St Lucia
08.02.2012
St Lucia 7th February
Time is marching on and we are becoming quite anxious at the lack of progress we are making towards St Maarten.
Having bee shaken and stirred on the passage up from Trinidad we took a day or so to recover.The body really doesn’t appreciate 14 hour pilates work outs. Holding the brace position can be quite uncomfortable in big swells.
By Monday we were feeling rested and good to go. Having checked out we were legal to move on. The day was sunny if very windy and we were quite nostalgic as we sailed up the island past many of the bays where we had had lots of fun with new friends. Grenada is such a beautiful island and we hope to see it again one day. John thinks we could always book into one of the hotels for a 3 month stay if we can get geriatric tariff once the boat is gone! Walking Grand Anse beach is memorable at the best of times but on Sunday it was jumping. It was the Work Boat festival/regatta.
The boats that are raced are 12 – 15 feet long with a very thin keel (makes running it up the beach quite easy). The ballast is bags of stones, placed wherever required.
The sail area is huge and the main has an almost junk style look to it. The mast is narrow coconut branch. All pretty basic but they go like stink. The winds were over 30 knots at times and it was hilarious to watch boat rounding the gybe mark. Needless to say lots of capsizes (almost as skilled as ours used to be!). The boat sinks if they can’t right it quickly – then the rescue boat comes and drags it up from under the water till it finally empties. Trapezing involved hangin out on a thin rope with no harness or hook. Still the water is warm if you fall in.
Unlike our somewhat staid regattas this one involved lots of spectators sunning themselves or lying under the trees with a small libation in hand. The usual reggae music blasting out so loudly that the sand was shaking. Everyone happy smiling and having fun eve if they weren’t the winning boat.
The racing started when the organisers and the competitiors got themselves organised so was based on Grenada Maybe Time. Lots of sponsors and an entry board with results of 4 races was on show though so clearly a lot of experienced sailors around.
The trip from Grenada did not have a final destination in mind. We were working on the basis of ‘let’s see what is thrown at us and take it from there’. So we had a little bit of everything really. The wind varied from 9 knots to 44knots. Seas were kinder at 1 – 2 metres, but wind direction and current/tides were difficult for the direction we needed to go. When we were at the end of Union Island (5.00p.m.) we had decided that we would just keep on going overnight and try to make St Lucia in a oner. Glad to say we did but it took 25 hours. Needless to say we were pretty tired by the time we got in to Rodney Bay and very glad to be tied up to something that didn’t move very far. All that shaking and stirring appears to have knackered the toilet pump – disaster when we have guests due to be on board soon. 5* is not supposed to include bucket and chuck it I’m sure!
Lots of changes to the marina but it is still basically the same welcoming place. Friends are here and we have caught up with Be Quiet 2, Erasmus and Watermark 3.
There is super new pizza hut which does pizza every bit as good as Corrieri or La Laterna.
The weather looks set to thwart our plans to get to St Maarten sooner rather than later with yet another front of heavy rain and high winds going through. We are both having back and shoulder massages this a.m. so should be good to go after that. Best laid plans and all that –pear shaped and belly up for today.
