St Lucia: lush and luvely

We left St Lucia yesterday morning : one of our earliest start (6am).

We stayed there nearly 10 days, most of them were spent in the Marine Protected area around the 2 Pitons.

The first two nights were spent in Rodney Bay. The bay is vast and the beaches nice. There was free Internet which is always appreciated! We met up with another Dean catamaran, Lou. It is a French family who left France 18 months ago.

However, the holiday resorts along the beach had noisy toys to offer to their customers: jet skis, speed boats, ... It was too much noise for us and to many waves around Merlin.

We headed South and spent the next week around Soufriere, a small village at the foot of Petit Piton.

As it is hard to anchor there and because they are trying to protect the marine environment, we gave our anchors a break and used the mooring buoys.

A local fisherman tried to help us during our first attempt and came to close to the boat, scratching the front of the port hull. After that we were very strict with the locals who came to close to us!

After a good walk in town and around, we went to discover the Botanical Garden. The kids were happy to wander again in such a garden. However, we were disappointed as most of the plants were not indigenous (SA shows the right things to do about that). Still, there were brilliant flowers, tick vegetation and quietness.

They also have some water falls with water bubbling to the surface from underground sulphur springs (yes, there is from time to time a bit of a smell).

Close to the falls, there are some warm curative private baths or small pools. We all jumped in, enjoying these therapeutical waters but most of all we loved being in fresh water! Clea’s confidence increased in that small space and she started swimming on her own

The evening, we had what the kids qualified as their favorite meal: hamburger (home made!) and baked bananas with dark chocolate.

On our way back on board, we stopped at the bat caves: hundreds of bats are in a long crack along the rocks. It was very impressive.

We spent the next days lingering and enjoying our holidays (yes it does make a difference not to do school every day!). We stopped in the different corners where boats can moor. We enjoyed the various spots, which are all different and all very nice.

We had a preference for one between the Two Pitons, which were surrounded by the mountains dropping directly into the clear blue sea. It was quite windy (we had 25knt at one stage) but our buoy was strong and reassuring. Along the beach was a very smart resort where we spend an enjoyable afternoon.

The last day in the area was spent in Anse Mitan. We were by ourselves. Merlin was moored 10m away from the shore and had 37m of water underneath. We jumped straight in the water to discover hundreds and hundreds of fish. It was like swimming in a big aquarium. We continued our fit day by a walk to the Pitons falls. It was a very steep walk which was supposed to take us 10 minutes but took us 45 min with three kids complaining of the slope, of the heat and of thirst (we are really terrible parents).

The reward was there waiting for us: a swim under the falls in another of this curative water. The walk down was much faster. We collected about 20 mangos and 2 soursops and 1 papaya. All of them are not ripe yet but we are hoping to taste our harvest very soon.

We left early the next day as a tropical wave was forecasted. For a change we sailed along the windward side of St Vincent. The wind wasn’t too strong, the sea was bumpy and we started to get tired when we decided to go back to Bequia to wait for the tropical wave to pass and then continue South again to Carriacou.

On the way, we “caught” the biggest fish ever caught since we left! So big ...that it broke our line and disappeared with our lure and hook. It was a billfish (Marlin or sailfish). We only saw it jumping away from the line: it must have been about 1.2-1.4m long! Our consolation prize was a small tuna which marinated in some lime made an excellent dinner!