January 2021

Weyve
Kev and Jan Sherwood
Sat 16 Jan 2021 21:13

 

14:05.301N 60:57.701W

 

Hello all , back again at last

Well there is lots to catch up on from our last blog at Xmas.

Marigot bay was beautiful , no doubt about it , but being a small bay with hills all round we were very sheltered from the wind and it got very hot at night , and the mosquitos had a feast on all who moored there  so we decided it was time to move on.

Nest stop was a  stunning anchorage between the Pitons which are two volcanic pointy rocks that are always included in photos of St Lucia.

 

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This is also where the big boys bring their toys to play

 

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We had a lovely few days here and helped the locals a bit by doing a beach clean up with the other boats , collecting about four dustbin sacks of plastic. It’s a great shame but there is a posh hotel on the beach and they only clean the area right in front of the building and don’t bother at all about the rest of the beach even though it’s fairly obvious that some of the waste comes from their guests . With this in mind we took our sacks and gave them to the hotel , as you can imagine they were really grateful.

Later that week we had a New Years Eve barby on the beach with lots of rum punch  As it gets dark over here at 6.00pm we tend to be in bed fairly early so we all agreed to celebrate the new year to suit our home clocks , Turkey , Germany and UK . The only ones to miss out were the Americans as we were all in bed by then.

 

A couple of days later we moved around the corner to Soufriere which is a bit of a wild west town but really fascinating and full of interesting characters , street BBQ’s and little bars.

 

 

This is the anchorage taken from the water front at Soufriere

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As you can  see there are very few boats , probably no more than twenty when there would normally be 75 or more. This is a real problem for the town traders who rely heavily on the tourist trade. One of the most notable impacts has been on the ’boat boys’ who visit the boats in the anchorage selling fish ,bread , fruit etc and who have very little trade this year. With so little custom some  do tend to become a bit of a pest after a while and the more bothersome ones have to be told in no uncertain times that you don’t wish to be bothered.  All the boaties are sympathetic to their plight and more than happy to give a few dollars to a young lad  for ‘looking after’ the dinghy when you go shopping even though there is official security on the dinghy dock , or give a couple of dollars for a banana leaf bird even though you already have four ,  but when one tries to sell you a loaf of bread for $30 when you know he’s just bought it in the supermarket for $3 it stretches the patience a bit.

The anchorage is looked after by rangers as it all comes under the protection of the National Park and these guys are really helpful and will arrange tours , take your rubbish or act as water taxis.

Generally everyone in the town is really friendly and says ‘hi’ when you pass by .

We took a trip into the rainforest which was very enjoyable albeit hot and sweaty.

 

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After a quite a long hike up a mountain , led by our Rasta guide , and down into the valley on the other side we came to a beautiful waterfall where we all had a cool down before the even more demanding hike on the way back.

 

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Despite my resolve to never visit another garden I eventually relented and we visited the Diamond Botanical Garden which I have to admit was cool , peaceful and beautiful .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

Well now we’re back in Rodney Bay , having our alternator altered to charge our house batteries and a dc-dc charger fitted to charge the starter battery from the house batteries. This just means that on days when there is no sun or wind we can run the engine to keep our batteries toped up.

With all the wind we have been having lately our wind generator has been doing a sterling job helping out the solar panels on cloudy days and making sure we have enough power to run our water maker which we are using to make about 50 litres a day which only takes half an hour and gives us plenty for showers.

 

We are still waiting to see where we can go next , we are due out of St Lucia on 24th but we can geta 6 month extension to our visa for no cost so if the works aren’t complete by then we will need the extension. Most of the fleet are now in Martinique with a few in Antigua , we would like to go to Dominica next which opened its borders to yachts yesterday but they haven’t published the entry protocol yet and if its too onerous then we will head for Antigua as well bfor a few weeks before heading south to St Vincent and the Grenadines.

 

We’ll keep you posted.

 

Be safe

 

Kev and Jan

 

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