Antigua and Barbuda, we have been there before as have many of you reading this today.  Not included on a standard Eastern or Western Caribbean sailing, it takes a while to get here.  Southern or Exotic Caribbean itineraries may include one or the other from time to time but few go to both.  In fact, our original itinerary had today planned as a day at sea. It was the only one on our 7-day Wind Surf itinerary, sailing round trip St. Maarten. But right about here comes along one of the very best examples I can provide detailing what Windstar Cruises is all about.

This particular sailing is the third in a series of Windstar President’s Cruises, hosted by John Delaney, President of Windstar Cruises.  Regular readers of this space know our mission. The meat of that we should review again today.

” …travel by ship is a great way to experience, understand then change our world in a safe, positive way.”

I can not recall a recent sailing that fulfills what we hope to accomplish here more than this one, on this day.

For all practical purposes, Barbuda was rendered nearly uninhabitable by a series of recent hurricanes. The one fatality: an infant, ripped from her mother’s arms by hurricane force winds.  Tragic to be sure as is the obvious destruction which occurred. They will be rebuilding for decades.  

Still, you have to respect the resilience of the Barbadian children. Visiting a primary school nearly destroyed by the storms, we saw local children and teachers moving along with life. I don’t know that they had much before the storms by any standard. Most of whatever it might have been is gone.

To write this story I began capturing images of the destruction. But in a case like this in telling the story we get to the place rather quickly where ‘ok, that’s enough of that’ happens. 

I can only take looking at just so much destruction before it weighs rather heavily on my mind.  This was one of those times. 

This day could have been memorable for the destruction viewed first-hand.  I could have told you that all cruise lines stopped coming here because there was basically nothing left.  Still, for the hearty people of Barbuda, a happy life is a priority, regardless of what they have or don’t have.

I could stop right there and be glad I came.  Sailing on the first major cruise line ship to visit Barbuda since the storms, I would feel good about visiting and then move along to the next port of call.  But here we have a very good example of what Windstar Cruises is all about. 

180° From Ordinary is the Windstar slogan and it often refers to interesting ports of call their tiny ships can visit.  Here, 180° From Ordinary brought generous,  much-needed financial support to Barbuda in the form of a donation to help rebuild a primary school.

When we first started cruising, one of the best parts happened after sailing. That was when we felt a bit different after visiting places we had never been before, showcased by just about any cruise line.

For a while we did not know how to explain that. We just knew that our then-young little family really liked cruising and it was a far better value than travel on land. Eventually, we figured out that it was our worldview, something I’m not sure we even had before that, expanding.

We talk a lot about the advantages of one cruise line over another and hope to provide a reliable source of information on one of the hardest but most important parts of cruising to describe. In other words: what it feels like. This one felt really good in so many ways.