27 November.  Lovely morning in Anse D’Arlet as we motored out past the fish farm and threaded our way through the numerous, bottle marked fish or lobster traps.  Then another blustery sail just off hard on the wind to St Lucia with the Skipper at the helm as “No Hands Hans” could not cope with the wind shifts, accompanied for the last few miles by some lovely boobies fishing around the boat.  There must be a lot of young flying fish around at the moment as we have seen a huge number since leaving Dominica, which means boobies and terns for company.

 

 

 

The boobies wheeling and diving around the boat.....                                                                       ....... and more of a close up

 

As we approached St Lucia, the clouds gathered and it all looked a bit grim, but improved again as we sailed past the well remembered twin hills of Pigeon Island and into Rodney Bay.  The bay was relatively empty compared with 2 years ago, as the ARC plus boats are not due in until tomorrow, as we later discovered when booking into the Marina. 

 

 

Approaching St Lucia, not very friendly looking in the clouds......

 

 

...and looking much better as we pass Pigeon Island and approach Rodney Bay

 

We spent the day and one night anchored off the channel into the Marina and then came in yesterday to start the laundry, the clean up, the repairs that always seem to be needed and some retail therapy.

 

The Ship’s Boy leaves today and already the guest accommodation is clean and ready for January, we have collected the charts and flags and cruising guides for the World Arc and are sorting the seal for the dinghy garage door.  Tomorrow will be organising the lift out and laying up, although we will not be taking sails off or stripping the boat as it will only be 3 weeks before we are back again getting ready for the next voyage to another exotic location in which to make more repairs.  As one of the ARC sailors in 2013 said, “We are slaves to our boats”, but then it could be our garden, our children, our jobs etc.!

 

Alcedo