St Lucia, rum, rain and wind.
Jigsaw
Mon 31 Dec 2007 16:01
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Arrived here in St Lucia, at about 22:15, on
26th December to a very, very, warm welcome from the rest of the ARC fleet who
were already in port. Hooters roaring, lights flashing and people clapping and
cheering as we came into the dock. Rum punch appeared, and dissapeared,
very quickly, lots of chat and a multitude of stories exchanged, fish, brakages,
weather, crew, food, did not know which way to turn!!!! Eventually went to
sleep, or rather collapsed, at about 4am when we had drunk just about everything
in Rodney Bay. Woke up with sense of disbelief and slight confusion, everything
was really challenging, took me two days to work out how to use the telephone
and another two days to find out how to get out of the
marina.
As the very last ARC boat to arrive in Rodney
Bay we had very minor celeb status for aout 24 hours, loads of people coming by
the boat to say hello and welcoming Jigsaw to St Lucia. It has taken
several days to become accustomed to being ashore again, eating and
drinking without holding on with one hand is a major novelty. Not
monitoring batteries and water levels every day is a relief, being able to pop
to the shop for something you need is a luxury, sleeping for more than
three hours at a stretch is well odd, after three weeks of watch and watch about
I still wake up at very odd hours. Being able to talk to people by telephone for
more than 2 minutes is particularly wonderful.
Getting used to St Lucia, weather has been wierd,
very very heavy rain quite frequently in the last few days, rain that
is capable of soaking you to the skin in two minutes, only managed one trip
to the beach so far. Kate and Molly are finding their way around well and have
their morning routines of swimming, then going for breakfast at the Bread
Basket Cafe. Their friends Connor and Annika are here too and so they are
happy to have that contact away from the adults on Jigsaw. Just starting to find
my way around and getting ready to move on from Rodney Bay in day or two.
Not sure of onward routing yet, but may head south towards Trinidad for the
Carnival, then back up towards the BVI for May with the idea of leaving for the
Azores in mid May. Back to UK in June, will then need a holiday to recover from
the trip!!
Paul.
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