It isn’t actually Tuesday. I’m fairly sure of that. Mrs T and I have been away on holiday, mostly without internet connection, so I haven’t been posting any updates, and was also unable to keep on top of stuff coming in. It’s taken a few days to get back to the status quo and find time to write something for the blog.

We’ve been in the Caribbean on a large cruise ship. Not the biggest, but about twice the size of the normal capacity. We don’t normally deep sea cruise, and chose this because it seemed like a good way of getting round the Eastern Caribbean islands. I wasn’t expecting to derive a lot of wargaming inspiration from the trip. I went round the pirates loop a few years ago – more than I care to remember – and ultimately wasn’t happy with what I was doing or the subject. More interesting would be the various struggles between the French/Spanish/British for control of the islands, but not enough to make we want to invest any time in it. The trip didn’t disabuse me of this position, but it did have a few interesting visits.

On Guadeloupe we went round the marvellously named „Fort Fleur d’Epee“ (Fort Swordflower). This was built by the French, under the direction of Vauban. It isn’t a star fort, but a hill top artillery fort with barracks and underground store rooms. 

Its location makes it hard to get a meaningful photograph. 

This is the maim entrance, for example, and what remains of the ramparts/walls. There’s no doubt the position commanded the bay:

The underground store rooms and barracks were in good repair, and had some interesting graffiti done by the original soldiers, alas partly obscured by more modern scrawling. Our guide knew what he was going to say to us, but little more. The garrison of about 150 (if memory serves – I should have taken notes) was brought out from France for a three year tour. The barrack rooms looked like they’d hold 50 men at a push, so three watches sounds about right. The guide wasn’t sure. The place had 18 guns, which means a crew of about eight for each if fully turned out. That sounds about right too. He was unable to tell me how many typically made it back to France. I assume they suffered from yellow fever etc the same as the British did.

We saw a few more other forts, built by both sides, but the big visit from the military point of view is Nelson’s Dockyard on Antigua.

The dockyard – which actually predates Nelson – is protected by a number of block houses and gunnery platforms over looking it, which we took in as part of a tour.

This is a view from one of the blockhouses, looking down at the harbour area. The dockyard itself is the inner lagoon, centre right, and could be sealed off by raising a boom across the entrance.

The Dockyard itself is really well done. A good combination of museum, exhibits, preserved buildings and restaurants etc. The guide was well informed and very cool. Used to people with only a passing interest, however. We had 45 minutes on site, which was too much if you weren’t really interested, and barely enough to scratch the surface if you are (we were last back to the minibus). The museum was excellent, well laid our with loads of stuff in it. If I was to have my time again we’d book a trip just to the Dockyard with a local taxi driver. Good gift/book shop. Could have spent more, but I didn’t because I’m not starting a new project. Honest.

A short note on cruising:

This is our boat. Passenger capacity c6,500. In one port we were parked next to one with a capacity of c8,000. It is big. Taller than most of the buildings in most of the ports where we docked. It was immaculately clean, the food was excellent, and the cocktail mixers knew what they were doing. The entertainment in the evening was pretty good. It is hard to fault it on a technical level. On the other hand it could be noisy at times, and many of the other passengers were, to put it mildly, ill-mannered. 

My feeling is that the people who go on these ships do so because they like the cruise life, and where it stops is almost incidental. That’s not us. We chose it so we could get round as many islands as possible in two weeks. It did do that, but I can’t say that it in reality delivered what we wanted. The cruise ships distort where they arrive. Most islands have a distinct cruise terminal now, complete with duty free shopping area. That sucks tourist dollars in and by extension drives businesses away from the area as the money never gets to them. It’s a hard slog to get much local colour where the ships dock, and if you do get into the port towns it’s recognised it’s best to be there when the cruise ships aren’t. 

It’s also not easy to stroll around on the islands in the evening when the temperature drops, as sailing times were normally 6pm, except for a couple of places where they we picking up passengers on late flights.

Besides, they want you on board, so you can visit the ship’s shopping mall:

I do have friends who like cruising, and we did speak to people who love the whole experience of it all. 

But I don’t think we’ll be back, unless it is for a very specific reason.