Sticky Rodney (St. Lucia)

The now daily ration of crusty baguette claimed its first victim last night: I broke a filling on one of my back teeth.

My last dental visit was back in Greece some months (years??) ago, so I’m probably due another visit anyway. Just as an aside, Manolis, the great/kind/cheap dentist who we used to visit in Agios Nikoloas, was by no means a fluent English speaker, retaining his strong Greek accent. His two most used phrases as he happily jabbed around in your mouth were: “I’ma sorry I hurt you” and “You are very brave” both of which he repeated often.

Carl, a fellow marina resident, whose fear of dentists was only conquered by the intense amount of pain he found himself in, made his first visit to the same dentist, Manolis. When we caught up with Carl at the next marina BBQ, he very proudly reported that the dentist had actually made a point to tell him how brave he was - we didn’t have the heart to tell him that we all were!

We checked out from Sainte Anne, on Martinique a few days later - the French islands once again shaming Dominica with the ease with which this is achieved..All done in barely 5 minutes in a cafe for €3

Destination for the day is St. Lucia - A 25 mile hop South.. hoping for a slightly better sail than our last few, but ready for the usual slamming and smashing regardless. I’ll let you know how it goes when we get there x

Well, we’re an hour into the journey now.. and I really don’t want to speak to soon, but my main concern at the moment is the possibility of getting sunburnt. The sea-state for once is in the acceptable range (waves around 1.5m) the wind on our beam is sufficient to have us heading along somewhere between 5 and 7 knots. There’s less white horses than usual - this got me to thinking that I can’t actually recall the collective noun for horses..(maybe a muster? a herd? a stable??). So here’s an early heads up for you if you’re reading this Louise: that’ll be one of the questions in the Schlich Xmas quiz!! (Edit: it’s all too confusing - there’s loads of terms, so won’t be in the quiz)

We’re now 3/4 of the way across, St. Lucia has grown from an indistinct grey smudge on the horizon into a rather majestic peaky green island. The sailing has been a little feisty at times, the waves didn’t stay at 1.5m for long and we were briefly slapped by a single squall, but in the main, it was quite an enjoyable crossing. We’re not sure if this is due to any slight improvement in the conditions or perhaps we really are getting used to it. Either way - glad to be nearly across and looking forward to exploring a new, English speaking island. I say that, as the only conversation I’ve been able to have away from the boat for the last month has been:

Me: “Parle vous Anglais?”

Them: “Non”

Chez does the French, I do the Spanish.

We anchored in the wide - and you guessed it - gorgeous bay at Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. Now skirted by hotels, beaches and palms, the bay was once used by the British Caribbean fleet as a staging point for when they repeatedly attacked French Martinique to the North.

Soon after we drop, a tender heavily (and I mean heavily) decorated with palm fronds, Xmas decorations and various other vegetation comes to join us. Its captain, a smiling laid back Gregory offers us tomatoes, bananas and mangos at ‘a good price’ - we take 2 mangos for 5EC$ (yep the currency has changed again!) - the mangoes are both excellent and cheap. He waves us farewell as the kettle goes on for a post passage cuppa.

We head over to the well laid out marina and follow a quick and efficient health check and check in - all four of the people we dealt with were happy and smiling. Looking back I now realise it was Friday afternoon and as well as very likely being nice people, they’re possibly also on top form as we’re their last check ins before the weekend.

The anchorage here is quiet, with barely any swell, and that equals good sleeps. We haven’t slept on land much in the last four years, and not at all for the last 6 months - it’s going to be strange when we do.

Next morning we head over to the local supermarket, a short walk out of town, it’s a good one with well stocked shelves and lots of variety. We stock up, and head back to the boat with the extra luxury of a bag of ice - a rare treat indeed.

We spend the next few days squaring the boat away, and again cleaning below the waterline. The brown beardy vegetation on the hull is growing at roughly the rate of human hair: I clean it in the morning, by sunset it’s already showing 5 O’clock shadow. I suspect it’s the slightly warmer waters and abundant sea life that does it. It does give me a good excuse for a swim though.

I’m swimming a bit less at the moment, I still dive the anchor when we drop, but my occasional jumps from the stern have reduced. I think this is a little bit of shark wariness. It’s possibly a wrong assumption, but I feel that here I’d be more prone to a shark attack than I’ve felt elsewhere. I’m blaming this feeling on a combination of the film Jaws, still sitting prominently in the lower part of my brain as I splash around, and the Tintin books “Red Rackham’s treasure” and “Hunt for the Unicorn” masterfully read to me in my formative years.

The entertainment provided here at Rodney Bay comes from the large Sandals resort and their apparently thriving wedding business which churns out 2 or 3 smiling couples a day. From where we’re anchored, about 300m away is a white painted wooden ‘chapel’ which perches over the water, where the ceremonies take place. These are followed by speeches (with lots of merry shouting and whooping) followed by disco until just shy of midnight. All rather lovely, and interesting to note that Jeff Palmer and his wife Fiona (my friend and colleague from Pitney Bowes days in London) was married here on the island some 30 odd years ago.

A couple of days ago, we were up on deck after lunch, with me beginning to consider a brief revitalising siesta. This thought was interrupted by a flustered holidaymaker on a small one man catamaran... He’s just off our stern, and he’s letting out close to frantic cries of “Help! Help!”

This turns out to be Allan, a podgy mid aged American who’s taken out one of the ‘Hobie’ Cats from the Sandals resort at the other end of the bay. He’s obviously got the hang of downwind sailing - having made it the mile across to us without issue. His difficulty came when attempting to head back. Realising the wind was against him and in the absence of any provided instructions, he hadn’t quite worked out how to tack.

I jumped in the tender and after a failed attempt at towing him, gave him some pointers on how to get back by tick-tacking back and forth for the rest of the afternoon. After shadowing him for 10mins or so, he waved me off with a thank you. Within half an hour he’s struggling again, another yachts tender is launched and he’s once again shepherded closer to his hotel beach - he’ll have a good story to tell when he eventually gets home.