We had a great sail from St Vincent to St Lucia - basically taking a more straight line and not as suggested in the manual which provided us with very little bashing into waves and a very steady sail with a reefed main and Genoa! The sight of the Pitons brought a lot of excitement amongst the photographer on board! It is amazing to see them from a distance and up close! Just awesome! I suppose it is like seeing Table Mountain from the ocean side for the first time - it is very spectacular.
Bat cave is a nice Marine Park mooring at the entrance of Soufriere Bay right underneath Petite Piton and very easy to pick up and nice and calm. The water is nice and clear and the town very approachable with a dinghy from there. The town of Soufriere as you know... meaning sulphur outlet in French ... the name of the town has its origin from the Sulphur Springs in the heart of an old "drive in" volcano! And you could smell it as soon as we got close to the bay!
We took a quick 2 hour tour to visit the springs - which looks like a scene from hell...all tones of black and grey with bubbling sulphur pools and huge spurts of steam!
The more attractive Diamond Falls and botanical garden was very beautiful and worth a short visit. I am still sorry that we did not pay the extra dollars for a hot spring water bath - at least the water was crystal clear (if you can believe them that it is mineral water from the falls and has some magical healing properties...did I have a sceptic tone in my voice right there?...surely not!)
We ended the tour in pouring rain with a visit to the Hot water Spring Baths that is basically mineral (muddy sulphur) water that is suppose to make you 10 years younger by just having a shower in them! Well - we swam and dip for about 15 min! Tell you what ...you will not recognise me! Ha!
The claim of the water is that the sulphur and other minerals in it can cure / relieve certain skin conditions like psoriasis and rheumatism and rejuvenate an release stress....well...it's to be seen...all I know - it is muddy and dirty and stained my white top!
Soufriere Town is very shabby but interestingfor an hour or two...).There are no fancy houses and the town seems to be disorganised...we ended up waiting 4 hours to get Visas (which we did not know was needed...and being a Sat afternoon - was a little nightmare to get!) - The local police was very helpful and organised a vehicle to take the Captain in to the airport to get our visas for St Lucia!
That will teach us to check requirements before we enter the next Island as we have seen - things can change over night!
We left the sight of the beautiful Pitons the next day for Marigot Bay.... and unfortunately...as clean as the water was on our arrival...the picture was a sad mud pool by the time we left - all due to rain on the day...and the previous Hurrican only went through St Lucia in October last year and left a lot of fragile soil and devastation behind.
More photo's on the Website at: www.scolamanzi.info