St. Lucia

April 24-May 4, 2015

The origin of St. Lucia’s name is not clear. It was, not surprisingly, inhabited by the Caribs,

who might have called it Iouanalao, where the Iguana is found.

What we found was a very green island, and to call it hilly with winding roads would be an understatement. It is a volcanic island and I doubt that the many Europeans who claimed it as their possession, went very far inland. It is known to have had 14 different flags from 1660 to 1814. As a constitutional

monarchy, it is a member of the British Commonwealth. Queen Elizabeth II is head of state and is represented by a Governor-General, but the island is governed by a Prime Minister and a Parliament. Their fun fact is that St. Lucia has more Nobel laureates per capita than any other country.(2 per 181,000 people).

Rodney Bay was a marina stop for us, which meant cleaning the boat, doing some routine maintenance and fixing some odds and ends. One of our key tasks before next year, was to have our liferaft serviced. We accompanied the mechanic to his shop-I was in the cab, Jason in the back being bounced around with the liferaft.  Ever notice Jason has the dirty jobs, underwater jobs and the dangerous jobs?  We watched as our liferaft was tested. I was pleased to see that there actually was a liferaft in the canister. It was also great to familiarize ourselves with the inflated structure. Outdated water and batteries were replaced and the raft was packaged up again.  How can water go bad?  The marine industry sure knows how to use fear to get into the bank account.

 

I joined the crew of Receta for a pleasant walk to the ocean side, complete with sighting of

rocket booster debris and lots of Sargassum. Speculation on the internet is that it is from a satellite launch, and if you have a few hours to spare, you can read the debate on which satellite it might be from and whether it is, or isn’t made of titanium.

Jason went for a dive with the newly-opened dive center down the block.  He was saw sea horses and a fish swimming with her eggs in her mouth waiting for them to hatch.  Rodney Bay is a short dinghy ride from some great supermarkets and a short bus ride from Castries Market. On one of my supermarket dinghy ride, I slowed down near one of the docks and a Jack Russell terrier jumped in. I was backing away when I realized he was there;  we were at least 5 feet away when he jumped back onto the dock. I hardly knew what had happened. At Castries Market, Ann and Steve  helped us navigate the local varieties; my favorite new fruit was the wax apple and my least favorite, the soursop.

At Marigot Bay, I stepped up my Jason torture. We watched the original Dr. Dolittle movie, which was filmed in Marigot Bay. Now the bay is developed, but during the filming there was nothing there, so it looked like a remote South Pacific island.  Apart from the sing-a-long to the theme song, it was sort of a bust. Even I had to fast forward through portions of it. Jason was impressed with the huge Great Pink Sea Snail that also offered oceanic passages.  The bay itself was murky but pleasant, with some nice hiking trails and use of the hotel gym.  When living in paradise on a boat you miss some of the taken for granted luxuries available onshore.  The bug-free, car about to run you over-free gym is a luxury that we could not miss. The only downside was that some of our fellow Antares owners had experienced mooring drift while there. That is their boats drifted when the poorly maintained moorings failed. Jason was again tossed in the water to tie a back-up line to the anchor block. He couldn’t see through the muck so had to follow the chain to get there.  A new sport of braille Scuba has been created.  I think next time we will just tie a rolling hitch to the mooring line below the ball.