26 May 2011 Rodney Bay, St Lucia
In the morning, I decided to inspect the generator to see if I could see any water leaks. I tightened various circlips on hoses and ran the generator for an hour, but couldn’t see any leaks or accumulated water.
At eleven o’clock, we caught a bus into Castries. It was hot and sweaty and our first mission was to find somewhere to eat. There are lots of KFC, Subway and Pizza places, but we struggled to find anywhere selling local food that wasn’t a real dive. There’s a small mall where the tourists from the cruise ships land and they had a restaurant but it was very clinical and expensive. We eventually found a small place called the “Balcony Restaurant” on the edge of the main square where we had a great meal for $18EC including a drink.
We wandered aimlessly about town, bought a few t-shirts and some bits and pieces from hardware stores, before heading back to the boat for a welcome swim. We spent the rest of the afternoon pottering about on the boat.
27 May 2011 Rodney Bay, St Lucia
It was a hot, airless night. I was bitten by a mosquito several times on my lower legs, so I was stomping about at one o’clock, putting up mosquito netting, turning on the mosquito killers and rubbing antihistamine cream on my bites. I didn’t sleep well.
Glenys zipped off in the dinghy to go to the shopping mall, leaving me alone to potter about doing a few jobs. I moved our 45lb CQR anchor into the anchor locker and set it all up. I’m going to sell the 35lb CQR anchor and buy a lightweight Fortress anchor to use as a kedge. I inspected and had a play around with the spinnaker pole. I had another look at the engine compartment for water leaks – still nothing found.
In the afternoon, we motored over to Pigeon Island for a couple of nights for a change of scenery and to avoid the Friday and Saturday night “jump-ups” which are deafening over by the Yacht Club.
28 May 2011 Rodney Bay, St Lucia
It felt like a Sunday today, so I couldn’t motivate myself to do anything – we just lurked about until eleven o’clock and then went for a walk on Pigeon Island. This used to be a British Naval base with a fort to protect the British fleet in Rodney Bay. It is now a national park and the ruins of the buildings are being preserved. The grounds are beautifully manicured.
We walked up to the top of the hill – not as tough as the Petit Piton. The rest of the afternoon was spent reading and snorkelling.
29 May 2011 Rodney Bay, St Lucia
It was really Sunday today and some friends, Mike & Rona, came to visit us for the day – they’re on holiday in an all-inclusive resort near Castries. They live near Gareth and have brought a few things over from the UK - my jigsaw, some electrical bits for the dive compressor and our mail.
We had a cracking sail down the west coast of St Lucia, had a stare at the Pitons and picked up a mooring in Anse Chastanet for lunch. They brought us a bottle of Champagne so we had that with lunch – very decadent. On the way back, we motored into Marigot Bay and then had a good sail back to Rodney Bay arriving just before six o’clock – a very nice day out.
30 May 2011 Rodney Bay, St Lucia
We opened the mail which Mike had brought out and I decided that, while I have a good Internet connection, I should have an administration day. I spent all day slaving over a hot computer sorting out our investments so that they now will earn interest and income rather than grow in value. It’s quite bizarre having no monthly pay going into our bank account - we now have to make our savings last until we die.
Glenys pottered about reading the newspapers that Mike had left us and generally chilling out. We didn’t even put the dinghy in the water.
31 May 2011 Rodney Bay, St Lucia
It was pretty grotty first thing this morning, with heavy rain showers. We were going to sail down to Bequia tomorrow, but the forecast is for strong winds with showers, so we’re waiting another day and we’ll sail down on Thursday when it should be nice and sunny.
The weather brightened up as the morning progressed, so we decided to go out for a walk. As soon as we were ready to get into the dinghy, a dive boat approached us with Mike hanging off the front. After a brief chat with him, we agreed to meet them at one o’clock and go for a walk.
We had three hours to kill, so we decided to walk to Anse En Bas beach on the windward side of the island. It took us about an hour to get there. It’s quite a pretty place with dark sand. There were a lot of groups of horse riders on the beach – a popular tourist trip by the looks of it. We walked back to Rodney Bay with a slight detour into Gros Islet to have a look – a bit rough. There was just enough time for a quick lunch in a café in the marina before Mike and Rona turned up.
We took them back to the boat and motored to Pigeon Island, where we went to the National Park and walked up the peaks with them - a pleasant afternoon.
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