Caribbean
The Caribbean — St. Barts & the Grenadines
Not the Caribbean of the mega-ships: small harbours, bare feet, rum punch at a beach bar with no name, and water in seventeen shades of blue.
Meridian Solstice is sized for the islands the big ships pass by: Bequia, where they still build wooden boats on the beach; the Tobago Cays, five uninhabited islets inside a horseshoe reef where you snorkel with green turtles off the stern; Mayreau, population 300, church on the hill.
Then the French touch: Gustavia's harbour lined with yachts and boulangeries, lunch at Shell Beach, and a final night in English Harbour, Antigua, where Nelson kept his fleet.
Ports & places
Where we call
Chic and unhurried: morning market, afternoon at Shell Beach, dinner ashore where the harbour lights do the decorating.
Swim from the ship's marina into the turtle shallows — five deserted islands ringed by a reef of impossible colour.
The old Caribbean: model-boat builders, a whaling museum, and lobster at a shack on Friendship Bay.
Anchor between the twin volcanic spires — a UNESCO site rising 750 metres straight from the sea.
Nelson's Dockyard, restored in stone and teak; sunset from Shirley Heights with a steel band far below.
In the frame
The light of the place
