Pigeon, Piton, Preparation, Pump, and...Patience

Our intent was to go into Rodney Bay Marina on St. Lucia on June 20th for a few days to get our new engine mounts installed, enjoy some “air con“, and shore power then move on to the Grenadines. Two weeks later, we were still in the marina.

Our sail to St. Lucia from Anse Matin on Martinique took about 6 hours and again, in was "sporty" as Joe says. Two seagulls travelled with us much of the way, taking advantage of our jib that helps them get some air so they can see their lunch. They ate and ate and ate the entire way and I wondered what they do with all the fish they eat. The answer is…they poop on our deck.

No worries though, as the waves were pretty steep at around 8 feet. One wave helped clean the bird poop off the deck by coming over the side of the catamaran. Something that had never happened to us before. That’s very “sporty.”

We pulled into Rodney Bay Marina around noon and customs clearing was a breeze. The customs guy was even friendly. We met our next door neighbors, a young family from Washington state who had sold their house and were sailing the world with their two boys. Their oldest son is seven and was often seen climbing the lines to the sails and in fact, helped pull the halyard through the mast as they didn't have a stopper knot in the end of it. (Who DOES that?! [read Joe's blog in Dominica]) Their youngest will be two in August and was often toddling around their cat. Every time Joe and I saw him, we were ready to jump in the lagoon after him. But he never fell off.

Our mechanic from MarinTek showed up early on day two to install our engine mounts. For those who have read "If You Give a Moose a Muffin," here we go. Our engine mounts on our starboard engine were installed with speed. Then the mechanic said our belts needed to be replaced (which we had just replaced.) So he went over to the port engine to check on that belt. While he was checking the belt, he noticed that the water pump was leaking. So we made the decision to order the pump and it was to arrive in 3-5 working days. We figured a week would be no problem. What we now have embedded in our brains forever is that parts are impossible to get in the Caribbean. If you need a part quickly, it just doesn’t happen unless you can do it in person.

Additionally, the weather forecast was showing that a tropical storm was developing in the Southern Hemisphere and was heading our way so we knew we weren’t going anywhere soon.

Before the wind and rain, we took advantage of the blue skies and dry ground and did a few hikes. The first was Pigeon Island, a national park. This island, that we can see from the marina, served Admiral George Rodney and his troops to spy on the French Naval Base of Fort Royal, that we anchored in front of in Fort-de-France. Signal Hill, the higher of the two peaks had a beautiful view of the manmade causeway connecting St. Lucia to to the island as well as Martinique. He really never tire of checking out all of the forts on these islands.

Our next climb was on the south end of the island where the famous Pitons are. They're volcanic plugs known as Gros Piton and Petit Piton and they were given UNESCO World Heritage Status in 2004. We climbed Gros Piton with our guide, Kayla, who coincidentally is the daughter of Gregory who stops by daily to sell us fresh vegetables 2 1/2 hours from the trailhead. Gregory's family has resided in Fond Gens Libre the village which is where the hike starts.

Kayla is 5 months pregnant and took off with a fast clip, up rocks and roots. This was not an easy hike as it is identified as "hard" in the AllTrails app. We had some bouldering, some root grabbing, and a little bit of grunting from me with my short legs. We made it to the top in an hour and 40 minutes even with a few photo stops. Our favorite photo is of Petit Piton from about the mid-way point up Gros Piton.

Before heading back to Rodney Bay, we visited La Soufriere Drive-In Volcano. I had never seen an active volcano, so it was very cool for me. They had the Sulphur Springs Park right next to the volcano with mud baths. We didn't partake because we had to head to lunch at Benny's Paradise Hotel. Benny is the dad of Sasha, who works at the Marina. He coordinated our driver and tour for the day. His other daughter runs the hotel, built on a beach at the base of the Pitons. We think it’s amazing that 180,000 people live on St. Lucia and we ran into two father/daughter connections that were hours apart.

Even though we were only 18 miles from the marina, it still took us about 2 hours to get back because of the winding roads and rush hour traffic. In all, we were gone for 11 hours.

Because of the pending storm, more boats were coming into the marina so we felt lucky to have a good spot. Thanks to Joe, we were secure. Preparation for disasters is not my forte. I always just think "things will turn out." With Joe's plan, we had 9 fenders out on the side of our boat. 10 lines connecting us to each corner and side of the docks around us. We tressed up our sail bag like a roast chicken, and our bimini and back curtains were taken down and stored away for a few days.

While the storm went south of us, we got some good winds and rain, then more rain, then buckets of rain. I've never seen so much rain. Luckily, we were in a safe marina, with air conditioning on our boat, as we had to close all the doors and hatches. And - we had fantastic restaurants just steps away from our boat. We enjoyed Elena's, LaMesa, Bosuns and even Chef Robby's across the way. We went to Chef Robby’s because we saw at least 20 hand painted signs along the side of the road advertising this restaurant so we felt like we had to patronize it. It was behind a field of weeds in sort of a parking lot, a newer wooding structure with a few little restaurants. Chef Robby greeted us and we walked upstairs to his restaurant. It was one of the best meals we had on this trip and that’s saying a lot because the food has been excellent.

Besides the food at Chef Robby’s, what stuck out to me was the fact that he had bowls of goldfish sitting around on the edges of the balcony and as centerpieces. I was curious as to what happens to those goldfish bowls when a storm comes.

We also met some other great people I call the Barbados Boys. John, the captain is 81 and has been sailing for 50 years and his two crew mates who were our age. They were coming to St. Lucia for a long weekend as a guys trip. They pulled in on a monohull across the dock from us. We ended up meeting them at a Thai restaurant one evening and they invited us over after dinner. They had lots of great sea stories as well as recommendations for our travels to the Grenadines. One of their recommendations was to connect with a gentleman named African when we arrive in Bequia, drop John’s name and he’ll take care of us. This came to be a crucial connection for us later, which we’ll tell about in our Grenadines post.

We also became friends with our dock neighbors from Florida. They too are on a a catamaran and sailing the Caribbean, but they sold their house and are doing this full time. We had a few dinners with them and they left a day before us so gave us weather, wind and wave reports along the way.

The last of our P’s is PATIENCE. While this adventure has been a challenge physically and intellectually, the hardest part is having patience. Everything is slow. If you’re not waiting for a weather window to travel, you’re waiting for a part, or someone to show up to help you out. You need patience as you’re anchoring, mooring and docking because “Slow Is Pro.” You need patience to clear into customs, to spend twice as long at a restaurant as we do in the states. You need patience for slow WiFi. Hell, you need patience to get the ice cubes out of the ice tray because ice doesn’t just appear in the freezer.

So we had patience while waiting for the pump to arrive. And it did arrive in 10 days. But then it got stuck in customs because they had the wrong paper work. So the next day we physically walked over to MarineTek where the wonderful office manager reluctantly told us if we wanted to get it that day, we would have to pay $40 US in overtime for customs to get it through. We said “of course!” She even said “are you sure?” So of course we paid overtime and still didn’t have it in hand…until the next morning. Joe walked over to the shop and they were ready to spray paint it green and he very politely, with patience, said we’d love to have it installed within the next hour as we had to head south.

We were off the dock within 10 minutes after the mechanic finished, finally headed to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. And we thought our engine issues were over.

We were wrong…

The view of Rodney Bay from Signal Point on Pigeon Island. This is a man made causeway.

Fort Rodney on Pigeon Island.

The Pitons

Kayla, our guide up to Gros Piton

Our view of Petit Piton half way up Gros Piton

Gregory is Kayla’s dad who stopped by daily to sell vegetables and fruits.

Note the first rule in Rodney Bay Marina.

Prepared for the storm that luckily never happened.

Our two-year-old neighbor.

20 or so of these signs made us go to Chef Robby’s that ended up being one of our favorite restaurants.

Nighttime at Rodney Bay Marina. There happened to be a violinist who played many of the nights we were there.