ST LUCIA
Sorry for the delay in updating the blog, but we’ve been really busy celebrating our achievement. Just in case you don’t realise we did arrive in St Lucia and although we were beaten by Snow Leopard another multihull we discovered that they had used more engine hours than us so we ended up coming 34th across the line and winning the multihull division on handicap.
Great team effort!!Unfortunately, the last 50 miles wasn’t without mishap as in the process of un wrapping the spinnaker from around the jib we did a rather nasty jibe that pulled the boom preventer so hard that it broke the weld on the stanchion, causing quite a lot of damage to the hand rail along the port side.
The ARC organisation here in St Lucia has been first rate – the trouble is that because this year was a slow crossing there were very few boats here to enjoy all the parties that were initially organised. The last boat arrived today – 28 days to cross!! Because it wasn’t here for the prize giving it didn’t even get a prize for coming in last.
The people here in St Lucia are great – so laid back and friendly. Where ever you go there’s Reggae blaring out at 100 decibels and the smell of cannabis fills the air. The first Saturday we were here we went to a street party in the local town. There are stalls all the way along the street selling local food, weed in abundance, rum punches (here the rum is 80% proof) and a selection of cocktails as long as it’s got rum in. Every other house has some sound system blaring out Bob Marley.We have befriended a Rastafarian, named Vision, and we organised with him to take us on a walk to the second highest Piton (700metre high volcanic mountain) on the island. The walk is more like a climb as it’s nearly vertical and the last 300 metres involves a lot of rope work. It took us over 6 hours and we were completely knackered by the time we got back. What we should have done is follow the lead of our guide with a joint before we started and then another one at the top prior to decent.
While we were waiting for the final prize giving we took the boat to Martinique, which is only 25 miles north of Rodney Bay where the ARC is. The island is totally different from St Lucia as its still run by the French so their influence as you can imagine is evident. We had a great 2 days scuba diving on excellent sponge gardens teaming with fish life – so different from the barren waters of the Med.
Penny and I would like to wish all our friends and blog readers a great Christmas and a fantastic New Year. We apologise for not sending individual emails to our friends as we have lost most of the email addresses when our computer was stolen in Las Palmas!
