Sat 5^th, Sunday 6^th and Monday 7^th Feb

Friday night and Saturday morning were not good for sleeping as the right hand side of Rodney Bay suffers from a heavy swell. Perhaps not epic like Carlisle Bay, Barbados, but enough to disturb us most of the night.

So on Saturday morning we decided to move back to Pigeon Island where things remain flat all the time and as we were about to leave, Scott-Free came on the radio to say a final cheerio as they were leaving St Lucia and heading north to Martinique. We watched them leave and then motored across the bay and anchored in a neat spot close to the shore and out of the way. Followed the exploits of ‘the other teams’ in the six nations rugby on the internet although the connection is a bit flaky this far from the signal.

Anchored further out in the bay was a cruise ship called ‘Wind Surf’ which is another of these things with masts stuck on the top to give the impression of sailing! The entertainment today though, was that the crew were ferried ashore to set up chairs and refreshments on one of the beaches and once this was ready, passengers were ferried in boats to the shore to sit in the sun, swim and enjoy a steel band. Sadly for them, we had a series of rain showers which did keep them on their toes a bit. Finally at the end of the afternoon, everything was cleared away and all returned to the ship and it headed off into the sunset.

On Sunday morning, after taking the aft heads apart and replacing two seals, we also moved back across to the other side of the bay as this allowed us to anchor close to the entrance to the lagoon. This meant that we could easily now motor into the lagoon in our dinghy and attend a surprise 60^th birthday party and lunchtime BBQ  for Steve (Shaun’s brother) at the St Lucia Yacht Club. This was a great little event and as ever we met all sorts of folks, all full of useful info about the islands, but the problem is remembering it all! Loads of Canadians out here at this time of year (Snowbirds) and usually it is impossible to tell them apart from the Americans (until too late) but today it was a breeze, because all self-respecting Americans were sat in front of the Superbowl and so all the odd accents at the party pretty much had to be Canadian!

Have to retell the wonderful story Steve told us about his Irish born mother-in-law who lives in Cape Cod. On Saturday night he was talking to her on the phone and at the end of the call she signed off by hoping that, “You really enjoy your surprise birthday party tomorrow”!

Late in the afternoon we pottered back out to Serafina in the bay, getting half drowned in a heavy downpour and then moved back across to Pigeon Island where on the second attempt we set the anchor in good holding. And a good job too as during the night the wind and rain came at us for hour after hour and by Monday morning we were still well anchored, but the GPS indicated that we had slipped around 12 feet.

Monday just slipped by with no news about the long awaited dinghy and we were buffeted by some quite strong winds which caused us to keep a keen eye on our position in case we dragged any more. We went ashore to the little restaurant on Pigeon Island, but were very disappointed to discover we had carefully selected the night they are shut!

On Tuesday we made our way back into the marina as we had been invited for drinks on board Tabasco Jazz in the evening and we just did not fancy either a night in the rolly part of the anchorage or a long wet dinghy ride home. Marina wanted to park us on the worst pontoon where we would be next to (and downwind of) a very dusty and busy road, so we said we would wait to see what else turned up around midday as boats left. By keeping a sharp ear tuned to channel 16 we eventually heard a boat call the marina staff to check his meter as he was off shortly and so we immediately called in again and were allocated a near perfect spot.

Drinks on Tabasco jazz were excellent and we also got to know Kay and Ken from Coyote. They run their boat as a charter operation for racing and corporate events both out here and back in the UK. They manage this by shipping the boat back to the UK each spring for the UK summer season and then sail it out here on the ARC every November, selling places on the trip to sailors who are keen to sail cross the Atlantic, but with no suitable boat of their own. ( http://www.kayachtcharter.com  )

Wednesday was not my most favourite day this week. I spent almost the entire day stripping down all the pipe work in the forward heads and de-scaling the hoses and pump etc. They certainly know how to build these things into a yacht, but no-one seems to have given a lot of thought as to how you might easily service and replace stuff! Sarah in marked contrast went off to the ‘Ladies Lunch’ which is a weekly event that takes place in a nearby restaurant with a pool and which takes up a sizable part of the day.   There is quite a large community  of yachts which arrive in Rodney Bay and just spend the majority of the winter (yes this is the winter here) season here, so Sarah reported that the lunch is well attended with a main core of regulars supplemented by those passing through.   There is a very wide range of experience from the novice, to one wonderful woman who is here for her twelfth year but has still managed to avoid learning to sail and another whose husband has died but she is carrying on singlehanded. (Yes, but who fixes the toilets?)

During the week we received an email from the new owners of our first Najad (which was also called Serafina until her sale) to say that they had crossed the Atlantic as well back in November and were shortly arriving in Rodney Bay, so with luck we will be meeting up with them and seeing our first boat again which will be fun.

The dinghy is alleged to be in St Lucia now, but stuck in customs........

I can think of worse places to have to sit and wait!