Pirates, pampering, rum bars and more - the Caribbean has it all (2024)

The Golden Age of Piracy was between 1650 and the 1730s, when events in Europe conspired to flood the Caribbean with idle mariners during a boom in trade between the Old and New Worlds. Until recently, only one authentic pirate treasure – that of the Whydah Gally, sunk off Cape Cod in 1717 – had ever been recovered.

At the museum gift shop, I buy a copy of Pirate Hunters, the remarkable story of the painstaking search and discovery of Joseph Bannister’s Golden Fleece, a pirate ship recovered off the coast of the Dominican Republic, only a day or two’s sailing from where I’m standing.

Bannister had been a well-respected English sea captain shipping cargo between London and Jamaica before suddenly going rogue and stealing his ship. He went on to become one of the Caribbean’s most feared pirates.

I then take a nearby cable car up to Paradise Point, which offers spectacular views over Saint Thomas Harbour and, on a clear day, as far as Puerto Rico and Saint Croix.

After enjoying the vista, I head back to port to board a Ford pick-up converted into an open minibus with capacity for about 25 passengers. My destination is Magens Bay Beach, a gorgeous expanse of flour-white sand surrounded by native forest and a rambling park area with picnic tables, toilets and showers that often pops up on “World’s Best Beaches” lists.

One reason the Caribbean rarely rates on Australians’ list of desired destinations is the quality of our own beaches and the proximity of Asian and Pacific Islands alternatives on our doorstep.

By contrast, Americans – both North and South – love the Caribbean, as do Europeans. With easy, one-flight access to favoured islands or cruise ship hubs in Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico, they arrive in their tens of thousands, buoying fragile island economies and cruise line coffers.

My six or so fun-filled hours in Saint Thomas are proof again there is more to the Caribbean than glorious beaches and rum-soaked indulgence. Defined by the Central American isthmus to the west, the wild Atlantic Ocean to the east, Venezuela and Colombia to the south and Mexico’s Yucatán peninsular to the north, the Caribbean basin and its islands have long captured the imagination of adventurers, travellers, fortune-seekers, writers, musicians and assorted fringe-dwellers.

Its rich and brutal colonial history, brimming with conquistadors, slave-traders, plantation owners, pirates and privateers, is well-documented. James A. Michener writes in his celebrated novel Caribbean: “In the centuries following its discovery by Columbus in 1492, the Caribbean was dominated by European nations fascinated by its wealth, its inviting charm and its strategic importance in naval warfare.

“Spain, Holland, England, France and, at brief intervals, Denmark and Sweden all became embroiled in Caribbean affairs until it seemed that the area’s destiny was determined not by actions in the Caribbean but what transpired in Europe.”

The Caribbean Sea laps mainland coastlines and about 700 islands, some barely atolls and others, such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Hispaniola, big enough to accommodate millions of citizens and, in the case of the latter, more than one country.

The abundance of deep, natural ports, hidden coves and shallow beaches suitable for careening made the region a strategic staging ground and restocking station for European navigators, including pirates and traders, for centuries after Christopher Columbus happened across it.

Today, those same deep ports are magnets to cruise ships and their day passengers, while the more upscale islands or picturesque enclaves draw corporate billionaires, celebrities and tax refugees.

While I’d long been seduced by the Caribbean’s tropical settings, and fascinated by its rich and often dark history in the 16th and 18th centuries (not to mention its contemporary raffishness), I’d never imagined taking it all in from aboard a 17-deck, floating hotel.

Until the cruise, my visits to the region had been a series of independent adventures – to Cuba (twice), Costa Rica (thrice) and Trinidad and Tobago – to escape the winter grey of London while soaking up the sun, culture and, at times, waves of my destinations.

By contrast, my only experience with cruise liners had involved a weekend aboard a moored ship with my then-wife in Barcelona. She got to meet Sofia Lauren, while I spent 30 minutes with the chief executive of Costa Crociere, discussing commercial shipping for the Financial Times.

Having no cruising history with which to compare the experience, I rely on accounts from my more experienced travelling companions, some of whom also referred me to specialist review sites such as cruisecritic.com. Navigating this and other sites would be enough to dissuade even the most devout cruisers, given the horror stories of endless queues, bad food, cramped quarters and backed-up toilets.

And who doesn’t associate massive liners with the COVID-19 death ships of more recent times – floating refugee camps looking for a friendly port, their passengers enduring stifling cabin lockdowns or precarious transfers from the high seas?

My trip with Norwegian Cruise Line is anything but – smooth sailing every day, with fine dining, world-class entertainment, and more attractions and activities, including a high-speed go-kart race on the top deck, than I can possibly pack into a week.

Apart from the minimalist, coastal chic vibe, what sets the Norwegian Viva apart from cruises I’d read about is the range of dining options – nine top-class specialty restaurants on top of six all-you-can-eat dining options – and its signature high-end “Haven” upper-deck enclave featuring spacious suites, apartments and penthouses. Guests here are pampered silly with butler services, priority seating at shows and restaurants, and fast-tracked embarking and disembarking for day excursions.

As impressive as the ship is, however, it’s the itinerary that most appeals to this old salt.

Setting out from vibrant San Juan on a Sunday evening, we cut a course east-south-east, with stops scheduled for Tortola (British Virgin Islands), Saint Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, Sint Maarten and Saint Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.

The allure of cruising, of course, is that once settled in your cabin, you can take in a multitude of destinations without more packing or moving. And, on this voyage of discovery, every dawn brings a new Caribbean gem.

I awake early after the first night’s sailing with the wet, fruity smell of the tropics wafting in through my open state room balcony door. Everything is still and warm as I take in a few twinkling lights of Road Town, Tortola, in the eerie first light.

It’s the quietest time of day, and a steep mountain range, lush, dark and brooding, looms over a narrow coastal strip. After disembarking, I stretch my legs around town, chat with a few residents, and then inquire about the closest swimming beach.

It’s about eight kilometres from the cruise port to Cane Garden Bay on the north coast, but the trip takes 30 minutes as our make-shift mini-bus negotiates a steep, sinuous ascent sans barriers and an equally precarious descent down to the bay.

The beach is one of the closest to town, so it’s also one of the busiest, with $US10-a-day deck chairs laid out in rows before myriad funky bars and restaurants. The odd scent of weed adds to the reggae island vibe and the water is divine, about 27 degrees by my reckoning. I’m rereading Hunter S. Thompson’s long-lost Rum Diaries to get into the mood.

Back on the ship at sunset, another of the group tells me the centuries-old Callwood Rum Distillery, near Cane Garden Bay, is well worth a visit too, with its quirky bespoke branding and bottling. Others explored Smuggler’s Cove, a more remote, less crowded beach with good snorkelling on a clear day. All told, it’s a classic start to our Caribbean cruise.

Day two is Tuesday, so it must be Saint Lucia. And while I’m still adapting to the ship’s layout and rhythm, NCL has kindly organised a shore excursion, which turns out to be a highlight of the trip (pirates aside). We board a catamaran for a cruise along the west coast of the island, from the port of Castries in the north to Soufrière in the south.

The Pitons

The French and British fought over the island for centuries, and while Saint Lucia, unlike Jamaica and Barbados, is still part of the Commonwealth, many of the place names remain French. Famous among these are the Pitons, two volcanic spires rising out of the Caribbean that have come to symbolise the island, lending their name and distinctive imagery to essential local products such as the national beer.

The more intrepid spend time on the island to hike up and down them both. Like all cruise ship travellers, we are time poor, but not so rushed that we can’t take in a fascinating aquaponic farm in the hills somewhere between Soufrière and the Pitons.

We return to the catamaran and head back to port, but not before a swim and a quick detour into picturesque Marigot Bay, described by Michener as “the most beautiful bay in the Caribbean”. The palm-lined cove with its luxury resorts and hilltop villas was the backdrop for some of the scenes from the original Doctor Dolittle movie, starring Rex Harrison.

Wednesday dawns to the sounds of a full-blown industrial port, the first of such scale since leaving San Juan. We’re in the Barbadian capital of Bridgetown, and below me stevedores and other dockworkers toil on the wharves to the amplified sounds of reggaeton.

Text on my stateroom screen, which I use mainly to track our course, advises against wearing army fatigues and similar camouflage designs on the island, where such attire is banned for non-military personnel. Barbados is not alone in this type of prohibition, which is normally imposed to avoid confusion with the real military.

Barbados means “the bearded ones” in Portuguese, and was named for the preponderance of bearded fig, or wild banyan, trees on the 439 sq km island. It is often grouped with the Lesser Antilles, but is actually too far east to be a part of them. It is also the most exposed to the wild surf rolling in from the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast.

Cricket and more

We get to experience some of that music later in the day, but not before a quick turn around Bridgetown to take in its British colonial, neo-Gothic, Victorian and islander architecture. We also swing past Kensington Oval, the historic home of cricket in the West Indies.

Hundreds of years of British cultural and administrative influence are evident in the island’s shopfronts, school uniforms and generous health and social welfare benefits; to me, Bridgetown and its hinterland are also reminiscent of parts of colonial Brisbane and Queensland’s tropical north.

Something you won’t find in the capital is a McDonald’s restaurant. Barbadians, or Bajans as they’re also known, pride themselves on their rejection of the universal burger franchise; one outlet did open here in 1996 but closed after six months due to lack of interest; residents prefer fish, chicken and pork.

The west coast north of Bridgetown is where you’ll find myriad resorts and private mansions, including that of superstar singer Rihanna, perhaps the most famous contemporary Barbadian.

However, we head north-east from the capital across farmland once covered in sugar cane until the abolition of slavery, and then global oversupply, made the crop less viable. It is still grown to make rum, an important export. The “one-eyed man” in local slang is shorthand for a shot of the island’s legendary Old Brigand rum. (Images of pirates, or at least patch-wearing sea captains, are hard to avoid in the Caribbean.)

We visit Sunbury Plantation House, a 17th-century estate whose period furnishings were lost in a fire in 1995. The trustees did a fantastic job refurnishing the place, and the air is still one of life on a wealthy settler’s sugar plantation in the 1600s. An extensive collection of 18th- and 19th-century optometry devices and horse-drawn carriages adds to the house’s historical appeal.

On the way to lunch near the surf town of Bathsheba, we stop at Saint John’s Parish Church, one of the island’s earliest, although the original was a modest wooden structure that succumbed long ago to a hurricane. The current rendition is a sturdy stone edifice in the Gothic style.

The adjacent cemetery is renowned for the pedigree of its inhabitants, among them Ferdinando Paleologus, a descendant of the brother of Emperor Constantine XI, the last of the Byzantine rulers. He was buried standing up, by request, his elaborate grave competing with those of former prime ministers, wealthy plantation owners, and other members of Barbadian society, some of whose fortunes, of course, were built on the sweat of slave labour.

It’s telling that independent-minded Barbados not only removed the British monarch as its head of state more than two years ago, but is also a driving force in the Caribbean for reparations for the slave trade.

On our excursion from the surrounding clifftops and down to the crashing waves and trade winds of the east coast, our guide Catherine whets our appetite with a rundown of the country’s culinary traditions.

Inspired by her descriptions, I order a jerk squid starter at the atmospheric Atlantis Historic Inn, a large, but charming coastal hotel. For the main, I order crusted seared tuna with polenta and grilled okra.

Sitting in the airy, open-sided hotel restaurant, I take in unimpeded views of some of the best surf breaks in the Caribbean. The problem with cruising, I muse – while imagining myself enjoying a week-long stay at Atlantis, complete with daily surfing excursions, coastal village tours and shots of “one-eyed man” over conversations in makeshift bars – is that shore leave is so short.

It’s only then that I grasp why Joseph Bannister tossed in the respectability and order of his schedules and manifests to roam the Caribbean at will, and on his own terms.

The writer travelled courtesy of Norwegian Cruise Line.