Bare Necessities Mid-Winter Cruise
Sea Days
Our itinerary included three full days at sea, the first two coming immediately out of port. Obviously, on a nude cruise simply laying in the sun is a popular pastime. Lounge chairs in prime sunning spots filled up quickly. These first days out, the wind was quite brisk, exceeding 20 knots on occasion. Actually, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. If you got down out of the wind, the sun was very pleasant.
If lying in the sun became boring or your skin was turning a tad too red, Bare Necessities and the ship’s staff had a number of activities to fill the time. Bare Necessities provided seminars and workshops of particular interest to the nudist community. The ship provided daily bingo games for cash prizes, “game shows” on a pool-side stage, bocce tournaments, line dancing instruction, and several other activities. Volleyball tournaments were scheduled, but the aforementioned winds made that impossible.
Of special interest to us, Michael Cooney, staff photographer for The Naturist Society, presented several photography workshops. He offered lots of tips on improving your vacation pictures and conducted hands-on photo sessions. He worked with individuals offering advice on posing, composition and framing your shots for best effect and impact. Mike conducted a couple of on-deck sessions where he would use your personal camera to photo you or give you over the shoulder advice as you shot your favorite model.
Our second sea day fell on Mardi Gras. Colorful but brief costumes that could only be worn on a nude cruise abounded. Revelers marched throughout the ship to the obvious approval of onlookers. The parade wound its way from deck to deck and ended on the stage of the main theater for a judged costume contest.
St Maarten/St Martin
Our first port of call was the island of St Maarten/St Martin. The island is two nations in one — Dutch St Maarten and French St Martin. Cruise ships dock on the Dutch side, in the Philipsburg harbor. Our ship anchored in the harbor rather than at the dock. Since we were not technically in port, clothing was not required on ship. However, since we were not at the dock, small tender boats had to ferry all who wanted to go ashore.
Philipsburg is famous for it shopping and a number of folks from our ship choose to spend their day looking for bargains in the local shops. Costa Cruise Lines made special arrangements with one local jewelry shop to cover up its windows and allow folks from the Mediterranea to shop in the nude if they desired, though I’m not sure how many took advantage of this.
For naturists, the prime attraction of St Martin is clothing-optional Orient Beach. Located on the French side, Orient Beach is rated one of the best beaches in the Caribbean, nude or textile. The island also has a couple of other less well known nude beaches — Copacoy and Baie Rouge. Since we had all been to Orient Beach on previous trips, Tom, Regina, Becky and I set out to visit either Copacoy or Baie Rouge. However, after a quick tender to the dock in Philipsburg, we quickly learned that none of the taxis had any interest in taking us there; due to popular demand they were only shuttling people to Orient Bay. So, we went with the flow and engaged a taxi to take us to Orient Bay.
We arrived at Orient Bay to clouds and a misty rain, but our taxi driver assured us that it would soon be sunny. As it turns out, he knew what he was talking about. The mist stopped after about a half-hour and shortly thereafter the sun began to peek out from behind the clouds. Orient Beach stretches in a large crescent around Orient Bay. Technically, nudity is permissible any where on Orient Beach but traditionally nude users concentrate on the southern end of the beach, the section that abuts to the clothing-optional Club Orient Resort. If you venture nude beyond the Club O boundary, you definitely will be in the minority and will probably end up in several folks’ vacation pictures.
Club O provides security on the beach adjoining their property. They enforce a “no photography” policy. However, on this day they were allowing photos to be taken at water’s edge, shooting away from the beach, as long as no one else was in the background. Mike Cooney, as a TNS Staff Photographer, had permission for a photo shoot on the beach. I asked if he would use our camera to take pictures of Becky and me on the beach when he finished his official shoot. He graciously agreed, taking several nice photos for us.
All too soon, it was time to make our way back across the island to the ship. At every port, the ship offers a variety of on-shore excursions. One of the primary benefits of buying an excursion through the ship is the guarantee that if, for any reason, your official excursion is late returning to the ship, the ship will not sail without you. If you choose to go out on your own, there is no such guarantee. If all official excursions have returned, the ship sails at the appointed time, with or without you. Since we went on our own to Orient Beach, we were especially mindful of the clock and allowed plenty of time to reach the ship on time. At drop off, we set a time with our taxi driver to pick us up for the return trip, and true to his word, he was there at the agreed to time. In this case, a simple day trip to the beach, our do-it-yourself trip cost less than $20 per person versus the $39 dollars per person the ship charged. At later ports, with more complicated activities, we did opt for ship sponsored excursions.
