CARIBBEAN TRIP #1 NOTES

From San Juan, destinations are St. Maartin, Antigua, Barbados, and St. Lucia in the southern chain of islands. The ship itself is among the most magnificent -- part of RCL's Radiance class (Serenade of the Seas) .. just big enough to offer every ammenity and service, yet less crowded than the super-size voyager class, which carries about 800 more.

We devoted our time on St. Maartin entirely to scoping out the art tour for a future (Jan 29) group cruise we manage. With our guide Pamela, we visited the hilltop studio of Antoinne Chapon (a view to die for), lunch at Boo Boo Jams on the famous Orient Beach, Donnas' Gallery of French style oils, Ruby's nature island art and yummi candies, another spacious roadside gallery of island scenics, and a potter. Thisis really a fine tour for only $40 ... and not only offerse some of the most acclaimed artists, but takes us inside their cribs for an intimate visit.

On Antigua, the big attraction are the beaches .. over 360 of them, white sandy beaches and clean blue waters. We spent the day on just one, where the photography was heavenly. Weather was a big cloudy, and stayed that way as we landed on Barbados for snorkle diving, and an awesome tour of Harrison's Cave. Our night-vision infra-red Sony camera lit up the caverns and their calcium pinnacles in brilliant detail (pictures to be linked here later). And just as beautiful were the flowers in bloom at nearby Andromeda Botanical Gardens. And the final day at St. Lucy was spent on the warmth of the beach ... a sunny day with a light wind ... what more could you want in a Caribbean vacation. Back tomorrow for a day at sea, and a few more sumptuous meals, as we depart with the sounds of the steel drum band in the background of our minds. SEE OUR PICTURES AT: http://travel.radfordvideo.com

Jim
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CARIBBEAN CRUISE NOTES

In the blog items above we will keep you posted via a daily log of our cruising experiences throughout January & February. The first ship is Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Sea (see photo)... capacity is about 2,500 people, 962 feet long, 1050 cabins, 25 knot cruising speed and 858 crew. It was built in August, 2003. Donna and I look forward to your reactions or questions and comments as we travel. And say 'Hi' to our traveling companions, Aimee and Craig. Click here for a Caribbean slideshow.

BUSINESS FOCUS IN 2005

Focus - focus - focus. That's the watchword around here for 2005. We'll be aiming to focus on growth by serving the business community, where we have a proven service model, at a fair price. In fact, there's little doubt that our video-on-demand service (via the web) is among the most significant growth opportunities across the Internet, and we aim to do it well. So, we aim to FOCUS on business communications, where we have over 30 years of expertise in communications strategy, and where the needs of the enterprise are crystal clear.

UN-CLIMBABLE SUMMIT?

Earlier this year we had the priviledge of recording the super-human story of Todd Skinner, who had scaled the 29,000 foot Trango Tower in the Himalayas -- over twice the height of Mt. Rainier in Washington State. His motivating speech was aimed at a management team that would face significantly lesser hurdles physically, but would take heed of the attitude of a winner, whose advance team returned to base camp with the news, "The rock is unclimbable!" To which he replied, "Just how unclimbable is it?" He says: "The summit is nothing more than a place to see where you can go next." If you are looking for a great speaker, with a story to remember the rest of your life ... check out his web site at: http://www.beyondthesummit.com/accomp.html