St. Lucia

After the exciting passage from Martinique to St. Lucia we didn’t have much time to rest, relax or fool around before Emmy needed to get to the airport for her trip back to St. Croix. Rodney Bay, where we anchored, is a wonderfully big and protected bay, with a large marina with restaurants, grocery stores, hardware & marine supplies, fuel, etc., situated inside an adjacent man-made harbor, so I’d be able to knock off a few items on the boat “to-do” list while Emmy was gone.
We did take a “mini-bus” into the capital, Castries, which was pretty busy due to three cruise ships being in port, and walked around for a few hours. A mini-bus is a small van that runs a specific route picking up anyone who flags it down, and we were charged less than two dollars each for the round trip, while an official taxi would have cost about twenty US dollars each - we enjoyed saving money, and got to interact with the local folks on the mini-bus.

The next day Emmy took off bright and early, and I tried prioritizing the list. It was long overdue to scrape off the burned out varnish on the teak toerail, a dirty, time consuming job. I spent a few days scraping and sanding, and I oiled the teak this time instead of varnishing - we’ll see how that holds up. Thank heaven for iPods! Also rigged up a new sling to haul our outboard up with, fixed a few other things, bought cruising flags for St. Lucia and St. Vincent, as well as cruising guides to Panama and Cuba (more on that later), did some grocery shopping, read a couple of short novels, and tried to stay out of trouble!

Our friends Bob & Susan from “Brass Tacks” stopped by - they’re cruising the same islands as we are this season (we first met up in Nevis) - and one evening we sampled some wonderful rum we bought in Martinique, Clemant 10 year old dark Rhum Agricole. The French take their alcoholic beverages very seriously, and I think this is the best I’ve found, and is my new favorite!

The week went by fairly quickly, but I was happy to see Emmy walk through the Immigration door at the airport!

The north swell came up pretty strong, so we sailed a few miles down to Marigot, a small, well protected harbor. The next day the forecast was for improving conditions, so we sailed down to “The Pitons” an amazing setting between two crazy mountainous cones jutting up from the sea, on St. Lucia’s southwestern shore. We picked up a mooring between the two peaks, as directed by one of the “boat boys,” who offered us a tour of the nearby volcano and hot springs.

We needed to go to Customs in the nearby town to check out anyway, so we packed up swim suits and towels and jumped into the fellow’s small boat, for a cool ride to the town of Soufriere. Customs was easy (yay!) and we took off by taxi to what’s billed as “the world’s only drive-in volcano.” It’s classed as “inactive,” but in the caldera there are a couple hundred acres of bare, steaming, smelly earth and rock, with many pools of bubbling muddy stuff.

The nearby hot spring was a treat, with a hot water waterfall cascading over huge boulders into soaking pools. We headed back to town and hopped back in the motorboat for the two mile ride back to our anchorage. It seemed like the swells were bigger than a few hours earlier, and the boat boy agreed that it was getting bigger. As we pulled up to Avalon she was rolling a bit, and as the evening wore on it got worse…much worse…oh well!

We were planning on shoving off early for Bequia anyway, so around 4:30 AM, with very little good rest, we rolled out and made preparations for the 53 mile passage. We were underway by 5:30, with a nearly full moon lighting our way.

See ya on the way back St. Lucia!