On Saturday, March 1, we headed for Rodney Bay St. Lucia. Rodney Bay is at the north-end of St Lucia, around a high peak called Pigeon Island which hid Rodney bay from view as we approached it. Rodney Bay is a vast anchorage with a marina inside a Laguna that extends inland from the bay. We arrived in the late afternoon and found our Danish friends Sigrid and Ben from Optimus anchored near the entrance to the Laguna. We entered the Laguna in the hopes of being closer to the electrician we had contacted to come and diagnose/fix our battery issue. But boats had been asked to leave the Laguna as the marina was dredging to build new docks. We came back out to the bay and anchored on the north part. Kikuyu faced a couple of resorts (one was Sandal's) and a local beach which extends from the small town of Gros Islet. The anchorage was spacious with depths in the 15-20 feet range, just perfect for Kikuyu's anchor rode length.

On Monday, March 3, we moved Kikuyu to the Marina as our battery was very low and we needed to charge it right away. The technician was not able to come out to see our boat on Saturday or Sunday and finally showed up on Monday evening after several phone calls trying to reach him. We had to remember that we are in islands where services are not the same as in the US and often boat service personnel are very busy putting out fires. When he came aboard the technician quickly diagnosed the problem. However, it would take us an additional 2 days to completely fix the issue.

We had timed our sail to St. Lucia to meet our good friend Yvonne who was flying from Scotland to St. Lucia for her vacation and to meet with us. Maria met Yvonne while working at Kodak and has remained good friends with her throughout the past 16 years. Yvonne was staying at a resort just 3 miles north of Rodney Bay which made it easy for us to meet with her. We met Yvonne on 3 occasions which gave us an opportunity to catch up after 4 years of not having seeing each other.