Well, we have been here for around three weeks now and feel that we are settled in this part of the world. It is strange in a way as the whole object of an Atlantic circuit is to cruise the warm waters and emerald islands of the Caribbean but you only actually spend about a quarter of the entire cruise here. The rest is spent getting here and then getting back! It would be great to spend much longer here but constraints of weather mean you can't. We are definitely feeling that we are not doing each island justice but the requirement to be out of here in time for the hurricane season means that you can't extend your stay into the summer.
I suspect that this is why people wind up coming back for a second trip. Goodness knows what it would be like on a longer cruise such as a circumnavigation where there are thousands more islands spread all over the south Pacific and much more widely spread than they are here. Still, we are enjoying the time here enormously and are still not feeling so rushed that we can't extend our time here in St. Lucia a bit as the wind is blowing harder than we would choose for the 20 odd miles north to Martinique. We won't however, be making it to the other famous harbours here in St. Lucia such as Marigot bay and Soufriere bay. That will have to wait for next time.
We had a very nice passage form Barbados with perfect winds giving us a very fast passage and a perfect dawn landfall on Point du Cap at the northern extremity of this island. We first anchored under Pigeon Island which seemed quieter than further into the bay but then had to move for reasons outlined below. Rodney bay is a large bay right near the northern end of St. Lucia and is nice and sheltered with a large (for here) marina in a lagoon at the center of the bay. It is a favourite spot with yotties of all sorts. We were even graced with a tall ship which seems to be a cruise ship given how many people were ferried ashore from it. For the first time we have met charter boats as well as boats who are locally based here rather than just long distance cruisers like ourselves. This makes for much more crowd of course but it is OK at the moment.
As usual, we did not lift our outboard off the dinghy though it is advisable to do so in some places as it makes theft more difficult to steal it. However, there seems to be very little risk of that here and it is a heavy beast to lift up and down. In the morning we found the dinghy partially deflated and the outboard mostly submerged in the water. After lots of swearing, I got it together to jump in the water and attach the main halyard to allow Audrey to winch it aboard. Of course lots of water drained out and we imagined the worst. Drowning an outboard is a serious thing and often leads to the death of the engine. Modern outboards are miracles of power and light weight but this is achieved by very fine engineering. The aluminium carburettor, for example, has a myriad lot of tubes in it which will block up when corroded and stop it working at all. Clearly, we had to work quickly to save it though I did waste some time by taking the plug out and blowing all the water out of the cylinder to no avail.
We therefore, upped anchor and moved closer to the lagoon where the marina is so as to shorten the row to the boatyard. Fortunately, Rodney bay does have quite a big boat yard including outboard engineers. We left it with a guy with instructions to try and recover it but not to order expensive parts which we could not afford. Thankfully, it had been caught in time and after a thorough clean, rinse and reassembly we still have a functioning engine. This is a huge relief as rowing the quite long distances you may have to cover here would be quite gruelling! I feel a bit rueful about this as I used to row everywhere when a teenager but we now find rowing more than a quarter of a mile very tiring.
We are now being very careful to lift the engine off the dinghy each night now though, thankfully, we haven't encountered any further deflations. I think it was caused by the valve sticking a bit allowing air to leak rather than a seam starting to leak or general wear on the material.
We celebrated having an outboard again by heading over to Pigeon Island which is a national park and walking over it. A British Admiral called Rodney first used the island as a base to plan raids on the French in Martinique during the eighteenth century and gave his name to the bay. During the twentieth century it was inhabited by an English woman called Josset Legh (?) who built a house there and lived on the island till 1980. I think she also influenced the development of Rodney bay as a yachting center as well. Now you can tie up to a pontoon and walk over the ruins of both Rodney's fort and Josset's house which was destroyed by a hurricane. There is a lovely tropical forest on the windward side filled with local Pigeons (hence the name we presume) and some other birdlife. We also enjoyed a cold beer in the bar/restaurant they have there.
One afternoon, we were relaxing in the cockpit, again (!), when a familiar boat pulled up astern. It was Pampero of Down who we had last met in Gran Tarajal on Fuerteventura. They had crossed direct from Tenerife to Barbados and we just missed them in Carlisle bay. It was great to catch up with people who you had last met 2500 miles away and compare notes on experiences. Needless to say, too much rum punch was consumed. They are on their way south for a while to visit the Tobago Cays in the Grenadines so we hope to catch up somewhere else in a month or so such as Guadaloupe.
More flora and fauna on Pigeon Island.
A cruise ship with a difference. It caught our imagination a bit so we looked it up and found their
web site.
