St.Lucia, day 3 – West Coast road trip

Wednesday 28 March: It was a very peaceful night, but we were woken by a boy in a boat at 7.20, “Good morning” he politely says, “what’s your plan for today?” But he gets no politeness back from Glen as he firmly shoos him off!
Our mooring is right next to the beach but we have to get off of it by 9am, so we move yet again. We are getting pros at picking up mooring buoys! The next one is passed the beach but right next to the shore, so Glen goes for snorkel to check depth. Again it’s surprising just how many fish and pretty coral are directly below the boat, not surprising they have banned anchoring here. Breakfast is with a view directly over the resort and beach …. even the 5-star beach front rooms don’t get this view!
After breakfast we fly the drone off the deck to get a view from the top of the Petit Piton. But the software limits height to 500m, which falls 270m short of the peak above us. Still, the view from its tiny camera is awesome. Same as is the view when we fly it over the private residences with their infinity pools. Yes, of course we made sure we had permission from all the owners first 🙂
Then we move again back to the bay directly outside Soufriere town where we have ordered a hire car. As usual, a pushy boy in an inflateable tries to “help” us pick up the bouy, but we are too wise now and refuse his help. He tries his next tactic “where are you guys from?”, but we are having none of it. We tell him his buddy spoiled the market yesterday, by trying to charge us 40EC just to hand us the mooring rope.
As we go ashore we find the dinghy dock absolutely mobbed with tourists and speed boats getting their business. We can almost hear the bleating sheep sounds as we come in! Apparently there are 2 giant cruise ships docked in the main town and this is the result. The locals, who are fishermen by trade, have themselves a huge net full of fat $dollar tourists and they are having themselves a feast!
Finally, we manage to squeeze our dinghy into a small gap, fight our way through the lobster pink cruiseship passengers and onto the main road, where it’s equally chaotic with busses and taxis which have driven the passengers here. Once we have the rental car, a neat little Suzuki Jimmy, we are glad to be heading out of town towards the main town of Castres. But even on the way, at every view point, there are mini busses with yet more cruiseship fish milling around the makeshift stalls, buying poor quality souvenirs.
In the next small fishing village, Canaries, we are again on our own with the locals. We’ve seen many fishing villages on other islands, but these on St.Lucia are very colourful and notably clean. Tiny houses, almost huts, along streets which are so narrow, there are no cars parked. Clearly St.Lucians are proud people who really do give a damn about their homes and surroundings. Very different to what we saw in St.Vincent.
Next brief stop is in Magiot Bay. A very popular place for yachties. But it’s raining now, and the place doesn’t look much to us other than lots of restaurants catering especially for non-locals. We will bring CB here and hopefully it will be sunny.
The main town of Castries is very busy. Coming down into the town we get a very nice view over the area, and sure enough there are 2 ginormous cruise liners docked there. They are so big that the town itself looks like a model next to them.
As it’s still raining we drive on through and on up to Rodney Bay, where the ARC flotilla (transAtlantic rally) makes landfall every December, having left from Grand Canaria in the Spanish Canary Islands. Again, these damp rainy conditions also dampen the brilliance of the place as we look over the bay from Pigeon Island.
Then we do a bit of off-road to get to a beach on the NE coast where there is a kite surf school marked on Google maps. It’s an odd bay. There clearly was white sand, but it’s now grey because of the weed that has recently been cleared. And there is an abandoned resort which looks very creepy. The kite board school is in no better state. A nearby bar attendant tells us that last week the beach was 6ft (2m) high in rotting weed, which has just been cleared off. We imagine this is how Mustique may look like if ever allowed to get run down.
On the beach, in front of Marjorie’s Bar is a huge piece of space rocket booster. Apparently it is from a 1994 launch from French Guiana and was washed up on the beach. This is interesting, because we also saw a piece of space rocket booster on the beach in Mustique. Never mind shipping containers floating around in the oceans, maybe it’s pieces of space programs that yachts keep colliding with out there in the oceans!
On the way back we have a brief stop into Rodney Bay Marina where we have a delicious ice cream. The marina itself is 1/2 empty, but there are lots of restaurants and bars around it. It could potentially be lively. We will consider having a night in the marina when we come to pick up a Lewmar winch part which has been sent there for us.
Then another stop in Castries. It’s an interesting town and we note much more modern than Grenada or St.Vincent main towns …. more like the wealth of Barbados. But it’s early evening now and hard to really get the feel of it in the dark. The cathedral does stand out and a majestic tree in the garden nearby adds to the scene. We are drawn to it by the sound of hymns being sung, very enthusiastically. Inside it is packed with people. Clearly a service happening in conjunction with Easter. Christianity is very strong in all the islands we have seen, so Easter is going to be a big thing for them.
The road back to Soufrierre is very long. For every village the road winds down into it then another winding road back up the steep hill the other side. So it is up-down-up-down several times on steep winding roads.
By 9pm we are back in Soufriere, and as we park the car we hear locals welcoming us. It’s some of the guys we met 2 evenings ago. Nice to be known here already!
We have been wondering all day if it had rained on CB today. Our answer lies in the dinghy which has about 15cm of rain water in it that needs bailing out before we get back to CB CB is intact and had a very good rinse. There is water in the cockpit and we wonder how come? While having a light dinner and a rum punch the rain starts again, and not before long we have spots of water all over us. Mystery solved: the sunshade rolled up on the sides collects water, and as boat rolls in the swell, the rain water spills into the cockpit. So Glen strips off and goes out in the heavy rain to roll the sides the other way around. That’s his shower done for the evening! After that, is a quiet evening relaxing and writing the blog for last 2 days. If we don’t do it religiously each day, it becomes quite a task.