If posts were maps, this one and the rest that document our Caribbean cruise would be shown under the label “Terre Incognite”. Perhaps more appropriately, “Terre e Oceani Incogniti”.

That’s because this and future posts about last year’s cruise do not have a corresponding post published while on the cruise itself. Due to the effort involved with composing and posting from the ship, I ran out of time. Actually, the effort is not composing from the ship; it’s composing a post using the WordPress Android app.

My guess is the app was written by a spastic programmer than never envisioned posting more than a single photo, let alone adding words to accompany it.  We were in St. Kitts on the 15th, but the second post about St. Kitts was not published until the 18th of December. That’s because it took me a little more than a day and a half to compose and publish each post.

The 19th was the travel back home day, so this post and the upcoming posts about St. Thomas will offer up photos people have not seen.

We pick up the narrative after we left the Brimstone Hill Fortress . . .

These are photos of the shopping area associated with the cruise line (you can see the ship in the background). The photos were taken as we headed back to the comfort (read: food) of the ship.

Here is a panorama of the area.

The other side of the yellow archway has the welcome sign . . .

. . . and here’s the view approaching the ships (the Royal Princess on the right, the Pearl on the left).

Here’s a couple of additional views, including the rat guards on the mooring lines.

Once back aboard and sated with decadent desserts and specialty teas and coffees, we showered and paid a visit to the buffet; it had missed us something fierce.

Still later, the buffet now reassured that we had not abandoned it, we grabbed a few more snacks, and went back to our cabin. I then proceeded to park myself on the balcony with some food, my camera, and a few lenses.

This next shot, like all of the above shots, is from the phone.

Except for a few that I will flag as being from the phone, the rest are all from the Nikon.

Hey! . . . will you look at that!

OK, we need more music for this . . .

Remember this shot?

Well, that ship was now parked a few hundred yards from us.

Yes, the zoom lens can ‘bring it closer’ . . . but it can bring it closer still.

A version with a different treatment, but what is really interesting is that shot is composed of twelve (12) separate shots stitched together.  The full size photo is roughly 10,000px per side.

Of course, if you click on the above photo you will get a version that is roughly 1,280px per side.

You can go to the SmugMug Gallery HERE and choose the original size, you will get to see the full size photo. If you have a fast enough internet, you can click THIS LINK, and the full resolution version will open in a new tab or window. After it opens you can click on various portions to zoom in and out. Fair warning . . . it’s 14MB.

I had another series of only eight (8) shots I used to make another composite that was only 8,300 x 9,500px, and I tried different processing on that files, just for the fun of it.

Those are only 1,280px per side, but you can see the original in SmugMug. I won’t link them here since these, while smaller than the other, are still 10MB files.

For them who don’t want to deal with humongous files, these are two of the shots used to make the composite.

So, what else was going on?

Well, some type of delivery boat was bringing in produce for the island . . .

. . . and on the deck below a security guard was walking around with a clipboard . . .

. . . and a local was crossing the bay . . .

One interesting thing I kept meaning to ask about, at every port a few of the lifeboats would be lowered and taken out for a spin . . . I presume this is done to ensure everything is in working order, but maybe they guys just want to play with the winches and orange boats.

A heavier cloud cover and he sun racing to the horizon contributed to less light for shooting . . .

. . . and signified that departure time was close. In fact, as I looked aft, I saw the Pearl had backed up from it’s parking place and was in the process of turning its bow out to sea; making a run for it, as it were.

Well, we had been fairly pleased with our previous decision to be at the back of the boat and at the lower level during departure. Down we went.

The Pearl was obviously trying to outrun my zoom . . . damn near succeeded, too, but I had an ace-in-the-sleeve.

Meanwhile . . .

It looked as if the Spirit was also on the move . . . a regular rush hour traffic jam.

I would not concern myself with the Spirit right now . . . I still had to reach out to the Pearl; let her know she could not escape me so easily. Out came my big lens . . .

I turned my attention back to the Spirit . . .

Wait a second . . . she was making headway, but aimed squarely at the Royal.

Holy Crap on a Cracker! She was going to ram us!

I looked around whilst thinking to myself “There’s never a cop around when you need one!” 

Well, not exactly . . . there was a cop around; more than one, even.

They seemed more interested in me than on the rogue ship terrorizing the harbor.

The Spirit must have a massively reinforced hull as the passengers were not concerned about hitting us.

In fact, they looked pretty jovial about it . . .

Wait . . . she was turning . . .

It looked as if she was intent on coming along side us, but why?!

. . . perhaps it’s passengers had asked for a better view of the Royal. Of course, that also afforded me a better view of the same passengers. We weren’t that close, but I had my 400mm lens with me . . . even with the fading light, not bad results (ISO pushed real high).

And then, she sort of stopped . . . and started to back up.

It all snapped into place; when we came in this morning the Spirit was docked at what looked like a freight dock. Now that the Pearl had left, the Spirit came over to claim the Pearl’s spot.

By the way, the nice lady is talking to Melisa about cruising, exchanging ideas and experiences. Meanwhile . . .

In case anyone is wondering, that was purposefully shot, trying for a different composition. Here’s the ‘normal’ shot.

Notice something else . . . the making of a decent sunset.

Here are a couple of shots from the Nikon, including a zoom to the bright orange point where the sun was fixing to sink.

Hmm . . . I don’t know how to do this . . . I want to cover both our departure and the sunset, but I can’t do it linearly, so, I will cover the sunset first, and then go back to cover the departure.

So . . . sunset . . . we need music. Of course, readers need not play it. It’s more music I like, but it’s what I like, so no one is obligated to listen to it.

And, here we go . . . I’ll just present the photos as they need no words of mine to help them tell their tale.

Here’s a couple of panoramas from some of the above shots . . .

All of that was pretty quick . . . and while it was going on, the pilot boat dropped off two guys at one of the mooring pylons . . . 

And a guy at the closer pylon . . . 

In fairly short order the lines were unhooked, and we were moving, even as the light was fading.

I kept shooting, cranking up the ISO for almost every shot as darkness enveloped the scene as we slowly got underway.

This next shot is a panorama I did not think would turn out . . . 

This next shot was not the last I took, but really, the photos were nearly all black, and I had to really push the post-processing to get what I got below . . . all the ones after that were just noise with some lights.

And that was our visit to St. Kitts.

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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