St Lucia

We left Sainte Anne, Martinique, on January13th and had a fast sail on a beam reach to Rodney Bay, St Lucia. This is the first island that hasn't greated us with 35 knot rain squalls. Rodney Bay Marina is home to the ARC, and has good facilities. We did many of the jobs on our long maintenance list. We wanted to do an oil change where there is a proper oil disposal facility.

We are making a conscious effort to walk off our Christmas excesses, and have walked all the way around the lagoon in both directions. The day after we arrived, we walked to Reduit Beach. This beach is lovely, but very busy as there are two large hotels. The next day we walked in the other direction, through a village of tiny houses, and back onto the beach to Pigeon Island. This island has a great military history and was used as a base for the British Admiralty and the French Navy. St Lucia changed hands 14 times before it gained independence. Pigeon Island is a national park, and for 10 $EC, you can visit the ruins of the naval base, see an exhibit explaining the island's history, and swim off the private beaches. It was only linked to the mainland by a causeway in 1979.We also checked out the anchorage here for our return visit. This quiet anchorage is home to Jambe de Bois a great bar/restaurant with its own dinghy dock, an internet cafe, big comfy sofas and a breezy terrace. We will definitely pay a visit on our way back north.

We also found a small cinema showing Harry Potter. We hadn't been to the cinema since May last year, so we decided to check it out and see if it was as good as the book. We both enjoyed it, but hadn't pictured 'Hagrid' as Robbie Coltrane. On our last night in Rodney Bay, we went to Le Bistro for dinner. It has a great waterside location with a dinghy dock. We came back to the boat after a fantastic meal to find that the heads were blocked! The following morning, we had the nasty task of taking the heading pipes apart to clear the blockage. We set off that afternoon for Marigot Bay, a little way down the coast.

Marigot Bay is famous for being well hidden. It is reputed that a British Admiral hid his entire fleet in Marigot Bay, disguising the masts by tying coconut fronds in the rigging. The entrance is difficult to spot from offshore, but today, the large oil terminal one mile north helps you get your bearings. Marigot Bay is described, in Chris Doyle's sailor's guide, as being one of the Caribbean's spectacularly beautiful anchorages. I expect it is idyllic when it is almost empty. We arrived to find it extremely busy and the only space left to anchor was close to the entrance channel. We were told that you could not anchor there, so we took a mooring from 'Captain Bravo', the ferry driver.We were immediately approached by several small boast giving us menus for the various restaurants ashore. One of the bars is called the 'Soggy Dollar', very apt since it rained just about every hour, for the entire three days we were there. This is the base of Moorings charter yachts in St Lucia and there are a number of hotels on the surrounding hills. The bay is very well sheltered, in fact so well sheltered that our aerogen couldn't keep our batteries charged, so after three days, we decided to carry on south to The Pitons.

We arrived at The Pitons in yet another squall which temporarily obscured them from view. The bay is very deep and a combination of strong winds funelling through the gap in the mountains and strong currents, makes picking up a SMMA (Soufrierre Marine Management Area) buoy more preferable to anchoring. Luckily we had arrived at 1330 and had our choice of three available buoys. As it was blowing 30 knots when we arrived, the boat boys sheltering behind Petit Piton didn't anoy us. We had great entertainment at about 1530, when the buoy next to us was the only one left. Two boat boys had intercepted two separate incoming vessels promising to get them the last buoy. It then became a fight of the fastest outboard. Lots of shouting followed as the boat boy for the vessel furthest out got to the buoy first! The following day we went ashore and explored the grounds of the Jalousie Hilton. That night, we had dinner at Bang (between the Pitons). We decided to try the local lobster. It turn out that the local boys who had caught the lobsters earlier that day could not remember where they had left the cages, so it was two hours before we got to eat it. The owner, the eccentric Lord Glenconner told us that this happened all the time. We had great entertainment, watching lots of splashing about on the beach below the restaurant as they snorkled about with torches.