Friday, March 21, 2014

Transition Time

Well that's it, then...

Dingied the Inmans to their taxi this morning and waved them off on their trip to the airport.  We hope the taxi driver is a better driver than Glen because we got hopelessly lost with Glen navigating the mountain roads of Saint Lucia.

Getting ahead of ourselves...

After our short sail up from Marigot Bay on Wednesday we found a great place to anchor with good internet and an attractive naked couple next door.  It is really rude of them to prance around in their altogether.  The binoculars can start to hurt your eyes after an hour or two.

Clearing in to St. Lucia at Marigot Bay
We scoped out the marina and ran into Jan from Morpheus of London.  Great to see them again and we are hoping to share a few stories and beverages in the next couple of days.  Made arrangements to rent a car to tour part of the island and then headed back to the boat for G&Ts and world problem solving - Mike's specialty.

The next morning we headed out with our brand new, first customers, cool little Daihatsu jeep and roared off, through Castries and straight into the unknown.  The rental agency was out of maps so we had no idea where we were.  Pam got out her Navionics marine charting program which showed us to be miles from where we thought we were going... but our boat speed was fantastic!  The folks we stopped to chat with along the way were very helpful and soon we were on our way south.  Our ultimate destination was to be Soufriere with the Pitons, the volcano and a resort restaurant reported to be fabulous by Morpheus.

Interesting house somewhere in the middle of St. Lucia
Around 10 AM we came upon the colourful fishing village of Anse la Raye and stopped for refreshing beverages.  We spotted a young man eating flying fish and had him show us where he got it.  We bought fish fritters, flying fish and chicken to increase our daily grease intake and washed it down with Piton beer.  Delicious.
Seen better days

Pitons to wash down the fish bones

Can I have that deep fried?

Looking back at Anse la Raye

First glimpse of the Pitons from the road
On to the Ladero resort for another beverage and one of the most impressive views we have ever seen... on the order of the Grand Canyon.  It is impossible to capture the beauty of the Pitons with a camera or words... so glad we stopped in.

Petit Piton

Can't get back far enough to capture the whole thing
Intrepid travellers!
We weren't ready for lunch so we headed out to the "drive-through volcano"... very cool (actually hot) and VERY sulphur smelling.  After our tour we were suffering from input overload so decided it was time for lunch in Soufriere.  The place we chose turned out to be underwhelming and the kids in the parking lot "watching our car" for us became quite pushy even after we had tipped them for showing us in which slot to park our car.


Smelly volcano

100 degrees C!
We've come to accept that this "service" is going to be imposed on you where ever there is poverty but even the window washers/beggars back at home leave you with a clean car window.  These kids ran up and pointed to an empty stall and then stuck their hands out.  Yuck.  They were really put off when we didn't come up with more when we left the restaurant... assuming we should have been thankful that their vigilance kept the car from being stolen... even though we were within 20 feet and in sight of the car.

Wishing that we had returned to Anse de la Raye for more grease we made our way out of Soufriere and back towards home (boat.)  The roads are amazing with 15 degree slopes and hairpin turns around crazy cliffs.  Crazy!

Banana plantation near Marigot

Hit Castries at rush hour so the 2 kilometers took 45 minutes but we had lots to talk about from our adventures of the day.

Back at the marina the Inmans insisted on treating us to dinner.  Too early for dinner and didn't want to come back in later so we ordered up some sushi and headed out to the Blue Pearl.  The sushi was spectacular... we will make sure to return to that restaurant.  Why didn't we take a photograah?  It was beautiful!  After a furious and exciting crib tournament we had our nightcaps and headed to bed for our last night together on the boat.

Jonah spirited Mike and Charlotte away at 9 AM and after a few errands ashore we headed back out to the Blue Pearl for some quiet time and boat chores.

We are so pleased that all of our guests this year have seen a significant part of the Grenadines.

Son, Brad is going to be here in a couple of days.  Looking forward to showing him around Saint Lucia and Martinique!

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