14:05.41N 60:57.78W

Thurs 27^th, Fri 28^th, Sat 29^th, Sun 30th and Monday 31^st Jan

Thursday and Friday evenings involved a bit of competitive boat inspecting, with Goran and Helene from Ellen coming on board Serafina for drinks, armed with a camera! Goran is a self confessed lover of stainless steel and his boat has had huge amounts of additions and jobs done by Timo who is the star stainless man who usually does work for Najad, Hallberg Rassy and Malo yachts back where they are all built on the island of Orust in Sweden. Goran’s main interest though was our bimini and the gantry at the back and he studied every detail with the very definite plan to have his own very weak bimini replaced as soon as practical. We had a great evening  and they had news on all sorts of people we knew and since their home waters are the islands around Henan we were able to relate well to their stories.

On Friday it was the return match and suddenly I realised why they had seemed fairly unimpressed with one or two of the items I had been proudly showing to them on Serafina. Their boat is nominally the same as ours and just one year older, but it is different in so many ways. Certainly there were twinges of envy as we were shown round, but I guess this works all the time, both ways. Anyway they were of course wonderful hosts and we had a second very entertaining evening.

On Saturday we finally tore ourselves away from the marina berth and headed out into Rodney Bay to sit on the anchor while we wait for the new dinghy to arrive and to enjoy the peace and quiet that comes at anchor. The breeze is fresher and the turquoise blue water invites you to spend lots of time swimming, which is about the only real exercise we get and so far out here we have done almost none at all. It was while swimming on Saturday that I began to inspect our hull a bit closer after the trip over and as expected found barnacles etc round the stern and on the aft hull sections where the hull is contact with the water when sailing but does not have antifouling paint applied. But on the bow, just below the water, I found limpets growing which was a surprise to me as you wonder how they get to grab onto a vessel slicing through the water! Presumably they started life when we were in a marina in the Canaries perhaps?

We were just contemplating the next stage of our travels without Scott-Free around anymore, when they duly appeared and anchored about 40 metres away. At some stage soon we will be parting company!

Rodney Bay and St Lucia in general have had a chequered history of ownership. For centuries the French and English fought each other over these islands and St Lucia changed flag 14 times in 150 years. The British eventually prevailed here and Pigeon Island and Rodney Bay became the home of a British Fleet set on attacking the French occupied islands to the north. However despite the French ceding St Lucia to the English in 1814 we were a little slow it seems in replacing the existing French customs etc. and so most towns here have French names and the local Patois is French based!

Pigeon Island (which is actually joined to the main island by a  newish causeway) still has the remains of the fort, barracks and some of the defences and is now a park maintained by the St Lucia National Trust. Situated here overlooking their own old wooden jetty is a restaurant/bar called Jambe de Bois which is a wonderful idiosyncratic wooden shack with rickety tables and chairs outside made from bits of old wooden ships. The view is across the bay and the breeze is refreshing as are the rum punch cocktails. In fact we left Steve and Chris there on Saturday night as they celebrated their wedding anniversary, with Steve last seen going downhill fast!

On Sunday morning we woke to find another Najad moored very close to us. This turned out to be ‘Flying Penguin’, a Najad 440 which is on its way north through the Caribbean.  There we were thinking how intrepid we were having completed sailing 15,000 miles in Serafina since leaving Sweden ourselves in 2007 and just got here having left the Middle East in July 2010 and then they turn up on their way north having sailed from Sweden (in 2008) all the way down to the Falkland Islands and then back up to here! They were only planning to stay for the morning here in Rodney Bay and then sail on up to Martinique, but when we suggested that they could come for drinks in the evening if they changed their minds....they changed their minds!

Chris and Steve joined us as well and we sat fairly spellbound as Brittis and Hjalle told us some of their harrowing tales of adventure including being knocked down (boat laid over 90 degrees on its side) three times during a storm that blew at 60 knots for two full days and nights;  and being run down and dismasted near Istanbul in their previous yacht by a Bulgarian cargo ship! They also had wonderful stories about their trip down to the Falklands and all the research they had done for rounding the Horn (he also had business connections in Chile) but in the end one of their daughters announced that she was getting married and all their plans went by the board. They brought with them their ship’s teddy bear ‘Charlie’ who clearly goes everywhere with them and even has his own section on their website www.flying-penguin.se and so we introduced him to ‘Hans’ our ship’s teddy! Anyway the evening flashed by far too quickly and they are heading off now, north to follow the east coast of America up to New York and perhaps beyond.

On Monday Steve, Chris, Sarah and I decided to trek to the top of Pigeon Island which involved making two pretty steep climbs. The  first took us up to the old gun emplacements from the 1780’s overlooking Rodney Bay where the English fleet had been based and then the second took us to the top of Signal Hill which was the look-out point from which you can clearly see Martinique, just 25 miles away. It was needless to say hot work, but we did at least make an early start and then celebrated with lunch in the Jambe du Bois restaurant back overlooking the anchorage. We have posted a few photos of the expedition as usual at http://www.rhbell.com/photos_2011.html