On May 10th, we left Martinique and headed south to
St. Lucia. It was a pleasant sail with ESE
winds at 12-15 knots, and an unexpected boost from the current helped us make the
25 mile trip in less than four hours. We
sailed into Rodney Bay on the northwest side of the island and entered the
narrow channel that leads into Rodney Bay Lagoon.
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| Rodney Bay |
Rodney Bay Lagoon is a completely protected inner lagoon
with a large marina and boatyard, as well as lots of stores and
restaurants. Customs and immigration
offices are also located close by. Our
plan was clear into the country and stay in the marina for a couple of
days. This would give us a chance to
take care of a few small projects and have a mechanic look at our outboard,
which we haven’t been able to start for several months.
St. Lucia is a mountainous island of volcanic origin,
stretching 27 miles from north to south and 14 miles wide. The British and the Dutch both attempted to
settle on the island at the beginning of the 17th century, but were
fought off by the Caribs, the island’s inhabitants at the time. About sixty years after the first European
attempts at settling on the island, the French signed a treaty with the native
people and were the first to successfully colonize the island. Only a few years
later the British again laid claim, beginning a long battle between the two
rivals for control of St. Lucia. Over
the next 150 years, possession of the island would change 14 times (French and British
each ruled seven times), until the British took definitive control in 1814.
After many years of British rule, St. Lucia gained its
independence in 1979. The French
influence is still strong here, and although the official language is English,
most of the locals speak a French-based creole, and many of the towns have
French names. The population of the
island is around 175,000, and the currency is the Eastern Caribbean Dollar, also
used by most of the islands in the eastern Caribbean. Today, the largest industry here is tourism,
and most visitors arrive by cruise ship.
Fortunately, the season ended before we arrived.
After we cleared-in, we dropped off our outboard at a local
“mechanic” (we use this term loosely) and then took advantage of the fresh
water at the dock. We opened our hanging
locker for the first time in many months, and found our foul weather gear and
cold weather clothing was damp and moldy.
We re-caulked the leaky chain-plate above the locker to keep more water
from coming in, but the contents still needed a good scrub. It took about half a day and lots of soap,
water and bleach to get everything clean and stowed again. Hopefully, we won’t need any of this gear for
another six months.
Several days later, the mechanic was still working on our
outboard. Since we had time to kill, we
caught up on a little varnish work and did some sightseeing at nearby Pigeon
Island. We actually made the 45 minute
walk from the marina to Pigeon Island three times, but our first two attempts
were thwarted because the park was closed for the annual jazz festival, then a
day for clean-up. But finally, the third
time was a charm, and we were able visit the island, which turns out is
actually not an island any longer. The
inner lagoon where the marina sits was dredged some years ago, and the dirt was
deposited between Pigeon Island and St. Lucia, creating a causeway.
Years ago, the British built Fort Rodney on the island, as
it was a good location for defending against the French fleet on nearby
Martinique. With the end of hostilities
between the two countries, the fort was basically abandoned in the 19th century. Trails lead all over Pigeon Island, passing
by the remnants of the old stone buildings.
At the top of Fort Rodney Hill is a small fortress with a few rusting
cannons, and another trail leads up to the top of Signal Hill, the highest
point at 359 ft. This point afforded
great views of St. Lucia, Rodney Bay and even Martinique to the north.
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| Pigeon Island |
After five days in the marina, we finally got our outboard
back, and it was still not working. It
looks like we will be rowing a bit longer.
With nothing else keeping us in Rodney Bay, we sailed south to the
village of Soufriere. It was a brisk 19 mile
sail in winds gusting up to 25 knots, but we were in the lee of the island with
calm seas.
This is one of the most beautiful areas on the island and
the place we were most excited to visit.
The town itself is quite picturesque, sitting in front of a deep bay,
surrounded by mountains and lush green landscape. The two most well-known landmarks on the
island, Gros Piton and Petit Piton, rise up sharply out of the sea just south
of town. The bay is a marine park and anchoring
is not allowed, but mooring balls have been installed in a few areas for boats
to tie up to. They were fairly
inexpensive at around $30 USD for a week.
We were glad to use the mooring buoys, as anchoring here
would be challenging with a steeply sloping seafloor and lots of coral heads. Our first stop was at the Bat Cave moorings,
just west of Soufriere. There is indeed
a bat cave, where hundreds of bats could be seen hanging overhead during the
day. At night, we could hear them flying
around close by, which we didn’t mind since they supposedly eat the mosquitoes.
The clear water along the cliffs was good for snorkeling and swimming, and
under Saviah, we found some nice coral and colorful reef fish.
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| Soufriere and the Pitons |
After a few days of snorkeling, relaxing on the boat and
exploring the town of Soufriere, the Pitons were calling, and we were ready to
do some hiking. Both Gros Piton (2,619
ft) and Petit Piton (2,460 ft) can be summited, but the smaller of the two
sounded more interesting to us. It is a much
steeper and more challenging hike, but there are far fewer trees obscuring the
views. It’s also more accessible since
we could moor close to the trail head. We
arranged for a guide at one of the local hotels, as we heard from several
sources that the trails are difficult to find and easy to lose.
We moved to the moorings on the other side of the bay, and
the next morning rowed to shore. Our
guide, Manu, met us on the beach. We
were glad we hired him because there is no way we would have found the trail on
our own, and we also learned a bit about the island during the hike. It was overcast and drizzling for most of the
way up and definitely a strenuous climb.
There were a few tricky scrambles and several very steep sections where
we needed ropes to scale large boulders.
It took two hours to reach the summit, where on a clear day you can
supposedly see Martinique 40 miles north.
We weren’t able to see very far due to the clouds, but there were still
great views of Gros Piton to the south and the town of Soufriere and the bay to
the north.
The area around Soufriere is one of the most beautiful spots
we’ve been to, but sadly, there are some issues with crime in the area. Most reports are related to theft, primarily dinghies
and outboards being stolen, and occasionally a boat is broken into while the
owners are ashore. We were definitely on
alert during our stay, and after a week, we were ready to move on. We rowed to shore for one last time and
cleared out at the customs and immigration office. The next morning, May 21st, we
untied our mooring lines and headed south to the next island, St. Vincent.