Sailing around the World,
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Fri 29 Apr 2011 11:48
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FRIDAY 29th APRIL
2011
History :- Colunbus discovered St. Lucia in
1502, At that time it was controlled by the " Carribs" a fierce tribe that
originally
came up from South America and conquered all the
Caribbean islands,
The next few hundred years were spent fighting for
control of the island between the French and the English. It changed hands
more than 14 times and eventually settled in the
hands of the English. It became an independant state in 1979 and
remained
part of the commonwealth, The population is
predominantly of African slave descent with some racial
intermixing.
Its main buisness is agriculture and tourism,
bannanas, coco nut, and sugar cane are still a large part of the
agriculture.
TUESDAY :- We had a very windy day,
arriving at Rodney Bay around 11.00hrs , we were directed into berth no. " D
28"
and when we were secured to the dock, skipper had
to re wire all the extension cables for the shore power, but eventually
it
all worked, despite the heavy showers,
We cleared ourselves into St. Licia customs and
immigration at the marina office plus we have the benifit of 3 free nights
on the marina because we are part of the World Arc
,
The Mc millans arrived around 5pm and were whacked
from the travelling, so when we got them settled into the boat, we went
to the marina
complex and had an early dinner , a couple of beers and lots of chat and
catching up,
It was a very wet evening, umbrella's and rain
jackets were the order of the day. and we all still got drenched,
WEDNESDAY :- Skipper and Ian were up
real early, and had plenty of chat, later skipper went ashore and had a
shower
in the new showers that have been built since the
last time we were here. ( Jan 2009 ) There he met a couple of Irish
guys
who live mainly in Barbados. As Mike explained to
skipper, the reason he was living there was because he got caught in
the wrong bed with the wrong woman , so had to
leave home in a hurry.
after a light breakfast, we took our " rent a ride
" hire car and explored the Island, now the weather was terrible, and we got
wet
plenty of times during the day, The island is
really green at the moment with all the rain, and to think last
year
the island had to import water as they had a
drought.
On our return journey, we picked up some " Domino"
pizza's and had them for supper on the boat, Thats a first,
We looked over some photo's and had an early night,
but despite the weather, we had a good day,
THURSDAY :- We got 2 new
gel batteries for the Davitts and fitted those into the lazerette before
heading off in the rain to
have lunch in the " Pink House " near " Castries" (
the capitol of the Island )..... The restaurant was perched on the top of a
westerly
facing hill and looked down over Castries and the 2
big cruise ships docked down below.
The rain was never ending , God! we havent
seen the likes of this for a long time, but we still enjoyed the
lunch
and the whole place, which is owned by 2
sisters, one of which is an artist and potter, " Michelle elliot" well
she was interesting and colourfull and spoke to us
at length.
We stopped off at Michelle's Home , a restaurant
called " the Coal Pot " in the lagoon down in the Bay of Castries,
again
this was a special place and is renowned for its
food, there we had a coffee admiring the tourist boats and fishing boats come
and go
in the rain, yes , its still raining,
We stopped off at the " Spinniker" restaurant on
our way back to the boat, we enjoyed this place when we were here with the
ARC
in 2009, and it is still good, " Happy Hour" was
going strong when we arrived , so we took full advantage of that before
swimming
back to the car and eventually making our way back
to " A Lady" totally saturated,, Ohhhhh, where is this rain comming from
!
We all got into clean dry clothes, and had a cup of
tea, followed by chat and then the boys watched " Crimson Tide"
while the girls went to bed ,A great film , a
mans film about two strong carachters on a nuclear Sub, " Gene Hackman" was the
main
man in the film, and he is always worth a look.
meanwhile , the rain was torrential, and of
course we had to have a good dose of thunder and Lightning to boot.
The rain continued all night, It was worse than our
trip across thew Indian Ocean, and that is saying something,
We also learnt that " A Lady " came 1st in her
class during the World ARC trip. and with having had a 4th in the "
Oyster"
regatta we were all happy bunnies again.
FRIDAY MORNING :- 05.45 hrs,
Skipper hopped out of the scratcher , only to find Joan up before him. The rain
had eased off somewhat,
but we wont get excited just yet,
Thats it for now. :- Stephen
Hyde ( Skipper )
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