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A couple of boats arrived at St. Kitts almost exactly 15 years ago the other night, and I was aboard one of them:

The brand-new Cunard flagship, RMS Queen Mary 2, is at left. I was not on that one.

I was on the windjammer S/V Polynesia at right, originally built as a fishing vessel in 1938, whose technically functional but mostly decorative sailing masts did not even reach the windows on the QM2's upper decks.

Our boat was 248 ft (75.6m) long, theirs 1,132 ft (345m), The difference is even more dramatic from the side:

As it was a New Year's cruise, I imagine the QM2 had close to its capacity of around 2600 passengers, and we were at capacity with about 100. But the QM2, for all its fine restaurants and art galleries and clean toilets, has a critical flaw: it's too damn big. There are only a few Caribbean ports that can accommodate it, so they must round up their brood early to have time to sail all the way to the next one. We had no ambitions beyond Nevis, 2 miles away, and could linger on the beach watching the money sail away.

EDIT The story is not as good without the extra photos, so I'll leave them up even if it disqualifies this post from the contest.

A couple of boats arrived at St. Kitts almost exactly 15 years ago the other night, and I was aboard one of them:

The brand-new Cunard flagship, RMS Queen Mary 2, is at left. I was not on that one.

I was on the windjammer S/V Polynesia at right, originally built as a fishing vessel in 1938, whose technically functional but mostly decorative sailing masts did not even reach the windows on the QM2's upper decks.

Our boat was 248 ft (75.6m) long, theirs 1,132 ft (345m), The difference is even more dramatic from the side.

As it was a New Year's cruise, I imagine the QM2 had close to its capacity of around 2600 passengers, and we were at capacity with about 100. But the QM2, for all its fine restaurants and art galleries and clean toilets, has a critical flaw: it's too damn big. There are only a few Caribbean ports that can accommodate it, so they must round up their brood early to have time to sail all the way to the next one. We had no ambitions beyond Nevis, 2 miles away, and could linger on the beach watching the money sail away.

A couple of boats arrived at St. Kitts almost exactly 14 years ago the other night, and I was aboard one of them:

The brand-new Cunard flagship, RMS Queen Mary 2, is at left. I was not on that one.

I was on the windjammer S/V Polynesia at right, originally built as a fishing vessel in 1938, whose technically functional but mostly decorative sailing masts did not even reach the windows on the QM2's upper decks.

Our boat was 248 ft (75.6m) long, theirs 1,132 ft (345m), The difference is even more dramatic from the side:

As it was a New Year's cruise, I imagine the QM2 had close to its capacity of around 2600 passengers, and we were at capacity with about 100. But the QM2, for all its fine restaurants and art galleries and clean toilets, has a critical flaw: it's too damn big. There are only a few Caribbean ports that can accommodate it, so they must round up their brood early to have time to sail all the way to the next one. We had no ambitions beyond Nevis, 2 miles away, and could linger on the beach watching the money sail away.

EDIT The story is not as good without the extra photos, so I'll leave them up even if it disqualifies this post from the contest.

A couple of boats arrived at St. Kitts almost exactly 15 years ago the other night, and I was aboard one of them:

The brand-new Cunard flagship, RMS Queen Mary 2, is at left. I was not on that one.

I was on the windjammer S/V Polynesia at right, originally built as a fishing vessel in 1938, whose technically functional but mostly decorative sailing masts did not even reach the windows on the QM2's upper decks.

Our boat was 248 ft (75.6m) long, theirs 1,132 ft (345m), The difference is even more dramatic from the side:

As it was a New Year's cruise, I imagine the QM2 had close to its capacity of around 2600 passengers, and we were at capacity with about 100. But the QM2, for all its fine restaurants and art galleries and clean toilets, has a critical flaw: it's too damn big. There are only a few Caribbean ports that can accommodate it, so they must round up their brood early to have time to sail all the way to the next one. We had no ambitions beyond Nevis, 2 miles away, and could linger on the beach watching the money sail away.

EDIT The story is not as good without the extra photos, so I'll leave them up even if it disqualifies this post from the contest.

A couple of boats arrived at St. Kitts almost exactly 14 years ago the other night, and I was aboard one of them:

The brand-new Cunard flagship, RMS Queen Mary 2, is at left. I was not on that one.

I was on the windjammer S/V Polynesia at right, originally built as a fishing vessel in 1938, whose technically functional but mostly decorative sailing masts did not even reach the windows on the QM2's upper decks.

Our boat was 248 ft (75.6m) long, theirs 1,132 ft (345m), The difference is even more dramatic from the side:

As it was a New Year's cruise, I imagine the QM2 had close to its capacity of around 2600 passengers, and we were at capacity with about 100. But the QM2, for all its fine restaurants and art galleries and clean toilets, has a critical flaw: it's too damn big. There are only a few Caribbean ports that can accommodate it, so they must round up their brood early to have time to sail all the way to the next one. We had no ambitions beyond Nevis, 2 miles away, and could linger on the beach watching the money sail away.

A couple of boats arrived at St. Kitts almost exactly 14 years ago the other night, and I was aboard one of them:

The brand-new Cunard flagship, RMS Queen Mary 2, is at left. I was not on that one.

I was on the windjammer S/V Polynesia at right, originally built as a fishing vessel in 1938, whose technically functional but mostly decorative sailing masts did not even reach the windows on the QM2's upper decks.

Our boat was 248 ft (75.6m) long, theirs 1,132 ft (345m), The difference is even more dramatic from the side:

As it was a New Year's cruise, I imagine the QM2 had close to its capacity of around 2600 passengers, and we were at capacity with about 100. But the QM2, for all its fine restaurants and art galleries and clean toilets, has a critical flaw: it's too damn big. There are only a few Caribbean ports that can accommodate it, so they must round up their brood early to have time to sail all the way to the next one. We had no ambitions beyond Nevis, 2 miles away, and could linger on the beach watching the money sail away.

EDIT The story is not as good without the extra photos, so I'll leave them up even if it disqualifies this post from the contest.