A day of engagement

Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Fri 28 Dec 2012 10:46
It all started the day before yesterday, Gustaf (Lisas boyfriend) asked me if he may propose to my daughter.
Of course I said yes and could only add that I cannot think of anybody better.
So yesterday we started with singing and greeting Gustaf with a birthdaycake as he had his birthday, but I also knew he had something bigger coming up.
We pulled the anchor, filled up the tanks and sailed off towards the south of St Lucia (Le Pitons).
We had a great sailing with almost flat sea, the warm wind from behind and just the genua out making 5 knots.
Lisa went to her favorite spot on a sailboat, at the bow. Gustaf proposed there and she said YES! Ellinor opened a bottle of champagne when they came to the cockpit and we celebrated.
Well in Soufriere we where attacked by all these entrepreneurs that want to make some mney from boats. Really stressful!
We did not find a good mooring (You are not allowed to anchor in the bay due to preservation of the bottom), but a norwegian boat "Coral" offered to let us share their mooring with them.
Very nice!  At six we took off with the dinghy to the small village to eat and celebrate ustaf end Lisas engagement.
Went to a recommended restaurant, and she made us a Creol dinner with steamed tuna with different kinds of potatoes and vegetables. Really good and DIFFERENT, but we had to wait for abot one hour and a half to gert the food. Erika, a very structured girl, had of course watercolour book, a gift from  Johanna (her syster), and brushes. So she kept Andreas and herself busy while waiting.
The atmosphere in the village at night was not nice, a lot of beggars and children that wanted to be paid for checking our dinghy (we never asked for it). It is easy to see that the standard of living is low and it is very stressful to be seen as a walking wallet.
We pay for services provided by the boatboys etc, thinking that we just fed an multinational marina with 600 EC dollars for staying there one week.
The night was rought and by two the rigs banged into each other and the boats where really amusing themselfes so we had to leave the buoy and find a spot where you can anchor till the sun comes up. Thus we went up at six, pulled the anchor and found a buoy from a boat that just left.
Now we will check out from StLucia and move towards Bequia.