2/03/03.

Having pretty thoroughly sussed out the west coast of St Lucia over the last two weeks we have been able this week to take Ian and Lynn Dewar to some of our favourite places.  They joined  us in Rodney Bay on Thursday morning and we took them out to Pigeon Island for their first evening and walked up to the top if the island and had a very windy and and wet night at anchor rather reminiscent of Scotland except that the temperature was rather higher!  On Friday we took them down to Marigot and had a gormet meal on board in the outer anchorage. 

 Saturday saw us sailing down to Soufriere where we stopped for a snorkelling expedition on a reef with some of the most wonderful fan coral we have seen.  In the afternoon we moored bow to a buoy and stern to a tree off the beach at Malgretout where we had supper in Benny’s Restaurant again.  The watchman was posted on board as before while we were ashore but unfortunately they managed to take a chunk of gel out of our topsides.  I guess we have had more cosmetic damage to Oriole in the last three weeks in St Lucia than in the last seven years, and it has all been caused by boat boys coming alongside.  In this case they had been invited so John did not get upset about it.  The boat boys who insist on hanging on to a mooring you are about to pick up to hand you the rope for a sizeable tip have begun to get up John’s nose.  His new ploy is to tell them that Ian, on the helm, is under instruction and that he has got to learn to do it on his own.  This ploy worked until today when John threatened to ram the offending boat boys boat.  It was a joke but the boat boy did not see it.  This evening we are in the Anse de Piton again moored between the twin peaks in what had been a favourite anchorage during Troubadour’s cruise in 1971.  Then there was just a coconut plantation and no-one for miles around. Now there are several restaurants and a Hilton Hotel and where they had had a campfire on the beach  this afternoon we drank sundowner cocktails in a beach bar surrounded by sun bathing beauties.  Tomorrow we are off to St Vincent to give the Dewars a taste of the open Atlantic and an opportunity to practice their navigation pending the imminent arrival of their new boat.