based on my experience.
I get back to you in two weeks, when I return.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
