After St Vincent we sailed up to St Lucia, where we had ordered a new dinghy at a dealer in Rodney Bay. We decided to stay in the marina and ended up staying there for 14 days. Here we met some of our old acquaintances from our time in Cartagena in Spain. An American couple who bought their boat in the Mediterranean a few seasons ago and have sailed it across the Atlantic with Arc 2022 in one stretch from Las Palmas. The man is an electronics engineer and has been helping Martin with sparring on various electronics installations on our boat. It’s funny that we’ve known each other since Cartagena, where we were in port together. In the sailing community, people are generally open and easy to get in chat with.
Also on our pontoon was docked the boat “Sweet Dreams”, which won for the best looking boat in the Arc+ rally that we participated in. The boat is a custom made wooden boat that is varnished with high gloss, and has a shiny wooden look. The owner was in the UK while the skipper, who is a full time carpenter on the boat, is looking after the boat and will be sailing it home in the spring. It turns out that the name “Sweet Dreams” comes from the song by Eurythmics. The owner’s now deceased husband worked at a record company and was the one who signed the contract with the band for that particular song.
The carpenter was a really nice guy, and since he was alone on the boat, he came over and had beer with us and gave us tips for our do-it-yourself woodworking refinishing projects.
And then we had a visit from a Dane who we’ve said hello to a few times since Union Island. He has sailed a lot in his life and owned several different boats. He works in IT and runs a business from his boat. His wife and stepchildren are Canadian and are on the boat for a year in the Caribbean. Although he says he likes to be on the small islands at anchor and keep to himself, he still manages to find our boat and comes over to chat.
Rodney Bay Marina is destination for the Arc rally, which sails direct from Las Palmas to the Caribbean, and also the starting point for the Arc World, which sails out in January or February. The marina has several restaurants, and there are good places to shop with a wider selection of groceries than we’ve seen since Las Palmas.
While in the marina, Martin got the Starlink working again after not having working since Las Palmas. I had almost forgot the pleasures of just binge watching series. Ooh, It was wonderful.
One of the days we took a bus down to Soufriere, where there is an active sulphur spring and waterfalls etc. It’s a long distance from Rodney Bay and the buses are of the same type as we have used in Grenada and on St Vincent & the Grenadines, without much suspension, and run on roads in poor condition. There is always loud music in the bus, mostly some rap mixed with upbeat Caribbean rhythms, and you sit very close. It’s an experience in itself.
We had lunch in Soufriere.
As planned, we were to walk from here to the sulphur spring. Due to my phobia of reptiles, we sat in the restaurant and researched if the road was very overgrown and if there were snakes on the island. It turned out that there are several types of snakes on the Island, one of them was labeled “extremely poisonous” and was the cause of many deaths. However, it was rare in St Lucia.
We took another bus to the sulphur spring. A guide gave us a geological overview of the volcano and its history. As the homeschooling teacher, I think this counts for a nature/technology lesson for Victor. The spring heated the passing water up to 55 degrees celcius. There were 5 baths made with water that had passed through the caldera, where you could have a mud bath in the hot water. It was a fun experience, even though the sulfur stank from far away. We were told to be glad of the smell, because if it stopped smelling, it was a sign of an evolving eruption.
On Friday, we went to the Friday night party, which is a street party in Gros Islet just north of Rodney Bay Marina. The barbecue was fired up for lobsters in the street and ther was music coming from the biggest speaker I’ve ever seen. At first it looked like the guests were tourists, but on the way home we were told by the taxi driver that the party had been going on for 40 years and there were several people who lived solely off this street party, which was always open on Fridays. Only closed on Good Friday.
Also Elliott’s got his wish for hiking fulfilled, which he has requested at all the Islands, and we have put it off several times for various reasons. We hiked up the nearest piton, which is the remains of an ancient volcano. It was a quite difficult hike. In several places you had to pull yourself up by a rope to get up. When we reached the top, we were rewarded with a dazzling view and it was worth all the trouble.
Once we got the new dinghy, we set off to Martinique just north of St Lucia.
