Leaving St Lucia
Stargazer of Southampton
Susie and Adam (both think they are skipper)
Sat 5 Feb 2011 12:38
 Time to leave St Lucia and head north to
Martinique. We've had a good 3 weeks here, in the North Rodney Bay has
everything you need - it is nice but not stunning, the really beautiful scenery
is in the south, pic above is from one of the moorings we stayed on in Soufriere
Bay - the 2 boats on the left were our closest neighbours and underneath where
we were moored were corals and lots of fish - what more can you ask for.
Did a few dives - saw some turtles and lots of eels - sharptailed eels look like
snakes, I thought the first one was a snake. . .
  We had our first experience of 'boat boys' in
Soufriere though - this happens all over the Caribbean - guys on little
boats come out to all the yachts offering fruit, bread, help you tie to a buoy,
take the rubbish away, sort a taxi out to take you to the sights etc -
all for a price - some islands they have a very bad reputation. We found
them ok - after a couple of days they actually gave up with us (perhaps they
realise that British are stingy - or perhaps Adam's beard scared
them away) - much richer pickings to be had from the Americans on charter
boats - they are only here for 2 weeks so have money to spend on such things
whilst we prefer to take our own rubbish ashore to bin it and we won't
be booking on any island tours (why would we when we can spend hours getting hot
and tired walking the wrong way up a big hill when looking for tourist
attractions - anything else is just no fun)
Sailed up the coast back to Rodney Bay the other
day to fit some parts we had sent through for the infamous duo-gen, and found
Steve and Julie from 'Dos Tintos' who we were next to in the Marina back in Gran
Canaria, and who were then later responsible for me having a bad hangover
in Mindelo, had a catch up and a couple of Rum's with them yesterday and
got the updates on where various people are up to. Found out that Jim
who we got to know in Porto Santo is in Barbados and planning to come to St
Lucia in the next couple of days - he crossed the Atlantic on his own and by the
sounds of it had quite a few rigging trauma's - don't think we'll see him before
we move on though. We also found out that Jad who we also met in Porto
Santo (French / Moroccon surfer bloke with a very small boat
which has an outboard engine) actually set off across the Atlantic (mad) - the
last report was that after 24 hours from Mindelo he had lost his rudder -
no sign of him since - that was about 25 days ago, hope that he is ok - wouldn't
like to be out there alone in that boat. . .
In the bar tonight we saw Stuart again (haven't
seen him since La Graciosa - Scottish chap who had a horrible crossing to
Porto Santo) - he looks like a much happier chap than last time we saw him -
perhaps it is getting the atlantic crossing out of the way, or it may be that he
has a new engine on his boat now!
Found some good and some strange food and drink
here - we could buy Tofu and cheddar cheese - two things we have missed being
able to get for months. We were searching for orange cordial the other day
and found a local cordial drink, it is basically like liquid licorice - Adam
likes it buy I'm not so sure. Also they have cocoa sticks here that you
use to make cocoa tea - they look like very fat cigars and smell very nice as
they are made with cocoa and spices such as cinnamon, you are supposed to grate
them into milk and then heat that for a while to make a drink - we tried, the
flavour was very nice but it was a bit too gritty, we need a better strainer I
think as straining it through your teeth was not ideal.
Planning to sail to Martinique on Sunday -
allegedly you can buy everything there that you can buy in France so looking
forward to some nice bread and goats cheese!
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