Itineraries include tiny, infrequently visited Caribbean ports that cannot accommodate large cruise ships. Offbeat destinations include Grenada, St. Vincent, Mayreau and the Tobago Cays, and Palm Island, all in the Grenadines, and ports in Venezuela, including Puerto La Cruz and the infrequently visited islands of Los Testigos, Margarita and Blanquilla. Because of the treacherous currents guarding its tiny entrance, this provincial marine park located only 50 miles from Vancouver, is usually accessible only to seaplanes or private yachts. The space is shared only with a single sailboat. We are on board the only scheduled passenger service to the inlet.
Lunch is served onboard.
We anchor beside a waterfall. Huge Sitka spruce, western hemlock, cedar, broadleaf maple and alder trees are carpeted in soft mosses, framed by lettuce leaf lichens, fiddlehead ferns and wild sweet peas in every conceivable shade of green. The quiet is all consuming when the ship noses nimbly into shore to transfer passengers via gangplank from its bow for a forest walk. Cruising without haste, this Cruise West vessel, makes this trip in spring to view colorful flowers and cascading waterfalls, and again in fall, when colors are changing. The line's popular Seattle to Alaska Inside Passage small ship cruises, lasting only one day longer, cover 1,500 miles.