St. Lucia

Life is full of choices. Some would say that things happen because of a thing called ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’ but the reality is that it comes down to the choices we make. Who we choose our friends to be, who we choose our partners to be, where we choose to live, where we choose to go next, or simply how we choose to live our lives . . . these are all choices we make.

Our choices affect everything. One choice creates a chain reaction to a million more choices. All we do, all day long, is make choices. Turn left instead of right. Stop instead of speed up. Go here instead of there. Choice after choice after choice . . . .

Sometimes we make the wrong choices. This is simple human nature. We cannot see the outcome of our choices, we simply choose what we think is the right choice at the moment, and maybe even at that time it is the right choice . . . but down the line that choice takes a turn for the worst. We learn and choose differently next time.

Sometimes . . . sometimes we make the right choice. I believe that this year spent cruising around the Caribbean was the right choice. It has brought us all closer together as a family unit and we have many great memories to take away from it.

Alex b-day

After Alex’s birthday celebration of breakfast in bed with the traditional cake, candles and presents we toured the little island of Canouan. It is postcard perfect with a resort that covers almost half of the island that caters for those that have a rather large bank balance. A birthday dinner at Tamarind Resort finished off a lovely birthday day.  Our next port of call was Bequia. We were flying along at 10.2 knots with all three sails up when we had a big hit on the one road. Josh had to hang on for dear life while dad and jess rushed to lower some sails to slow the boat up so that Josh cold try and get the fish onboard. Josh spent a good while fighting the fish, eventually pulling the fish on board. We found, attached to the lure, a massive barracuda. The teeth on this thing could easily shred your fingers off! It must of weighed at least 15kg; we quickly snapped a picture and threw him back over board. Barracuda is good eating fish but the bigger they are the higher chance they have of carrying reef poison, so we thought better safe than sorry!

Josh's barracuda

We spent the day in Bequia. Dorris’s food shop was amazing, we managed to find fresh milk, eggs and decent veggies! After provisioning there, we looked around a few shops and had an afternoon drink at the local pub. We booked for jump up that night (very different from jump up in St. Lucia). This Jump up was a formal buffet dinner with beautiful live steelpan music playing in the background. We enjoyed our evening immensely. After our meals, we were all stuffed and could only think of one thing. . . bed!

The next morning, we sailed to St. Lucia. This would have to be our most difficult sail so far. Dad decided that the wind angle wasn’t enough on the leeward side of St Vincent for us to be able to sail to St Lucia, so we opted to go between Bequia and St Vincent and then get the right angle to the wind to sail to St Lucia.  It was a beautiful blue clear morning with winds at about 15 knots but unfortunately the sea didn’t seem to know this. We spent a few rough hours with incredibly choppy seas with about two meter swells coming from every direction. Alex got to test our sick station on the back step and she spent a few hours there. Mom was inside trying to guess what she needed to catch next as things were flying off shelves. Josh emerged from his cabin and joined Alex on the back step to ensure that he didn’t test the sick bay. Reb’s amazingly sleep through most of the crashing about. Fortunately the seas calmed down and then we had a fantastic few hours sailing to the bottom end of St Lucia. Just as we were sailing past the magnificent Pitons (which the locals call the gateway to Heaven), we were lucky enough to sight two sperm whales! We followed them for about an hour as they shot water out of their blowholes and flashed their noses to us a few times. It was such an exciting afternoon. We anchored in Marigot Bay just before sunset, and had dinner at the famous Doolittles restaurant. 

The following day, we headed up to Rodney Bay and came across Talisman anchored outside. We parked right next to them and were straight in the water catching up with everyone again. Lee helped us go into the marina and we tied up alongside the dock as we were having trouble with both of our sail drives. Once in, Lee stayed for dinner and drinks and we spent the evening catching up with an old friend.

A charter catamaran moored across from us, and we befriended the captain, Josh, of Love Boat. He was also having the same trouble with his sail drives as we were. Another two boats we spoke to also had the same issues. The sail drive cones were not engaging properly, allowing unreliable engine use. We ordered the parts to fix them up, which had to come all the way from the States, and they will be installed on Monday. We helped Josh from Love Boat with his sail drives just in time for him to head off on a 10 day charter to Antigua. We also had a lovely surprise of Allan and Maritte from Alleycat knocking on our hulls one afternoon! Talisman came back in the marina on Thursday, we had a great dinner with them at the Ocean club on Friday night before their departure on Saturday morning.

Jangles and Talisman

Josh

On Saturday we hired a guide, Spencer, to take us around the island for a tour as Alex had never been to St Lucia before. We left the marina just after 9am and began our trip to Soufriere (which means sulphur in the air). We saw a man standing on the side of the road holding a large boa constrictor around his neck. Josh and Rebecca both held it for pictures and Alex nearly screamed as they brought it near her! We continued on to the sulphur springs, which are in the crater of a large volcano, stopping occasionally at stalls on the side of the road or to take a picture of a spectacular view. Alex, Josh, my mom and my dad did the tour of the volcano (Rebecca and I sat out as we had done it a few times before) and then it was off to the mud baths! My dad and sister sat out on the mud baths while the rest of us got covered in mud, baked dry and then rinsed off in water that was 38 degrees celcius! Needless to say we came out of the water a little pink and not too sweet smelling!  Spencer took us to a quiet spot for a local lunch of shrimp, chicken, vegetables, rice and salad. It was a delicious meal, washed down with fresh home -made orange juice. We left with a bag of oranges from their back garden. On the way back to the marina, we stopped to watch fisherman pull in their ropes onto the beach. It was fascinating as they take out all the big fish and then they shake the nets and send hundreds of glimmering little silver sardines into the air that the locals can collect and take for themselves. They salt and dry these fish, which can last for years like that. Salt fish is one of the staples foods of the locals, which they eat with breadfruit! We arrived back at the marina in the late afternoon, all exhausted from touring this beautiful island.

Rebecca

Sulphur springs

Mud people

Spencer, Rebecca, Josh, local guy, Alex