Tuesday night was last night of their carnival and they had jump up. (loud music in town where all the people jump around to the music. (see pict) A really bad example of dancing but it was fun. 11 of us did another hike yesterday to the very top of Mt. Pleasant. We are really getting our workouts. But after each hike we go snorkeling. That’s a big treat because the fish here are fantastic and millions to see. Today is game day at the Fig Tree restaurant where about 30 or 40 cruisers meet to play games and enjoy happy hour and a fish dinner. Tomorrow we are volunteering to work at a children’s reading program. That should be fun. Monday we move on south so if I have enough bandwidth, this will finally go out on before we leave.

We hiked out to the turtle sanctuary where Brother King has been saving turtles since 1995. He keeps them as tiny babies until they are 5 and then lets them free in the sea. By then they are big enough to survive. It is quite an production he has there. The turtles love to be petted and come right up to you.

Now we are in Bequia which we have always loved. The flotilla of boats came with us so we have continued our socializing. Yesterday 18 of us (see picture) took a hike up the mountain to Peggie’s Rock. It was a 4 hour hike and we were all exhausted when we got back but it was really fun. Magnificent views.

We spent 11 days in St. Lucia socializes. We didn’t tour because we had already done that twice before and when you have 40 some boats there already to party, you just have no choice. So after we had spent our budget for the month and the winds changed (like Mary Poppins) off we went to Bequia.
We anchored in a very remote little bay for the night call Laborie with 2 other boats. It's just below the Pitons. They left in the middle of the night. So at 5 am when we went to pull anchor our engine alarm went out. We discovered our bilge completely full of water. Yikes!!! So I bailed and Harry hand pumped and we finally got the level down to where we could see the leak. It turned out to be a huge leak in the stuffing box. Easy fix with tightening of the bolts and off we went. Harry has often said, the best bilge pump is a scared sailor with a bucket!! He was right.

So off we went to sail to Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. It's a one overnight past Dominica and Martinque (we have toured both those islands before) so we decided to skip them. We had a great sail adventurely once we got over by the islands and sailed all night to St. Lucia.
St. Lucia is a huge harbor where there are about 40 boats awaiting with us to go south. The harbor is beautiful with beaches and resorts and nice marinas etc. Very civilized with too many tourists, even in off season. The first to greet us with Gregory with is produce boat. What a sight. We remembered him from 5 years ago. Some things just don't change. (see picture)

We met up with more South Africans. We are beginning to think, everyone has left S. Africa. They really are a lot of fun, although half the time you can't understand them. They say it is a Dutch accent but it sure does sound English, almost Australian to me. The next day here comes our other S. African friends that we knew from Antiqua so we are now surrounded.

Finally we got a go from our wonderful weather man, Chris. So on Wednesday, after spending 2 weeks with these guys, we said good-bye, we hope temporarily. We wanted to sail to Marie Galante, a French island off Quadeloupe and they wanted to go straight down a couple of islands to Martinque. We planned to meet further down island. Before we left, Shirley cut my hair. Except for her husband, this was her first try. She did a great job, looks good even up close and we said good-bye. We left at 3 am and sailed all day to Marie Galante. The next morning we took on the challenge of trying to rent a scooter in a small town where no one speaks English, they don’t take US currency and we had no Euros. What a fun experience. After doing a lot of walking around, we walked into a small hotel where the clerk actually spoke some English. We called the scooter man and he arrived 15 minutes later. Then the challenge was on because the scooter man did not speak any English. Harry had to bring his 2 years of high school French to his frontal lobe and my 1 semester of college French. I kept thinking where is my cousin, Kathy, the French teacher or Colleen, our friend who got us through Martinque last time. Anyway, after lots of hand gestures and broken French words we realized he would not rent us a scooter because it had to be locked up at night and he would be gone. We would not be back in time. So he rented us a car for just 8 Euros more gave us a map, put it on a charge card and off we went. I am guessing the car was from the 1980’s.
We got to a gas station because the car was on empty and having no idea what we were doing put what we thought was 10 gals of gas in. It turned out to be 10 Euros, about 2 gals and the man refused US dollars and couldn’t get his charge card to work. By now I am picturing how many hours we would have to work at the gas station to pay for this. But once inside, the man worked on another credit card machine and it took our card. Yea!! Now off we go with 2 gals of gas. (Not a very big island, thank heavens). So we drove across the island which took about 30 minutes to a little seaport town named Capesterre. We found a really cute restaurant and first thing we did is ask if they take Visa. Yes, she did so we then had to figure out what to eat. Nothing written on the board made sense to us (she spoke no English) so she brought out a plate with a raw Mahi Mahi on it and said “oui” and we said “oui”. About 10 minutes later here comes this huge plate of food with a beautifully grilled fish and 5 sides. Wow, what a treat. As we were paying the bill our charge cards would not work on her machine. She spent 10 minutes trying. Now I am figuring how many dishes we would be washing. Finally one of the cards went through. So once again we are on our way. We did stop for more gas. Then we drove to the north end of the island to have the most spectacular views over the cliffs including a huge blow hole. (See the picture). We ended up having a fantastic adventure and got the car back to its home. Harry was to meet the man the next morning to return the key to the car. He gets in the dinghy and prompting drops the key in the water under our boat. (Another disaster). How many cars will I have to wash to make up for this mess!!!
With Harry’s extremely limited French, he had to tell the man. (not good). He sent a diver out to free dive under our boat. It only took him about 15 minutes to find it. I could stop hyperventilating then Harry waved a US $20 bill at him. Amazing, he snatched it right up. I guess they do know what to do with US money after all. We were saved once again.