Helen and Dusty's visit
Chiscos - Atlantic Cruise
John Simpson
Tue 3 Jan 2012 18:42
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John and I were joined by Helen (John's sister) and
Dusty (our brother-in-law) for a week's fun in St Lucia. They stayed at
the Bay Gardens Inn, Rodney Bay and so were within 15 minutes walk or a short
dinghy ride of Chiscos. On their first evening
we introduced them to Spinnakers bar on Reduit Beach, which is a fantastic
vantage point for watching the sun go down.
 Christmas was still in full swing and I was particularly
taken with the Domino's Pizza restaurant in Rodney Bay, which had gone to town
with a huge range of Christmas lights in the garden, including a large
illuminated nativity scene. This was the only Christian reference I saw in
any of the decorations here, although the local people seem to attend Church and
the majority are Roman Catholic. There was a four hour midnight mass on
Christmas Eve and then another one on New Year's Eve. Our taxi driver on
New Year's Eve said he would have no problem in picking us up at 1.30 am as he
would be coming straight from Church!
 After a lazy first day acclimatising, we hosted a Rum
& Coke party on board Chiscos to introduce Helen and Dusty to our ARC
friends. 17 people crowded into Chiscos' cockpit, which was no mean
feat! The bow was well out of the water with the weight in the stern, and
it was an uphill walk to the table to pour drinks in the cabin! On the
Thursday (29 Dec) we took Chiscos out into the bay and anchored near Pigeon
Island for snorkeling. It wasn't a great success as the water was quite
cloudy and Dusty got some sea urchin spikes in his foot! However, whilst
we were sitting having a cup of tea a sea turtle swam by and popped its head up
to see what we were doing. He was too quick for us to photograph him
though.
John and I had noticed that a segway tour was available
from Rodney Bay and, having had fun on the segways in La Coruna, we booked a
tour for Friday afternoon. Our two guides provided some instruction
to begin with and we were all soon whizzing through the forest on the hills
around Rodney Bay. Dusty's face was a picture - I think he'd have liked to
have kept a segway for the week!
 Our guides were very knowledgeable about the history of
the island and also the medicinal properties of the many plants and herbs we saw
on the way. There didn't seem to be much that couldn't be cured with the
leaves!
 Half way through the tour we stopped for a jungle fruits
picnic, where the local fruits were cut up for us to taste: delicious oranges,
grapefruit, mangoes, bananas and coconuts. We tried the coconuts in their
various stages from green through yellow to brown. The local people seem
to eat the younger coconuts more than the mature ones we're used to. There
are coconut vendors by the roadside selling the green coconuts which they slice
with a large machete so that the coconut water can be drunk straight from the
shell. The insides of the young coconuts contain a white jelly rather than
the solid white core of a mature coconut. We were not too keen on the
jelly, but the water was lovely.
We climbed the last few feet at the top of the hill to a
rock face pond full of fish which fed on bread brought for us to feed to
them.
 We continued our adventure activities on the Saturday
with a 'three adventure' day. This consisted of an hour's ride in an open
top jeep across the island, followed by zip wire rides through the rainforest
and a dip in the highest accessible waterfall on St Lucia. There were 12
zip wires to ride through the treetops, each increasing in length, height and
speed. We donned protective hairnets, helmets, harnesses and gloves and
set off with some trepidation. Dusty was the first to ride and didn't look
too keen!
 However, we soon got the idea and had a great time
zipping through the trees and across the gorge.
  In the evening we had all been invited to join a party
at the Bay Gardens Beach Resort organised by Caroline from S/Y Peat Smoke.
She had 19 members of her family in St Lucia for the Christmas/New Year period
and we augmented that with 20 people from ARC boats so we made up a
sizeable party. St Lucians referred to this as an Old Year's Night party,
as they also celebrate New Year's Evening on 1 January. The buffet was Asian
cuisine, with each table carrying dishes from different countries such
as Japan, Malaysia, Singapore. The hotel provided us with tables literally
on the beach; the theme of the evening was red/black/gold and the tables were
beautifully decorated in the colours. As the evening progressed the hotel
staff handed out party hats, rattles and streamers; Dusty decided to decorate
himself to match the colour scheme. He had to leave the Chair
cover behind at the end of the evening, despite trying to persuade a member of
staff that he was the Caped Crusader!
   Sunday 1 January began with a late breakfast at Rituals
Coffee Shop, whose sign looks remarkably like Starbucks! We have enjoyed
several breakfasts of omelettes and filled bagels there. In the evening we
had a beach barbecue with crews from Beyzano and Time Bandit. Despite all
the shops being shut and our original fear that we wouldn't have enough food to
go round, we pooled our resources and had a feast of burgers, steaks and salads
followed by cheesecake and banoffee pie - plus Rum and Coke of course, still
trying to work our way through the prize winners rum selection. Time
Bandit had just been joined by new crew (Brian and Agnes) who had spent
Christmas on their own boat in Scotland. I don't think they could quite
believe the difference in the weather!
The last full day with Helen and Dusty (Monday) was
spent on Reduit Beach, snorkeling at first. The snorkeling was much more
successful this time and we saw plenty of fish, coral and other sea
life amongst the rocks in the corner of the bay. We sat on the beach
for a couple of hours and there were several heavy downpours of rain but luckily
we managed to be sheltering in a restaurant for lunch during the worst shower
and in Spinnakers later in the day when it rained again. In the evening we
visited a lovely restaurant called The Edge, so called because it is literally
on the edge of the waterside in Rodney Bay lagoon. Beyond our table was an
open-air balcony over the water.
 On the whole, the food we have eaten in St Lucia has
been very good and The Edge was no exception. It was a fabulous way to end
the week with Helen and Dusty. We bade them farewell this morning
(Tuesday) - what a lot we managed to pack into the week!
I have a few more days in St Lucia before returning to
the UK on Sunday 8 January and John will have a few days on his own then
preparing Chiscos for the next leg of the trip. Mikaela will be returning,
joined by Carrie Parkinson and Anne Noon for a trip South to Grenada
and the Tobago Cays.
Happy New Year,
Susan
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