mattersofthemoment

The weather has turned spectacular here now and does not cool off as quick in the evening.  One of the things we like to do is to go to the monthly sunset concert at Cape Coral Yacht Club.  It is only a 10 minute drive and there is amble free parking.  We parked behind a car with this pretty licence plate.

A superb slide guitarist name Kraig Kenning was performing again this year.  He plays his own material and other well-known songs.  You sit in your beach chair just a few feet away as the waves softly lap, sip your beer or wine and enjoy the sound.

The evening was great.  Kites flying, families gathering, music playing and the birds singing.  We brought a picnic dinner and wine.

We met a local CC family who had several generations of family members there all enjoying the evening.  As the sun gets close to setting, everyone turns to the water for that perfect picture.  It was a 10 out of 10 evening.  We plan to go to again next month with some visitors.  Thanks Lord for these great moments in FL.

We were treated to a wonderful experience of Puerto Vallarta, MX by friends Judy and Bruce. We flew down for a week to check out the sites and culture and to celebrate Marie’s birthday.  Our friends stay each winter in Nuevo Vallarta, the neighbouring tourist town in a lovely beachfront condo.  And what a beach it is, running for some 30 km around the rim of a volcanic cone framed by mountains on 3 sides.

Puerto Vallarta, the “jewel of the Pacific” has a population of about 300,000 that welcomes over 5 million tourists a year.  Its cobblestone center is home to the ornate Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe church, boutique shops and a range of restaurants and bars. El Malecón is a beachside promenade with contemporary sculptures, as well as bars, lounges and shops.

We ate at a funky place called Pancho’s Takos.  It is a hole in the wall on a busy sidewalk where people line up for 30 minutes for a table to be served the best Mexican food that we have ever eaten.  Beef is cooked shawarma style on a vertical spit and carved onto soft shell tortillas with a variety of salsa sauces, cheese and chorizo sausage added to taste.  The roast onions were a meal in themselves.  While waiting they offer you beer and ask afterwards how many did you have?  Street drumming, singing and dancing groups entertain.  It is a must eat PV experience that we loved.

Nuevo Vallarta is a timeshare, condominium and hotel town where Canadians surprisingly out number Americans and Mexicans at this time of year.  There are thousands of beach front rooms that people have been returning to for many years.  We fell in love with the pedestrian lifestyle.  You walk a lot and take a bus or taxi which is cheap, to get your groceries or to eat out.  It was a refreshing change for us from the car oriented Fort Myers where we have been wintering for several years.  Prices for food, drink and accommodation are more affordable here too as the Mexican peso has depreciated against the $CDN in recent years.

Dinner for about $27CDN!

We met many Canadians during our week-long stay and only a few Americans.  Bruce took us to a country estate benefit concert in support of a local retirement home for under privileged Mexican seniors.  There we met Doug and Debbie from Barrie, ON area who have been coming here for 25+ years.  Doug describes Mexico as his “adopted country” and along with Debbie, are involved in charitable works assisting locals in need each year.

The next day was Marie’s birthday.  We were invited to another brunch, this time at the elegant El Tigre Golf Club with a group of 20 others.  We had a great time meeting everyone and enjoying the great food and endless champagne.  We could see that this lifestyle is something we could get used to real easy.  Everyone is happy and ready to meet, greet and explain their passion for Mexico.  The Mexican staff are nothing but gracious, polite, efficient and good-natured.  Here, we are on “the fun side of the wall” as the tee-shirt says.

As our week drew to a close we were happy to walk the beach, swim in the ocean and pool, visit the huge Vidanta resort next door, check out the wild life and local markets, and, look at some condos for possible rental next winter…God willing and should we decide not to return to FL.

It is safe to say that we fell in love with PV and really would love to come back.  Thank you Judy and Bruce for sharing this special place with us and for your generous hospitality.  We are forever indebted and grateful to you for giving us this enduring intercultural experience.

The highlight was Kyle and Ashley’s wedding in May in Winnipeg.  Everything went superbly.  Family and friends enjoyed sharing the special day with the newly weds and wished them a long and happy marriage.

Prior to that we spent the winter in Fort Myers and had more visits with family and friends than in Arnprior.  The weather was superb.

On our way home we went on a Panama Canal Cruise that was fun and interesting.

The summer in Arnprior was great.  We had some interlock work done at the front.  Marie played bridge while Dave golfed.  Swims in the river followed by patio dinners were frequent.

In September we went to Pembroke for Fiddlefest.  Then it was off to Pickering in for our annual Oblate Associate retreat.

Dave led an Oblate Associate formation session in the fall for Marie and two others.  Marie led a series of yoga classes at Galilee that Dave and others attended.  Kyle and Ashley came home for two whirlwind visits.  All the family got together.

Before we knew it, we were on our way to Florida again, but not before another fab cruise in the Caribbean.

We truly thank God for all his blessings and gifts in 2017.

So now it’s time to get ready for what 2018 has in store.

In this new book, academic Fred Kaplan argues that Abraham Lincoln did not make a major contribution to solving the American race problem – he left the U.S. with it.  Tracing Lincoln’s political history from the 1830s to his assassination in 1865, the iconic Lincoln is seen as cautious time and time again about closing the gap between moral idealism and political reality in the elimination of slavery.

Lincoln abhorred slavery and thought it was an abomination.  However he was not an abolitionist.  Rather he foresaw that the two races – black and white – could never live alongside each other.  Hence for him, the solution was voluntary and government assisted emigration of blacks to a new home in Africa or Latin America. Both races would be better off.  Slavery would then end of itself at some future date.  Was Lincoln right?

At the start of the US Civil War in 1861, there were about two hundred thousand free blacks in the North and at least 4 million black slaves in the Confederacy.  Lincoln’s new Republican Party in the 1860 presidential campaign made non-extension of slavery to the territories and preservation of the United States it’s two main lines in the sand.  Before Lincoln was elected however, the South could not accept the first line resulting in its secession.  After the election, the North could not accept slave states secession thus leading to the U.S. Civil War – and the death of at least 700,000 young Americans.  If the Union had accepted peaceful separation of slave states, the country would have been diminished for sure, but slavery would have ended peacefully, at least in the north.

Kaplan goes on the argue that Lincoln wasted the first two years of the Civil War by sticking with Gen George B. McClellan as Chief Army Commander.  McClellan, a superb organizer, was reluctant to attack the south because he wanted to leave slavery and the South alone so as to preserve integrity of the country.  He ran against Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election on a platform of negotiating peace but lost.  Was McClellan right?

In 1863, Lincoln reluctantly issued the Emancipation Proclamation only after having first offered the Confederacy the right of continued constitutionally protected slavery in existing slave states, if they would only first return to the Union.  Furthermore, for his continued political support, the proclamation did not apply in the border slave states that had not seceded like Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland.  The proclamation was a propaganda document to aid in the Union war effort, only after Lincoln had pleaded with the Confederacy for an alternate solution that preserved slavery says Kaplan.

Kaplan’s thesis is centred on the fact that Lincoln was a long-term supporter of the policies of the American Colonization Society whose goal was not abolition of slavery, but voluntary emigration of free blacks from America.  He contrasts this gradualist approach with that of John Quincy Adams (6th U.S. President and prominent statesman) who was an Abolitionist – willing to advocate whatever political action was necessary to immediately end slavery.

Lincoln did go on to abolish slavery with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in January 1865.  But says Kaplan, this had now become politically necessary to restore unity – Lincoln’s first love.

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 immortalized him as the Great Emancipator and most iconic person in American history.  Kaplan dares to question some of his thinking.  I found this book refreshing but somewhat disturbing and also repetitive in its prose in places.  Politicians aren’t perfect it seems, even good old Abraham Lincoln.

Merry Christmas

Love,

David and Marie

As mentioned in our last post, there were no more island visits to come.  But alas, 2 more sea daze remain.  This is the last posting about this cruise – honest, lol!

The Spa Pool

We head for home in Florida – 1100 nautical miles to go.  Lobster tail night in the MDR preceded by a wine tasting.  It’s a great party and our new table mates from FL and SC are very nice. We have so great a day that we are happy to rest up on our last day at sea. We sail past the tiny Salvador island which was Columbus first landfall in Oct 1492. After 12 days we too are ready for landfall.

Martini Bar

Porch Seafood Restaurant

You will be very happy to know these are the last 2 islands we visited on this cruise that we will be writing about…

Martinique is a large island and Forte-de-France is a large city with sprawling suburbs of stately white apartment buildings. Ici en Martinique, on parle français parce que nous sommes en France.‎  Reminiscent of South American port cities, there is a large port area and we are birthed in the industrial area. We walk into the downtown core. No one is hawking anything and we enjoy the peace of it all. We stroll along the waterfront boulevard lined with clothing, perfume and shoe stores. We visit the large cathedral full of tourists and light candles for Dave’s deceased cousin Claudia and for her daughter Louise who both died prematurely last month. We do some shopping and head to the Fort on the hill. It is Monday and it is closed today – darn. No beach today either. We head back to the ship and rest up before catching a wonderful singer from Las Vegas – Savannah Smith. She sings a whole bunch of great songs like Bonnie Rait’s sorrowful “I can’t make you love me”- best show we have seen so far.

There is a link to Canada.  After the Seven Years War known as the French and Indian War in North America (1754-63), France attached little value to its North American possessions.  When the British asked France what they wanted to retain, New France or the islands – Martinique, Guadalupe and St Lucia, they chose these highly profitable sugar-producing islands as part of the terms of the Treaty of Paris.  For France, however, the military defeat and the financial burden of the war weakened their monarchy and contributed to the advent of the French Revolution in 1789.

St Kitt’s by contrast is one of the smallest islands in the West Indies with a large volcanic shaped peak at its centre. We venture off and find the best shopping yet at the lowest prices. I pick up a lovely water colour painting of the local Catholic church. Marie some perfume for Michelle. ‎Ball caps are 3 for $10. Look out Tim and Kyle! We chat with some friendly sales clerks. There is a large group of young children all dressed in colourful uniforms from a nursery school. We feel beached and islanded out at this point so head back on board for a lazy afternoon.

Pulling away from St. Kitts

Barbados was the centre of the sugar trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. Rich English bought up all the land. They brought in slaves from Africa, sent sugar to New England and then rum to Africa for more slaves‎. In 1700 Barbados generated more trade than all other British colonies combined!! There was a slave rebellion at one point that was eventually extinguished. The slave trade ended in the early 1800s but not slavery itself for sometime after. It was not until 1951 that universal suffrage was proclaimed and independence in 1971 I think. Bit of a bleak history here.

For some reason have always wanted to come here known as the spice island for its nutmeg and mace. First impressions are good. St George’s does not look overly commercialized, but in relatively good shape that time has passed it by a bit. White, pink and yellow buildings with red tile roofs. I can here a man’s voice, I think he is singing. The crow of roosters can be heard. A church bell chimes, then another one. Multiple steep pointed hills ‎covered in green. They had a major hurricane in 2004 and the island was flattened. They have rebuilt it since then.

In 1979 a Marxist-Leninist goverment under Maurice Bishop was established here after a coup. In 1983 an even more hard core communist government was established after another coup. The U.S. under Regan invaded Grenada and ousted the communists after 7 weeks. The invasion was strongly condemmed by the U.N.. No visible evidence of any of this now.

We take a water taxi to ‎Grand Anse Beach. It’s a 2 mile stretch of blond sand, quiet clear waters – indeed one of the nicest beaches in the Caribbean. We spend the heart of the day walking the beach and swimming. We do some shopping and after take a local bus back. What a ride with music and the horn blaring all the way! The young man on board tells me they are very development oriented. If you keep positive, stay out of trouble, things work out for you here. Everyone seems vey happy, friendly and calm. This is our best day yet!

Marie buys some spices and I a shirt. We meet a little boy named O’Rian who is gorgeous. As we leave a full moon comes out and the town clock strikes 6 o’clock, the start of Advent. This has to be one of the best gems of the whole trip. Thank you Lord ‎for all your gifts and blessings. Protect Grenada and it’s lovely people.

‎

We arrive on the tiny island of Antigua not knowing what to expect. There are 3 other cruise ships already there. It’s a banner day. The island known for its public beaches is picking up business due to the hurricane flattening of nearby Dominica and St. Martin islands.

We wander up the central avenue crowded with 1000s of tourists for the day. We head to the Anglican Cathedral first founded in the 1600s. It is being restored and everything needs repair. It has been sometime since they have offered worship services here‎. God helped them restore it twice already from earthquakes damage so they will succeed again. The sidewalks here are very dangerous with huge gaps and big drops. They have open deep gutters along the side of the road for storm rain run off.

We grab a cab for what we thought was Limerez beach. 5 other people join us. We are dropped at Mystic Beach which is only 10 minutes away. Spend the day floating in the ocean and walking the beach which is beautiful. The restaurant bar we are in front off is run down. There is an abandoned house next door and nothing much else around. This island is particularly poor. As we go to leave we are told that our cab driver has sent someone else to pick us up but we think it is a scam. After chatting with him on the phone we know it’s true so we take the other cab back – $3 per person – a woman drives us with her daughter in the back who proudly announces she is in kindergarden.

I buy a St Kitts teeshirt (they don’t have any that say Antigua it seems) and Marie picks up 2 tees for the boys. We get back in time for salmon dinner and a nice chat with our table neighbours from Atlanta.

The next day we arrive in Castries, St. Lucia, a much larger island with lots of buildings and traffic. Lush green hills surround us. I am a little groggy from one too many Irish coffees last night. We walk off after lunch and do a little shopping in the local market. It’s teeming with people and it’s hot. We see a young man shouting at people, some other rough looking men and a policeman here and there. There is an air of desperation in people’s faces. I chat with a man who wants to sell me marijuana and explains there is a lot of poverty here.‎ Later in the day when it cools down, I see young children playing happily and singing. Everyone seems in a better mood as the day cools and draws to a close. I have a flash that we are all the same with the same needs and wants. As we have been here before, we do not take a tour. Have seen the Pietons (twin pointy hills) and the steamy sulphur springs already. As we sail away lights are coming on all over town except in the shanty town visible from our ship.

That night, our table mates explain the fantastic tour they went on with an ex-pat guide from Montreal. A lot of organic farming, bananas everywhere and a laid back lifestyle when you get out of Castries.