Caribbean Island Cruise

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Browse pictures by category: Antigua (18) / Barbados (8) / DominicanRepublic (2) / Grenada (7) / PuertoRico (11) / StThomas (9) /
Puerto Rico
The island of San Juan was discovered on Columbus' second voyage to the New World in 1493. He named the capital city Puerto Rico. Later, Spanish settlers switched the names, although one legend holds that an excess of rum may have caused one of Columbus' cartographers to make the clerical juggle.
Although Puerto Rico has been a commonwealth of the United States for over 100 years, the influence has not changed the inherently Spanish nature of the island. Old San Juan has 16th century restored buildings, 200-year-old houses with balconies overlooking cobblestone streets, museums, art galleries, bookstores, cafes, squares, shops, monuments and plaques.
The countryside of Puerto Rico - about half the size of New Jersey - includes an amazing variety of sights: the 28,000-acre El Yunque rain forest with over 200 species of trees growing over 100 feet high, dramatic mountain ranges, old enormous caves and boulders with mysterious petroglyphs, coffee plantations, old sugar mills, 80 towns and cities and hundreds of beaches.
Past San Juan Cemetery and the 17th century 20-feet-thick walls, lies El Morro, the city's oldest protective fort. Built from 1539 to 1787 and rising 140 feet above sea level, El Morro commands the best overview of this fascinating historical city.
The San Juan Cathedral dates back to 1520 and houses the remains of Ponce de Leon.
Dominican Republic
Spanning over two-thirds of the mountainous island of Hispaniola, the 19,000 square-mile Dominican Republic is comparable in size to that of Vermont and New Hampshire combined. Upon Christopher Columbus' first glimpse on December 5, 1492, he wrote, "There is no more beautiful island in the world." He promptly founded the first permanent European settlement in the Caribbean on the northeast coast of the island on November 7, 1493.
The intervention of the U.S. Government over the decades has influenced Dominican life somewhat, but Spanish culture is still predominant. Although some English is spoken, Spanish is the primary language spoken among its 7,511,000 residents.
Barbados
Easternmost island of the West Indies, Barbados combines beautiful beaches with British charm to produce one of the Caribbean's most popular destinations.
The west coast of the island is lined with over 10 miles of perfect white-sand beaches with perfectly clear water; this piece of paradise has been dubbed the "Platinum coast".
This paradise has also enjoyed pease for its 350 years of civilization. Unlike many of its neighboring islands, Barbados has been ruled constantly by the British... until 1966, when Barbados claimed its independence.
Barbados is relatively small - only 166 square miles, 21 miles long by 14 miles at its widest and is home to 260,000 people. The official language is English.
Sights of note:
Holetown: small old St. James coast settlement where the first Brits landed in 1627.
St. James Church, one of the Caribbean's oldest (1660).
Gold Coast, nickname for the shore along St. James and St. Peter parishes, site of the island's most glamorous hotels and prestigious homes.
Speights-town, once a major sugar port, still a fishing village with a busy waterfront, quaint old houses, and charming old church.
St. Nicholas Abbey, 17th Century greathouse.
Bathsheba, quaint little fishing village.
Sam Lord's Castle, grand home of the celebrated 19th century rogue.
Morgan Lewis Mill, the only working windmill in Barbados.
Barbados Wildlife Reserve, home of thousands of rare green monkeys.
Grenada
The lush tropical island of Grenada lies at the southernmost tip of the grand arch formed by the islands of the Lesser Antilles' Grenadines. The island is 21 miles by 12 miles wide, totaling 133 square miles with a population of 95,000. English is the official language and an African-French patois is also spoken.
Grenada (pronounced Gre-nay-da; Gre-nah-da is in Spain), known as the spice island, produces vast quantities of cloves, cinnamon, and mace, and about a third of the world's nutmeg.
Like many of its neighbor islands, Grenada was "discovered" by Columbus. It is somewhat ironic that he never actually explored the island on his third voyage in 1498. Of all the Caribbean islands he visited, Grenada best approximated Columbus' original goal - to open a source of spices to Europe by sailing west instead of east.
Antigua
After Columbus first "discovered" Antigua (which has actually been inhabited as far back ads 2400 BC), it was almost 150 years before the hearty English set foot on the island again, then to claim it in the name of Queen Elizabeth I.
The island's economy was dominated by sugar production until the 1960s but now owes 60% of its gross domestic product to tourism, hosting over 500,000 visitors annually. Antigua's population is barely 80,000. The official language is English, spoken with a distinctive Caribbean accent.
Lying near the mid-point of the Leeward Islands' 600-mile arch which stretches clockwise from Puerto Rico to Venezuela, Antigua (pronounced An-tee-ga; not An-tee-gwa) is only 16 miles at its longest and 12 miles at the widest point. At just 108 square miles, Antigua is half the size of St Lucia, and just slightly larger than Aruba.
The island lies 200 miles east of Puerto Rico. Visible from Antigua's shores are Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Nevis, and St. Kitts, as well as the other two islands that make up the British Commonwealth state of Antigua: Barbuda and Redonda.
St. Thomas
Columbus first sighted the Virgin Islands on his second voyage to the New World in 1493. He is said to have named the many islands in honor of St. Ursula and her 11,000 virgins. In keeping with the chaotic pre-Colombian occupation by the cannibalistic Carib Indians, St. Thomas and the other Virgin Islands have since been controlled at one time or another by Spain, England, France, Holland, and Denmark. The islands have experienced over 400 years of hostile European takeovers, wars, lootings, pirates (Captain Kidd and Bluebeard), slave trade, revolutions, and liberations.
In 1917, the US purchased its Virgin Islands from Denmark at a cost of $25 million. Of the more than 50 US Virgin Islands, only three - St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John - have any significant populations. The other 40 Virgin Islands are British.
St. Thomas covers an area of 32 square miles and has a population of 56,000. English is the official language of the US Virgin Islands and the US dollar is the official currency.