14:04.40N 60:57.02W

Tuesday 18th, Wednesday 19^th & Thursday 20^th Jan

Spent the morning getting Serafina ready for the sail over to St Lucia and then at lunchtime we went ashore to join Steve, Chris, Bob and Lin for a buffet lunch at Cave Sheppards which is the department store in Bridgetown. I probably ate too much bearing in mind that we were about to set off on an overnight passage, but we all had a good time and we were sorry to have to say goodbye to Bob and Lin who have been so helpful and accommodating.

We were a little nervous about the fact that we were due to have left the island by 11.30am and our nerves were not allayed at all by the unusual appearance of a small customs launch that picked up a buoy only 100 metres from us and sat there all afternoon whilst we made ourselves finally ready for the off!  Our departure was delayed a little by yet more big squalls that brought strong gusts and loads more rain and we had eventually to don our full waterproofs and raise the anchor and head off north east for St Lucia.

Scott-Free left at the same time, indeed we followed them for the first hour which was under engine as the wind had dropped away to just 5 knots. We cleared the main harbour passing Queen Mary 2 and two other cruise ships and gradually the wind began to pick up as we got further from the island.  Before too long we were able to shut the engine down and were soon sailing briskly with 12 knots of wind and soon after that we had nearly 20 knots of wind and were sailing at 8 knots and quickly passed Scott-Free as the sun went down and was replaced by a full moon as the heavy clouds began to clear leaving a clear starlit sky.

We then had to reef down as we were going too fast, based on the fact that we had 100 miles to go and still had 11 hours of darkness ahead of us and as usual did not want to arrive in the dark. The wind increased to 25 knots which was fine, but as we broke clear of the lee of the island we found the Atlantic to be very inhospitable. The sea and waves were very confused and the next 12 hours were as uncomfortable and as unpleasant as anything we have had probably over the whole of the past year. Fortunately we were blessed with a full moon and a clear sky all night, but we took waves over our decks from pretty much all angles and directions! The big rollers were pretty much as usual but there were seemingly two other wave patterns at work so we got slammed by unexpected walls of water which either broke into the cockpit or better for us were the ones that broke over the bows and ran down the decks hitting the deck screen. Sarah also spotted an unusual sound to one of the deck drains while it was clearing water off the deck, and to her horror, realised it was the rather vital handheld remote for the anchor.  I had forgotten to bring it back into the cockpit after raising the anchor and it was gaily floating along the toe-rail of the boat, on its way to a nice sweep off the open stern! Off-watch sleep was not easy generally but the saving grace was that we were making such good speed, we knew that it was only the one night to put up with.

There was a bit of excitement with several large ships sharing the same route as us but everything worked out OK and as dawn broke we were just a few miles from the northern tip of St Lucia. We made our way into Rodney Bay and finally into the marina where we were made to feel very welcome indeed. Sarah had cleverly pre-registered for our customs, immigration and health online using ‘eSea Clear’ which made us very popular with the officials as it saved them a lot of work and it seems is not used by nearly enough people.

First impressions of the place were very favourable and we found everyone to be extremely helpful, although we were met by a number of entrepreneurial locals all offering their services mainly based on boat cleaning and polishing. We both agreed that ‘Vision’ was the most plausible and were not too surprised when Scott-Free took him on to clean and polish their hull. (We might well do the same tomorrow.) We met up with Shaun McMullen who lives on his boat here in the marina during the sailing season and who had been very helpful to us via email when we were looking for recommendations for a suitable place to leave Serafina in May for the hurricane season. He was keen for us to meet others here and was also eager to give us any help and advice we needed. As it happened though we never made the rendezvous in the bar in the evening as the rainstorm that arrived was pretty spectacular and having had such a bad night the previous night, we opted for a quiet night in and some sleep.

Thursday dawned bright and sunny and just as we were about to start on the long list of things we had planned, Shaun arrived and asked if we wanted to join him and some others for coffee in one of the bars. This lead to us meeting a number of others including his partner Gabby and his brother Steve and his partner Jenny all living afloat here in the winter and we gleaned a lot of information about both the island and the Caribbean generally. Seems (like so many other places we have been over the past three years) that the weather right now is highly unusual and in this case, rather than the frequent very heavy rain showers we have experienced here, this time last year they were in the grip of the worst drought for 50 years! Mmmm.

The rest of the day seemed to slide by as we discovered various shops, chandleries etc. added to which Sarah and Chris disappeared for a large part of the afternoon in the dinghy to explore the nearby shopping mall. They reported back that the shops were OK but the Haagen Daz ice creams were divine!

Yet more rain, but we braved the weather in the evening and we popped along to the marina bar for a sundowner with Steve and Chris and it was no surprise that we met up with Shaun and the others for a few beers.   It was really quite noisy, what with the rain and very loud and shrill (Tree?) frog cries.

We have certainly been impressed by the all infrastructure here and plan to get quite a few things done one way or another before we leave Rodney Bay to explore some of the  other parts of the island both by land and sea. One thing is for sure and that is that we are not short of information and really helpful advice.

some new photos posted at www.rhbell.com as well.