IMAGE - James & Patti - Pitons background
MAY 2012
We returned to St Lucia during the 1st week of May from our little French sojourn on Martinique - loaded down with enjoyable French food goodies - pastries, cheeses and pate.... delights we just cannot get here in St Lucia. It was St Lucia's annual Jazz festival from 6th to 14th June and we were keen to attend as many of the various events as possible. Unfortunately the headline act was changed from Lionel Richie to Diana Ross - so not really an artist we wished to see. The weather made for very wet Jazz........ with lots of heavy and continual rain for several days in early May - so much so, that some of the outside events were cancelled or moved to inside venues. We attended one afternoon event that was moved to the Rodney Bay mall - shame, because the acoustics were not good at all.... anyway an afternoon with free Jazz and out of the rain cant be too bad - along with all the food and drinks samples we got into the local lad Boo Hickson & friends session. The locals all turned out in force to support, applaud and swing their hips. We sailed the boat to the capital of the island - Castries- for an afternoon event titled Waterside Jazz. We anchored just 200metres from the stage - with a full view of the venue and sat back on the boat (between the rain showers) to enjoy four hours of wonderful live entertainment by several musical and vocal artists. We even had a little French picnic lunch to top it all off. Friday 11th was Ziggy Marley night - doing all his famous dads numbers - not really Jazz ... but enjoyable from what we could hear from our anchored spot now back in Rodney Bay. We moved the boat to be anchored closer to Pigeon Island where the main stage events were held on Saturday 12th Sunday 13th, unfortunately not close enough we see any of the acts, but hear the artists and crowd and see the various lighting effects. Diana Ross came on just after dark on Sunday, and crowd went wild with .... STOP IN NAME OF LOVE... booming out all across the bay. We attended the final event - titled Jazz on the Grill on Monday 14th at one of the local restaurants . Sadly because of the still inclement weather the artists were inside in a make-shift stage, but we could enjoy sitting outside watching on a large outdoor screen. The St Lucians are really into their Jazz and this Monday night event is especially arranged so that the students from the School of Music could 'session' with some of the well know acts at a finale event... and party and play they did until the early hours of the morning.
After the Jazz festival it was time to go off sailing and get ready for Penny's visit. Still with heavy rain - we have now collected so much rainwater our tanks and all our storage containers are full to overflowing - but enough is enough for now.... especially as Penny was due to visit and we had promised her Caribbean sunshine - not liquid sunshine!
We sailed to the most southern town on St Lucia - Vieux Fort to collect our 'holiday' crew member and have a week of sailing north and stopping off at all the highlights along the way. We had visited Vieux Fort previously so knew the best places in the town - ie -the locals market to stock up on all the fresh fruit and veg supplies, and beautiful fresh bread supplies - so we only needed one day to get ready. Thankfully under clear blue and sunny skies Penny arrived at St Lucia international airport on Saturday 19th at 1.30pm, and we were all back onboard and enjoying a lovely afternoon swimming by 3pm. After our traditional Sunday morning cooked breakfast we had a great sail from Vieux Fort to Soufriere, and once there to take up a National Park mooring buoy for the night perfectly located in-between the majestic Petit & Gros Pitons peaks. We enjoy some lovely afternoon snorkelling amongst the beautiful colourful fish, and James cooked an excellent evening BBQ. A perfect day - a good few hours sail, great location, snorkelling and BBQ, and Penny's company. We moved the boat on Monday 21st to another snorkelling spot within the marine park called the Bat Cave - no sign of Batman and Robin - just a few local Rasta guys with various woodcarving and shell necklaces etc to sell. This area turned out to be very rolly, so we took ourselves off to the town side of bay to go ashore and enjoy a long lazy lunch and afternoon around the pool at Hummingbird Resort. We had a lovely steady sail north along the coast on Tuesday 22nd from Soufriere to Marigot Bay. This was our typical Caribbean Palm Tree and sandy beach stop for Penny to see, experience and enjoy. We had a picnic lunch and swim, and afternoon reading and relaxing on the sand spit under the palm trees. Our evening dinner was ashore at Juliette's Restaurant - high above the bay. We arrived to be able to see a beautiful sunset, and had a wonderful meal, lots of chatting and too many large measure drinks, whilst watching the evening view down on the Bay below and La Aventura at anchor with the other yachts. Unfortunately we had a change in the weather on Wednesday 23rd for a blustery and gusty sail from Marigot Bay to Castries. After the rain cleared Penny and I had an afternoon walk around the town and we enjoyed locally cooked Roti for dinner onboard. The rain had set-in by Thursday 24th so we could only motor to Rodney Bay. The northern area of the island is very picturesque but unfortunately due to the heavy rain showers and poor visibility Penny could not get to see more than 1 mile ahead of us. So what do girls do when it's raining - yes Penny and I headed off to mall for some fun shopping , but we did get VERY wet in a short, heavy rain shower whilst we were out in the dingy - therefore a stop for 'dry-off' drinks was required at the marinas Ocean Club. On Friday 25th, under cloudy skies we all enjoyed a day trip with a hire car north to south down the east coast of the island via the aptly named Windward Highway. The driving for James was interesting as some areas on the roads had wash away damage due to the recent heavy and consistent rains. We enjoyed our morning coffee stop at the northern point overlooking Pigeon Island at the exclusive Cap Maison resort- pure luxury. On the drive through the lush groves we passed a Sainsbury's banana plantation - a compulsory 'staff' photo stop. Our journey took us to the main fishing village on this eastern coast -Dennery. The fish market was full of activity and there were so many colourful small fishing pirogues that they crowed the small harbour. The waters on this east coast looked very wild and dangerous due to the offshore reefs. We stopped at the village of Micoud for a locals lunch - grilled and baked chicken - very tasty, fresh and enjoyable. For the afternoon we headed to the LaTille Waterfalls - just wonderful. Our Host was the Rasta Man - Seli, who was the keeper of the land and surrounding environment. His gardens had many flowers, mango trees and cashews nut fruits, as well as small organic tomatoes. The main waterfalls were down a 15 minute walking path to a towering waterfall and pool in full flow. We enjoyed sitting under the falls and the natural massage from the flowing water - it was so relaxing and enjoyable it was hard to move on down another more exciting and longer path to another area where two rivers flowed over an old stone wall. The walk back to the carpark was hot and sweaty- so we just couldn't help ourselves - we just had to stop off again at the main waterfalls. There were no other visitors to the falls - so the privacy made the experience very special indeed. The weekend traditionally starts on Friday evening here in the Caribbean with an evening BBQ and loud music - and on our drive back to Rodney Bay we saw many roadside local 'events' being prepared - including the all important half oil drum full of coals and the speakers for the music. After a lovely day out we had sunset drinks back on the boat and then went to Gros Islet village for a traditional Friday night 'jump-up' and dinner - we were keen to show Penny how the locals party! The BBQ'd seafood was again excellent and the people watching at the street party was funny, with some very interesting characters. Saturday 26th came too quickly and sadly our week together has passed - so we combined Penny return to the airport with a road trip south down along the west coast. The road was generally narrow and in poor conditions with some very tight bends. Our 1st stop was at Morne Fortune, high above Castries to get a lovely panoramic view over the capital city and the surrounding bays. The road then took us back via Marigot Bay, where we had been earlier in the week in the boat - again to enjoy that lovely view down over the bay looking out to the west. We drove through the small fishing villages of Anse la Raye, Canaries, Soufriere, Choiseul and finally to Laborie. Most of these little villages were very basic and not many - if any, tourists visit these spots. We had sailed past these coastal towns, so it was good to also now drive through. We had a great late afternoon lunch stop at 'Debbie's', just outside Laborie. The local food of goat curry and saltfish was very tasty and a good locals meal. Our final viewing point for the day was back where we were a week ago at Vieux Fort - right up on the highest peak. The visibility was good - so the views around all this southern point were wonderful. It was now time to say goodbye to my friend at the airport and then we had a slow and steady drive - thankfully still in the late afternoon daylight back north to Rodney Bay. Sunday 27th - with our visitor now departed, it was boat jobs day, as James now had the engine parts that Penny had hand delivered! It was also the Monaco grand prix, but sadly we could only follow on the computer via BBC text updates from the boat as none of the marinas TVs were showing it - Mark Webber won. We got caught out on Monday 28th as it was local public holiday - so could not check-out or get fuel & water as planned - so could only do our food shopping, and listen to England V West Indies cricket on the radio (England won easily by 9 wickets) We were also very lucky to met up with Rupert at the supermarket - so could say goodbye to him and hope to meet again if and when we return to St Lucia. Rodney Bay had been a great base for us - but it was time to move on south - so on Tuesday 29th we carried out the exit formalities at the customs and immigration office in the marina, and then over to the fuel dock to fill our fuel tanks at duty free prices and a final chance to top up the water tanks. We are now a heavy boat - full of fuel, water and food and ready to head south for the hurricane season. It was sad to sail away down the coast of St Lucia- we have enjoyed our time here off and on for the last 3 months - the happy, smiley locals, our cricket matches, Jazz concerts, driving around the island and especially being able to share it with a visitor. We had a quick trip to Marigot Bay to do our laundry in the excellent facilities there. James and I could also have a great treat - wonderful marina showers - which we both truly enjoyed. As we had already checked-out we legally only had one more night in St Lucia waters - so made a late afternoon motor-sail south to The Pitons - arriving with only the moonlight to guide us to the only one vacant buoy for our last night in St Lucia. The boat boys, even at this late hour, were keen to help us - but more annoying than helpful. Thursday 31st we were up with the sunrise - heading south to SVG. We had a very mixed day of motoring in calms, boisterous sailing in storms etc, etc down the leeward side of St Vincent to Bequia. We arrived and anchored in our 'usual' spot just off the locals side of the town. During this month we met with two yachts and couples who had wintered with us in Marmaris Marine Turkey - Scott-Free and Miss Molly. We had all sailing several thousand miles between us, yet this cruising community can be a small one.