We awoke to Royal Caribbean's cruise liner in our deserted anchorage

Monday morning in Labadie was a surreal experience due to the arrival of a Royal Caribbean cruise ship on the early hours of the morning. We had gone to bed in a calm empty anchorage, we’re the only transient boat that has stopped here this month. As I climbed into the cockpit to start the engine at 7am I was greeted by the 500ft 14 story ship moored off Coco beach, already ferrying passengers to shore for their days entertainment.

I’m really curious about the impact of the cruise ships in Labadie and have asked every Haitian I can their feelings on Royal Caribbean’s presence in the bay. The Haitian government leased Coco beach to RC for 99 years, and on cruise days, normally 3-4 per week, the beach is off limits to the locals. Initially passengers weren’t didn’t even told they were in Haiti, the cruise staff calling the destination by its generic name Hispanola.

There’s no question that the ships bring much needed money into the rural village, which otherwise exists solely on fishing. But the cost to the village has been substantial. Labadie’s population was about 1000 prior to the ships and has increased to 6000 as Haitians migrate here looking for work. The village is vibrant and attractive, but with only two public toilet blocks sanitation is very basic. There is no effective way to deal with rubbish in the village, so plumes of smoke can be seen rising along the shoreline as people burn their waste, plastic bottles and tin cans are particularly visible. As we walked past the ‘dump’ swarms of kids were playing on the piles and throwing junk at each other. As yet the increased economy hasn’t raised the standard of living to meet these basic needs.

One of the fishing boats in Labadie

Royal Caribbean has invested some money to construct a fresh water pipeline that draws water from a natural spring at the top of the village and brought down to homes along the shore. This coincides with a seafront development that will welcome cruisers on land for the first time into a carefully orchestrated village scene.

That was probably the most amazing part of Monday’s visit. Passengers are not aloud to travel unsupervised when off the ship in Labadie. If you want to go jetskiing, on one of the 50 or so seadoos that live permanently on Coco beach you have to travel in a group with two guides on a pre-set route in single file. If kayaking’s your thing then join us for a tour of the bay, as long as you stay with your guides, don’t get within 50 metres of land and don’t talk to the locals.

Chilling at the natural spring by the beach. Columbus brought the Santa Maria here to collect fresh water.

In fact the only possible interactions with locals also happen in according to a script. The kayak tour stops at an authentic deserted beach scene where a handful of pre-screened local traders sell typical tourist tat from fridge magnets to wooden boxes. Cruisers are reluctant to purchase much because whatever they do buy has to be transported by kayak back to the ship. One cruiser offered to buy a painting if it could be delivered by the vendor to Coco beach, but locals can’t go there on cruise days.

The jetski crew were also granted their chance to meet the locals, assembling in formation off of Paradise beach to meet a handful of locals on kayaks punting their wares. Again there were few transactions and we actually witnessed a number of cruisers literally ignoring the Haitians hoping they would paddle away.

I wanted to write about the cruise ship’s devastating impact in Labadie. How the local workers are mistreated and the village resents the opulent intrusion of the boats as they arrive. But to be honest most of the villagers we’ve spoken to are grateful for the employment opportunities and the free water and electricity provided by Royal Caribbean. It’s a bribe, but when you’ve got so little maybe a bribe is the best of a bad lot. Dato works on one of the tour boats that takes passengers around the bays highlighting spots of historical significance. He doesn’t want to do the job forever, but the smile on his face when he told us he’d given his mum over 1200 Goo ($30 US) was testament to the fact that for the few that make it into the fold there is good money to be made.

I’m sure an analysis of RC’s profits compared to their contribution to Labadie would show that their generosity is carefully weighted against profit margins, but I’m not sure that right now anyone here is thinking about that. Fish stocks are dwindling rapidly in the waters around Labadie; soil erosion caused by deforestation has devastated Haiti, with 98% of the country stripped of its original forests. This means that when hurricanes hit, the last major one was in 2004 and it killed 3000 and left 200,000 homeless.

In all Beannacht spent a week anchored in the bay at Labadie before we moved to the bay D’Acul another few miles to the west. While in Labadie we developed a few great friendships that have made this part of the trip the richest so far in terms of cultural learning. Judy I’ve already mentioned, an American teaching English as a second language at the hospital. Eggy, a Cuban marine biologist who has moved to Labadie to setup a seawater aquarium in the next bay and who drives one of the tour boats for the cruise ship in the meantime. Dato and his family, a collection of extremely welcoming Haitians who we’ve tried and failed to outdo with generosity on an almost daily basis – we bake bread, they bring coconuts etc..

Dato standing on the bow.

Norm’s Place was a real highlight in Labadie. A small hotel in the bay that Norman built by hand on the site of a ruined French fort, he came down over 30 years ago from the states, found the site and converted the ruins into a hotel. He later married a Haitian, and has been here ever since, although sadly he’s in the states at the minute as we’d love to meet him. Norm’s did provide a great meeting place for us though, it’s where we met Judy and Eggy, and most nights we dinghy ashore to have a beer with the guys and check email or the all important info on MotoGP and the British & Irish Lions tour – a fine Irish representation in the squad this year!

Norm’s employs a number of Haitians in the grounds and kitchen, and we’ve really enjoyed meeting Adony and the others. Adony deserves a special mention because he slept on our boat for two nights while we went to Cap Haitien last week for some sightseeing.

Looking over the port in Cap Haitien

Cap Haitien was our first destination in Haiti before we were warned to stay away from the city before the elections took place. On Tuesday we travelled over land with Judy from Labadie to spend two nights in the Roi Christophe hotel and see the city. Travel though the city was by tap-tap, pickup trucks with bench seats that weave through the traffic on familiar routes. From Labadie to Cap, a journey of 15km we travelled up a rocky hillside and down into the city streets in a 45 minute white knuckle ride, and all for 60 cents.

Roi Christophe was a little piece of luxury in the city, with a swimming pool, bar and air con in the rooms. It’s walled perimeter even housed a turtle pool! We checked in for two nights to see the city and visit the Citadel and Sans Souci. Judy had booked us a room in advance and on arrival we got straight to the pool for some cooling down. Haiti has been really hot.

A beautiful building in Cap Haitien

Cap is a really beautiful city that has become run down through lack of investment and massive government corruption. The election on our first Sunday here that was the reason for our relocation to Labadie had less that a 5% voter turnout and was declared essentially a waste of time. The UN and other NGOs had put over $13m into running it. The people we spoke to had no faith in any political party contesting the election and didn’t vote because they didn’t believe it would make a difference. What was also interesting was that the US has just announced a multi-million dollar aid package for Haiti, with Hilary Clinton visiting here in the week before we arrived. Again locals in Labadie believe that this money will end up lining the pockets of the politicians as previous aid money has, rather than making a difference on the ground.

On Thursday we took a bus to Milot 25km south of Cap to visit Sans Souci and the Citadelle. King Henry Christophe built the Sans Souci as a palace to rival Versailles in 1810, and although in ruins now it’s an amazing impressive building. It reminded me of Musendun Temple on the north coast of Ireland, walking through the shells of rooms imaging what life would have been like to live there.

The Sans Souci, stunning.

Another 5km up the hill, and it’s quite the hill, is the Citadelle, a fortress constructed by Christophe to prevent a return of the French who were overthrown in the revolution. The Citadelle was really impressive, perched right at the top of the hill, it’s amazing that they could build this stuff in the 1800s. For the first hour climbing the hill we were followed by four Haitians with horses who were convinced the white people weren’t going to make it. After an hour they got the message and we were left to climb the remaining 90 minutes on our own.

Dato standing at the Citadelle overlooking Cap Haitien.

On Thursday we went to the hospital where Judy works and took a walk round the public market. Drawing stares everywhere we were quite the spectacle. Haiti doesn’t have many tourists, in fact the Harbour Master in Cap assumed we had arrived here by mistake when we first pulled up last Saturday. We were glad of the opportunity to see some of the real Haiti, and once they’d had a look people seemed to go back to their business without a second thought. Occasionally we heard people talking about scamming us, Kel’s French comes in handy, but in the same moment someone else would say don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re charged the same as us.

My own little personal triumph was a trip to the barbers, albeit that Dato accompanied me. The first barbers we went to wanted to charge me 100 Goo, twice the going rate, because “white hair is different, it’s harder to cut”. We skipped on and tried another, and I negotiated a cut for 50 Goo all by myself – the sign even said 75 Goo! Of course I was fighting over a difference of about 50 cents, but it felt good to do things the Haitian way – Dato says everyone bargains. The lads in the barbers were cracking lots of jokes about the first white person to have his haircut in their shop.

The first white boy in the barbers.

On Thursday evening we jumped back in a tap-tap to journey to Labadie to get back to the boat. We both realised when we were in Cap that these two nights were the first we’d slept off the boat since we’d bought it in November. Adony had done an excellent job keeping watch of our precious home and all was well.

We got another perspective on the Labadie when we moved to Bay D’Acul on Saturday for two nights at anchor. Going ashore and meeting people in the village was a very different picture. A community of subsistence farmers, some grow crops in the surrounding hillsides, while others fish with nets or traps in the bay. The homes are neat and cared for, people take pride in the gardens and plots of land are clearly marked and valued. The village was without electricity or toilets, but does have two fresh water pumps installed by an NGO at some stage.

Perhaps it was simply the lack of proximity from Cap Haitien, and of course the Royal Caribbean ships, but the two villages were very different. For one thing Labadie is awash with plastic waste, lining the hedges and shoreline. Plastic bottles piled high on the village dump waiting to be burned, a better solution that drifting out to sea to harm marine life. The standard of dress in Labadie was higher, and there were many more small business traders and even a currency exchange. In Acul there was one house selling potatoes and other root veg, but no organised market place and no evidence of money moving through the community.

Motoring back to Beannacht having visited the village in D'Acul.

We’ve had two experiences at sea in Haiti that are worth a mention. One happened a few days ago, and in the interest of not getting shot by bounty hunters in a future life we’ll keep the specifics scant. Safe to say we noticed a small, about 30ft, Haitian wooden sailing boat getting ready to set sail late one evening and moving from it’s position close to shore out to where we were sitting at anchor. After dark the boat was visited by a number of small tenders before it lifted anchor at about midnight and disappeared into the dark. We did a little asking around of local fishermen who worked in the area and discovered that the boat was trafficking illegal immigrants to Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas and the States. Apparently they fit up to 300 people in it, it takes up to three weeks to get to Florida (no wonder when you see its sail plan) and passengers frequently die en route. Wowsa.

Stu mending nets with the fishermen in Bay D'Acul.

The other happened last night. Anchored in D’Acul we’re out of the way a little, and aside from villagers ashore and fishermen rowing by tending fish traps we can’t be seen from the sea. At 8.30pm last night we heard a thud on the side of the hull and someone boarded our boat. It’s of course not polite to set foot on ones boat without first asking for permission so Kel and I jumped up and headed to the cockpit to see who or what was aboard. A large skiff was alongside and two men dressed in long yellow raincoats were on our deck, one proceeding to tie the skiff to us while another shone a massive searchlight in our faces. They started asking questions of us without bothering to tell us who they were. Eventually it came to light that they were the coastguard making a routine inspection.

The language barrier turns moments like this into comedy experiences. Firstly there’s the ‘what are you doing here?’ line of enquiry. As with the Harbour Master in Cap when we say we’re tourists coming to visit their beautiful country they don’t always believe us. Then I reached into a rear locker to get out a fender or two to soften the blows of their skiff on our hull, my lack of fluency resulted in one of the officers drawing his gun. Officials in Haiti don’t have a lot of resources, so in taking our details they borrowed a pencil and piece of paper and then I helped one of the staff copy down our names, passport numbers and ages, while Kel showed them the inside of Beannacht.  In the end their tone lightened and they explained that they were simply worried about us as we were isolated here and could be vulnerable. We explained that we had been ashore and were happy to anchor here, but that we would be moving to Labadie in the morning.

And then off they went back into the darkness wishing us well and welcoming us to Haiti. We were spared the pleasure of being boarded by the US Coastguard when in the states, but we’ve been told it is an awful experience. Heavily armed officers barking instructions at you and rifling through your boat with little respect for your ownership. All in all the Haitians were pretty good, minus the unannounced boarding and lack of information about who they were for the first few minutes. It took a few minutes for us both to settle down after they left, but it was nice to know that we were noticed and that someone had a rough idea where we were.

So today it’s back to Labadie for a night, and then tomorrow we begin heading east to Dominican Republic. We’ve had an overwhelmingly positive experience in Haiti. The people have been friendly, curious, helpful and respectful. The fact that we arrive in a boat with money written all over it hasn’t managed to prevent some open experiences and great conversation.

It’s a pity that other cruisers skip Haiti because of its bad reputation. Labadie in particular has been a safe and welcoming anchorage and we have been able to get fuel, food and water from the village to top up our supplies. Cap Haitien is probably best visited over land from Labadie, but we’re really glad we went there and could easily have spent another couple of days finding our way around the city. We’d advise any cruiser passing by Haiti to at least give Labadie a few days and take a tap-tap to Cap Haitien and the Citadelle. Just don’t arrive on a weekend and you’ll save yourself $50 immigration fees, we seem to have a knack of arriving on weekends or public holidays at the minute.