Posts Tagged ‘Caribbean’

Caribbean Bike Tours – Exploring Barbuda

A fifteen minute flight from Antigua, island trekkers can be cruising on Barbuda’s Pink Sand Beach.

Barbuda Bike Tours offers bicycle, tent & canopy rentals on the gorgeous beaches of Barbuda. They also offer guided mountain bike tours.

Twenty-eight miles north of Antigua lies Barbuda, an island of sixty-two square miles of unexplored beaches and wilderness.

The terrain is completely flat and the elevation is close to or at sea level. This makes for easy yet exciting beach exploring and bird watching throughout the island. Barbuda is host to one of the largest frigate bird sanctuaries in the world. Barbuda is known for it’s lobster its number one export. Visitors to Barbuda can enjoy the biggest, freshest & lobster in the Caribbean.

Barbuda is a very dry island and presents an entirely opposite image of Antigua. You will find a more level landscape and shrubby vegetation. The population adds up to less than a couple thousand people and Barbuda’s main attraction are the wonderful sand beaches and the colorful underwater world. Around Barbuda you will find over 150 ship wrecks under water!

The island is best known for its seemingly endless beaches. Pink Sand Beach, so named for the powdery pink sand found on the beaches, is seventeen miles of still undeveloped beach front with crystal clear water. In one of Conde Nast Traveler issues, Pink Sand Beach, was named one of the ten best beaches in the Caribbean.

There is plenty to explore on a bike excursion; from the caves of Two Foot Bay, which provide shelter while wrapping around the north side of the island to exploring the interior finding the Coco Point Well to fill water bottles during a break.

Visitors can rent a Trek bike with or without suspension. There are also guided tours that can take you anywhere on the island. When you arrive at your secluded beach destination, sleep under the stars in a large or small Eastern Mountain tent. If camping is not your style, make a reservation with one of the hotels or villas on the island.

Tents and bikes can be rented at Barbuda Bike Tours between December 1st and March 1st. All prices include campsites and tent set up. For more general information on Barbuda Bike Tours drop in on them at – http://www.barbudabiketours.com.

Why You Should Consider a Summer Vacation in the Caribbean

Many people only consider a Caribbean vacation during the months of November to April. This period, known as the winter season, is traditionally the peak period for Caribbean vacations. For many individuals it is a chance to escape the snow and ice of the northern hemisphere with a holiday in sunny climates. The other months are often called the summer season or as known in Caribbean vacation circles, the low season because of the low occupancy at vacation properties. Yet the summer and fall months are a great time for a Caribbean vacation with several activities that are only available during the summer.

One of the reasons some persons do not consider a vacation in the Caribbean during the summer months is a fear of hurricanes. This concern over hurricanes is however somewhat misplaced. In fact only a few islands are ever affected by hurricanes in any one year. Some islands because of their geographic position, such as Trinidad, Aruba, Tobago, Curacao, are considered below the hurricane belt and so are not hit by any hurricanes.

The summer months in the Caribbean are filled with music festivals. You can listen to world renown international artists under sunny skies with an ocean view or against a backdrop of star filled skies with balmy breezes. Among the more popular music festivals are the St Lucia Jazz Festival, Barbados Gospelfest and the Aruba Music Festival in May, the Ocho Rios Jazz Festival, the Bonaire Jazz Festival, St Kitts Music Festival and Grenada’s Spice Jazz Festival in June. If you are looking for music a little later in the year, there is Reggae Sumfest in Jamaica in July and Dominica’s World Creole Music Festival in October.

Summer is also the time for the pulsating rhythms and colorful costumes of Carnival on many islands. In July, it is Carnival time on St Vincent, St Lucia and Barbados, while Antigua’s carnival is in August. A summer holiday on any of these Caribbean islands gives you the chance to experience the splendor of the carnival costumes with the relaxation of a beautiful Caribbean beach.

The summer months are also ideal for Caribbean outdoor recreation adventure and each island offers a range of outdoor vacation adventure. Hiking is one of those outdoor adventures and in the Caribbean you can on the same hike alternate from untouched beaches to unspoiled forest. Within those lush untouched natural forests are tall cascading waterfalls, hidden fern grottoes, mountain lakes, boiling lakes, hot springs and mysterious regions of volcanic activity.

Summer is also the time of turtle nesting with May to September being the prime months. During these months thousands of giant marine turtles heave themselves out of the ocean and on to the sandy beaches to lay their eggs. Giant Leatherback turtles, some weighing as much as 1,000 pounds, along with Hawksbill and Green turtles visit these sandy shores. Viewing this rite of nature while on a summer vacation is an experience of a lifetime.

The waters of the Caribbean Sea are wonderful all year round but the warmest water temperature is during the summer, making it ideal for snorkeling. The sparkling blue water provides a world of adventure below its surface. The Caribbean is one of the top regions for scuba diving and snorkeling with breathtaking marine life, shallow coral reefs, new and old wrecks.

Probably the best reason of all for visiting the Caribbean during the summer months is that this is the time of the lowest prices at hotels and airlines have special reduced airfares, so you can have a vacation on a budget.

So if you are thinking of where to go for your summer vacation, consider the Caribbean, it’s great in the summer.

Entertain your Guests By Choosing A Caribbean Corporate Yacht Charter

Some people charter a yacht for personal use while other people opt for a corporate yacht charter to entertain their corporate guests. There are plenty of reasons why your company may want to make use of a yacht and one of the many reasons why many people choose to charter a yacht is to celebrate the anniversary of their company. Of course, there are also many companies who opt for corporate yacht charter for the purpose launching a new product. Chartering a boat for any of these purposes is considered to be a very stylish affair and if you want your company’s event to be stylish and one that your guests will remember for a long time, then may be you should consider chartering a yacht.

The Caribbean islands are popular destinations for yacht charters so you can consider going to any one or more of the islands in the Caribbean for any special corporate event.

Leeward Islands are some of the islands that you can visit when you choose to opt for a yacht charter to celebrate any corporate event. When you visit this region, you will be able to navigate your yacht to other Caribbean islands. The islands that you can consider going to are St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica and Antigua. When you decide to visit these island nations, you can visit the sugar plantations here. There are also many small hotels where you can stay in.

When you are on your corporate yacht charter in the Caribbean, do not forgot to visit Saba, which is a very tall rock that stands at three thousand feet. You will be happy to learn that the water in the surrounding areas is perfect for scuba diving. If you get hungry then you can take your guests to the cottages where you can treat them with the local cuisines before you leave these islands. You can also head to Anguilla and St. Bart’s. If you do decide to take the yacht here, be sure to check out the clear and pristine beaches.

When it comes to corporate yacht charter, you need to determine the number of guests that will be sailing with you before you book a yacht. It is only when you are sure about the number of guests, then only you will be able to have a clear idea about the size of the boat that you should book. You need to know that most of the yachts have limited capacity, even the bigger ones. So you should try to find out about the number of people that the different yacht sizes can accommodate. When it comes to paying for the yacht, the chartering company will generally charge you depending on the number of people that will be on board.

Of course, you will also need to have a budget in mind before you go to a corporate yacht charter company and book a yacht. See the options that are available to you and then make your decisions accordingly.

Nassau – Haven of the Caribbean Pirates

Nassau – Haven of the Caribbean Pirates

by Cherie Pugh

Cherie Pugh discovered the true story of the Nassau pirates when sailing through the Caribbean on a traditional wooden ship. She found the court records of their trial in London, and spent years researching and writing

â??Mary Read â?? Sailor, Soldier, Pirateâ?.

This ultimate pirate yarn is now available as an ebook or paperback from www.womanpirate.com

After Queen Anneâ??s war, European, and particularly British soldiers and sailors, were left to beg for their bread all over the far-flung European colonies. Many of those stranded in the Caribbean were forced to cut logwood in the jungles, the desperate life uniting them into tight-knit brotherhoods. When they took to the sea as pirates, they were united by the Welsh Captain Henry Jennings, who led them in an attack on a Spanish salvage camp, and made off with a fortune.

[For more information on the pirate life, see my article

â??The Real Pirates of the Caribbeanâ?]

But the war with Spain was over, and the pirates were now outlaws, with the Navies of all the European powers against them. So Jennings led them to Captain Mission’s old pirate base: the port of Nassau on the island of Providence in the Bahamas. This stood directly in the line of trade from Europe to the American colonies and Africa, the triangle of goods, sugar and slaves that made England rich, and built her western cities, such as Bristol and Liverpool. As every ship had to sail the ‘trade winds’ in this direction, every ship would have to run the pirate gauntlet. Those merchants rich enough paid heavily for Naval protection, and their ships sailed in convoys.

Jennings united the pirates under Captain Mission’s code. He insisted on the honour of the Brethren of the Sea, claiming they were the only true gentlemen, those well-born being but a pack of wolves that gorged on the helpless and weak. The pirates came from the 80% of Britain that lived in desperate poverty and lawlessness, and having suffered from terrible injustice, they chose not to tolerate it.

Each pirate company aboard each ship elected a captain, to lead them when ‘chasing or being chased’ and a quartermaster, who was to protect the rights of the men from the captain. When in Nassau, these captains and quartermasters formed the Nassau council, that heard complaints, and attempted to keep the peace, not just between the pirates, but between the pirates and islanders and the occasional Governor appointed by the British government.

Those pirates such as Edward Teach, or Blackbeard as he styled himself, who could not conform to humane standards, were not welcome in Nassau. Indeed, Blackbeard and his crew were based on Saint Thomas, and then the American mainland.

Some of the pirates, such as Captain Cockram of Harbour Island, married island women, founded families, and made significant contributions to their small settlements. Captain Cockram compiled an accurate chart of the Bahamas from notes and scraps of navigator’s maps, and presented his life’s work to the ungrateful Governor Woodes Rogers. He was also involved in building the small forts that saved the islanders when they were attacked, and in organising the islanders’ effective defense.

John Haman designed and built the pirate ships at Harbour Island in the Bahamas, and he based his designs on the sloops of the Malacca pirates, ‘fast to attack, faster to run’, which were themselves based on the Arab dhow. Shallow draughted and agile, the pirate sloops were much more suited to sailing the treacherous reefs and shallows of the Caribbean. Their fleets of small, quick sloops and schooners, all with the new bird-wing sails and longer prows, glided across the water under the lightest of breezes. Despite, or because of, their smaller size, they easily outran, out-sailed and out-fought the clumsy, square-rigged, massive Navy ships. The Dutch had provided an effective defense against Spanish invasion using small, lightly-armed fishing boats against huge Spanish galleons, and these lessons were not lost on the pirates. Thousands of them flourished in the Caribbean by 1715, in companies of hundreds of men, in fleets of fast ships.

The British Navy found itself totally at a loss, too far from home, with ill and dispirited crews, who were only kept in line with a discipline so harsh it caused mutinies. The poor, starving sailors, most shanghaied by their own governments, probably dreamed of being captured by pirates, and becoming rich and free, and they could certainly not be relied upon to fight with the desperation of the pirates. And as the navy commanders made fortunes from convoying merchant ships, sometimes demanding up to a quarter of the cargo, and further contributing to the demise of trade in the area, their commitment to the actual destruction of the pirates might be questioned.

When King George lost patience with his Navy’s inability to deal with the pirates, he cleverly offered an unconditional Pardon to the pirates first. Within a few months, half the Nassau pirates had gone home, glad to end a long exile away from their families. Governor Bennett of Bermuda sent his own son to sail straight into Nassau harbour, and invite the pirates to Bermuda to take the Pardon. Henry Jennings immediately set sail for Bermuda, hundreds of pirates with him.

Then the King sent Captain Woodes Rogers to take Nassau back from the pirates. During Queen Anne’s War, Rogers had captured enough Spanish gold to finance Englandâ??s entire campaign against French domination. When he sailed his fleet into Nassau, Captain Vane met him with fireships, and forced him out again. Yet that night, Vaneâ??s supporters melted away from him. Given their love of freedom, and Vaneâ??s reputation for arrogance, they chose to live as Englishmen, in an English colony, with a Governor, rather than as the subjects of a pirate King. When the Governor sailed in again the next morning, Vane only stayed long enough to fire a volley at him, and then fled through the impossibly narrow eastern channel. Anne Bonny and Jack Rackam sailed with him. The pirate Mary Read remained in Nassau, still dressed as a man, and sought the Pardon.

[For more information on pirate women, see my article

â??Mary Read and Anne Bonny - Pirate Women of the Caribbeanâ?]

Governor Woodes Rogers was an ambitious Puritan, with little time for women, and none for the Brethren. He didnâ??t understand the piratesâ?? readiness to surrender, and was sure they would mutiny against him. Rogers had brought hundreds of colonists with him from war-ravaged Europe, but the rains brought fever, and he buried most of them within weeks. The Brethren would not farm, and when he insisted that they slave to erect forts against an expected Spanish attack, many returned to the sea.

After a successful cruise, Vane’s arrogance and disdain for the pirate code saw him lose the leadership of his pirate fleet to the handsome and popular Jack Rackam. Under Rackam’s captaincy, the pirates prospered, and after a wild revel with Tom Moody on Tortuga at Christmas, during which Anne Bonny disclosed her true identity to Rackam, he proposed that they divide their plunder and ships, and seek the Pardon.

They returned to Nassau, persuaded the Governor that they would defend his colony from any invasion by Spanish forces, and set up a trading company. As there was a new war with Spain looming, the Governor was rightfully terrified of a Spanish attack, and had to accept them. When the Spaniards finally did attack, the pardoned Brethren easily beat them off, but Governor Rogers still distrusted them.

Then the Governor heard that Jack Rackam intended to pay off Anne Bonnyâ??s first husband, as she was now the mother of Jack’s child, and he wanted to marry her. Rogers denounced Anne as a whore, threatened her with a whipping, and declared that Jack would wield the lash. Within days, Anne had tricked her way aboard the fastest ship in the harbour, one of John Haman’s own sloops, and Rackamâ??s old crew were back on the account.

When the Naval commanders based in the colonies appealed to the local Governors for money to equip small fleets of sloops, they were finally able to challenge the pirates. When Rogers sailed into Nassau, he had sloops with him, though they did not dare follow Vane through the narrow eastern channel out of Nassau harbour. Yet Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet were both captured by naval sloops that trapped them in the shallow mudflats of rivers on the American Main, and blasted them to pieces. Jack Rackam was also finally captured by a Jamaican Navy sloop, though the wild women in his crew almost fought off their attackers single handed.

[For more information on the British Government's slaughter of these pirates,

see my article â??The End of the Pirates of the Caribbeanâ?]

Any historian of the Caribbean pirates must wonder what would have happened if the pirates had refused to surrender Nassau. The ease with which half of them beat off the Spanish attack confirms that it would have been beyond the powers of the British Navy to take Nassau in their massive, square-rigged ships. If Charles Vane had not been so high-handed, and if Henry Jennings had not been so convinced that the Pardon was in the pirates best interest, they could have held the port indefinitely. That most of them chose to abandon this stronghold and return home proves that they were indeed exiles, forced into piracy to survive. That the rest found it hard to give up a life of freedom and riches is hardly surprising, in a time when to be rich and free was beyond the hope of a poor man, unless his dream came true, and he was captured by pirates.

This ultimate pirate yarn is now available as an ebook or paperback from www.womanpirate.com

Visit Paradise on Caribbean Holidays

When we think of the ideal holiday paradise, most often Caribbean holidays will spring to mind. With palm trees, empty sandy beaches and blue waters you will love luxury holidays in the Caribbean, where you have so many islands and quality resorts to choose from.

The Caribbean is made up of thousands of islands, and choosing which to visit on Caribbean holidays is a lovely problem to have. Because the Caribbean islands are spread over such a large area, there are regional differences in climate, but in general, the weather systems of the Caribbean Sea keep the area warm and welcoming. Taking Trinidad & Tobago as an example, the islands enjoy only a slight variation during the year, with an average annual temperature of 25°C with highs of 31°C: perfect for luxury holidays to the Caribbean.

Romance

The Caribbean is undoubtedly a romantic part of the world. Drawing partly on the desert island fantasy of being stranded in paradise, and partly from the innate beauty of the location, these islands are ideal for honeymoons and intimate Caribbean holidays for couples. There are many resorts perfect for romantic holidays where you can walk hand in hand on an empty beach and watch the sunset from the balcony of a luxury hotel.

The Cotton House in Mustique is one of several hotels that offer privacy and luxury on Caribbean holidays that couples will enjoy. You get your own private pool here and the chance to have a suite with its own lounge, so you can have your own space. You may even choose a cottage so you can feel really at home on the island.

For couples who like sailing, there are ‘Sail away’ packages and island hopping experiences. You might like to stop for a time on the tiny Young Island resort close St Vincent while exploring the Grenadines by yacht.

Family Fun

As well as being good for couples, the Caribbean is the perfect place to share with all your loved ones. There are many Caribbean holiday resorts where your children are welcome and can enjoy long days of play in the fine weather. Look out for the ‘family friendly’ resorts and hotels with Kids’ Clubs like the one at the Round Hill Hotel & Villas in Jamaica.

For some activity on your luxury holidays in the Caribbean there numerous opportunities to play golf or tennis, and you can take to the sea with a variety of water sports. You might like to try windsurfing in Barbados or Jamaica. The Round Hill Hotel & Villas in Jamaica have safe waters for learning to windsurf as well as snorkelling and diving. You can rely on sea temperatures in the Caribbean to be clement, and scuba divers will love the access to the colourful coral reefs vibrant with tropical fish.

Natural Beauty

The natural beauty you can see on luxury holidays in the Caribbean is not only found on the coast. You might like to stand underneath one of the waterfalls on of St Lucia, washing yourself with the waters of a Caribbean stream, or float in the fresh water pools in a woodland oasis. On the same island you can see the dormant volcanoes and explore the jungle environment. The Caribbean is an area of natural diversity where you might see wildlife on some islands that are rare and you can’t see anywhere else.