Caribbean christmas
ULA
John & Jackie Richards
Fri 26 Dec 2008 16:25
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A Very Happy Christmas to family and friends who
may still be reading the blog. Since blogging last week we now have Laura and
Andy on board with us and our ARC crew have all departed home at various times
since last Friday. On Sunday we left St Lucia and sailed the 20 or so miles
north to Martinique and had three nights at anchor off Marin on the south coast
which we really enjoyed although for the last two nights the wind got up to over
20 knots which made the anchorage a bit uncomfortable at times. Martinique is
part of France and is relatively affluent by Caribbean standards. It was a
great place to provision up for several days with two very good French
supermarkets within dinghy ride/short walk of the anchorage. Marin is obviously
very popular and there must have been some 200 boats at anchor with the marina
there completely full and many charter boats. It is an eight hour flight from
Paris and there were many French tourists there in addition to the local
population.
The weather was a bit mixed with a scorching
30degrees (by 10am) on the first two days and a squally, quite cloudy last day.
On Monday we signed up to go diving with 'Marin Plongee' during Tuesday morning.
They took us out in their boat to a coral reef and we had our first dive
experience which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. Our guide stayed with us
the whole time and although we probably only went down for about
twenty-thirty feet max the fish and coral were spectacular. We will
definitely do this again on other islands.
Our sail back to Rodney Bay on Christmas Eve was
very windy and rolly in the swell. There are many ARC boats still in St
Lucia and the marina looks very festive with many boats displaying fairy lights
and miniature Christmas trees! The French catamaran next to us had all their
Christmas stockings hung up in the cockpit and were celebrating in the usual
European style on Christmas Eve with a big party. We joined many other ARC boats
for a Christmas Day barbeque on Reduit beach yesterday. Everyone dinghied round
with all the food and bbq's and it turned in to a bit of a 'lob in' as we all
shared out our food supplies washed down with plenty of Caribbean beer and rum
punch! The weather was fantastic and quite different to the normal Christmas day
at home - the beach was packed with a lot of Brits and other nationalities who
had obviously decided to escaped the UK/Europe for a Christmas in the sun.
John. Andy and I had a blast in a large inflatable towed by a speedboat for
EC$75 (about £20) which was quite exhilarating and interesting after the rum
punch!
On the subject of rum punch, we got in to
conversation with a few other crews who had attended the Cuthbert Didier (Rodney
Bay harbour master) ARC welcome party last Tuesday week. I had to suffer
considerable mickey taking by the rest of the Ula crew for getting
completely obliterated at this party and having to be escorted back to Ula
in a taxi by the skipper (most of which I cannot remember!!) The
following morning was carnage - contact lenses still in, make up still on
etc etc - an even worse sight than normal!?! Notwithstanding the
fact that I am a bit of a lightweight on the alcohol front my
protestations of only having three rum punches (my last one being poured in
to a palm tree by JR!) were poo pooed by everyone else who had been on
beer. It now appears that I was not alone in succumbing to a much stronger than
normal brew on the night. Most people were a bit worse for wear and apparently
one crew member from another boat was found asleep under a palm tree
around 7am and thanked Cuthbert for a great party as he was woken up and
scurried back to his boat! Our very hospitable harbour master has since been
reported to have had a good laugh at the 'quietness' in the marina on the
Wednesday morning!
What now? It is very windy here at the moment so we
are watching the weather and will probably revisit Marigot Bay and possibly
Soufriere before we have to head home on Tuesday afternoon. If not there are
many good things to do inland with the rain forest and the Pitons to visit. Not
looking forward to getting back to the UK weather and economic gloom next week
but we are looking forward to catching up with family and friends.
Jackie
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