St Lucia

We’ve arrived in St Lucia and have finally, after four and a half years, met up with our friends, Phil and Di of Matira; a Canadian/Australian couple we last saw as they sailed away from South Africa after spending a year in Simon’s Town. I don’t think they ever believed that we would eventually follow in their wake! They were there when we purchased Calypso and were an incredible inspiration to us to drop those mooring lines and set sail. It was truly wonderful to meet up with them again and to show them that we are now living the dream they had told us about so long ago.

As a whole, we moved through the islands faster than we would have done had we been by ourselves, however, we wanted to show Robyn as much as possible without making it feel like a whistle-stop tour. We’ll now slow down a bit and enjoy the remaining time she has with us here. The experience has really inspired her to sort things out in London and perhaps return to the Caribbean with the idea of working on some of the larger yachts requiring crew. We’ve met dozens of young people doing just that and they all seem to enjoy life tremendously.

We are now anchored outside Rodney Bay just beside Pigeon Island, a gorgeous spot in clean waters with some very pleasant hikes nearby. However, before stopping here, we pulled into Marigot Bay just further down the west coast of the island. It is truly a beautiful spot, or should I say, it had been before the developers grabbed it and built huge condominiums on every square inch of it. It must have been spectacular prior to this. To date, we found this to be the worst anchorage that we had experienced with regards to 'boat boys', the chaps who paddle out in various forms of floating craft to try to sell their wares. They were rude to the point of being obnoxious, threatening and vicious. We weren't sad to leave. Folklore or history claims that in the 16th Century, the British fleet was able to hide here from the French by pulling right to the back of the inlet and tying palm leaves to their masts to disguise themselves whilst the French attacking fleet sailed right past the bay. It was a perfect spot for this.

St Lucia is, historically, a very interesting island. It changed hands between the French and the English 14 times in the past. Our current anchorage is guarded by the ruins of an old fort and its many outbuildings on Pigeon Point which were built by the English to protect St Lucia from attack in days gone by. The vista up at the top is amazing with Martinique visible in the distance. One can certainly see why this location was chosen to build a fort!

We’ve managed to ‘see’ and ‘do’ the island quite thoroughly as we’ve hiked and ridden horseback on the rugged west coast, had a couple of great treks through the rainforest as well as our fair share of snorkelling, swimming and plenty of sight-seeing. Most of this was thanks to our friends here who are incredibly keen hikers and have been terrific showing us around. We’ve even been loaned a car on several occasions which has allowed us to get to places either difficult or impossible by bus. St Lucia really is a beautiful island with lots to see and do. We especially loved the rainforest hike on the southeast of the island and went really early to try to catch sight of the illusive St Lucian parrot. We did manage to see and hear them but only in flight. The forest was lush from the heavy mists with spectacular vine covered trees reaching for the sky. On one of our hikes we came across a very well fed boa constrictor lazing on the side of the path, too full to bother moving.

Paul & Phil, took off on a trip down to Carriacou with another yacht for about a week. The owner needed a couple more pairs of hands, and, as he apparently has a source for some inexpensive Chilian wine, the guys were sent off with a shopping list! The ‘girls', meanwhile, are having some quality time on their own.

One day while the guys were away, Robyn and I were returning from Rodney Bay Marina , when the outboard ‘jumped’ off the back of the dinghy, hung down for a minute at the end of the fuel line which was straining under the weight, then plummeted to the bottom of the bay. Yipes, our 15hp outboard gone! A couple of nearby cruisers came to help; Robyn swam to where she thought it had gone down (we’d drifted quite a bit by then) and one of the chaps dropped a small buoy. Another chap took me back to our boat for me to jump into my scuba gear and I then proceeded to spend three quarters of an hour searching the bottom in absolutely murky harbour waters with little hope of ever seeing our engine again. However, suddenly, after nearly bumping my nose on it, the word ‘Yamaha’ emerged before my eyes! Yippee, it was there! I tied a line around it and, thanks to the chaps on the surface, we were able to get it aboard and take it into someone to wash it and get it going again. Fortunately, it seemed no worse for its swim and thank goodness one of our dive courses had been search and retrieve.

Calypso had one quick trip up to Martinique where we managed to stock up on some exceptional French cheeses, pates and wines at very reasonable prices. As our friends were with us, the inevitable happened and, we went hiking! It was a brilliant couple of days, with a terrific sail up and back, the return being greatly enhanced by the fact that we caught (or more correctly, Robyn caught) a huge wahoo – fabulous sashimi and great on the BBQ!

Horse riding along the beaches was our next activity which was great fun and then we celebrated Robyn’s 27^th birthday but, before we knew it, it was time for her to leave. Sad moment indeed. We sincerely hope she can visit us again before long.

No sooner had she left than Di’s brother arrived out from Canada and we arranged to hike up Petit Piton. Now the Pitons are these two spiky ‘bumps’ (mountains) on the southeast coast of St Lucia. When we climbed Petit Piton, I was told we were going on a hike. Wrong! They lied to me! This was an all-out climb clinging onto roots and, in some places hand over hand up ropes. After the climb down, my knees yelled at me for three days! Anyway, it was really worth it and the view from up top was spectacular! I’ve since been told that Gros Piton (the slightly higher peak) is a walk in the park in comparison but, no, WE had to go up the more difficult one!

Paul continues to work fairly non-stop on various jobs around Calypso. No sooner does the list start reducing when something else starts to leak, malfunction or just generally give up. Keeps him out of mischief!

There are times when he gets incredibly frustrated but, as a whole, he finds it very rewarding when he gets things working again.

The social life here is killing us! It’s time to move on to find a quiet anchorage somewhere where we can spend a short while just reading, swimming or generally just chilling out! We continue to meet up with boats again and again from our previous anchorages. Its fun catching up on their news and journeys and we learn a lot about other places giving us ideas for later on.

The ‘winter’ weather has been just right! Not too hot and not too cool, however, summer is around the corner and it’s already getting hotter. We’ve still never got beyond a sheet for cover at night – come summer, we’ll be wishing we had air-conditioning!

Time is marching on and Phil & Di are making plans to sail up to Antigua for the annual yacht event, the Classics, an event for the classic yachts which takes place just before the better-known Antigua Race Week. As we haven’t moved very far in the last few months, the growth hanging around our anchor chain and strop sort of indicates that we’ve been growing roots here so it’s definitely time to move on. While ‘Matira’ will be sailing straight up Antigua, we will side-track and stop off to visit some of the islands en route.

PHOTO ALBUM:

Phil Visiting Just as We Dropped Anchor

With Phil, Di & Friends at Jambe de Bois (our favourite hangout)

Picnicking on the Beach

The Pitons

Volcanic Action

Mud Baths

Phil & Di, Relaxing Island Style

Rodney Bay From The Air