St. Lucia
We know what you're saying ... or, at least, thinking right now: "Hey, wait a
second. They went directly from Dominica to St. Lucia? That doesn't make
sense; what about Martinique, in between?!"

At least, that's what the more geographically on-the-ball and tuned-in of our loyal
visitors are saying, or at least thinking.

Well, the fact of the matter is, we did indeed stop in Martinique. For ten days, in fact,
meeting our families who flew down to spend a week with us over spring break. We
kept Dakota Rose in a huge marina in Marin, in the south of the island, and rented a
guest house nearby, in St. Anne. We had a great time, touring the island, hiking,
scuba diving, beaching, hanging out at a music festival, practicing our pidgen French
but not improving much, spending Euros. The problem was that we didn't take any
pictures.

Russ and Tom joined us towards the end of the week. When our families' visit was
over, Mike returned home to Coronado with his mom and brother, and Russ took his
place on Dakota Rose, resuming "the lifestyle." Tom stayed with us for a few
additional days as we cleared out of Martinique and sailed to St. Lucia.

St. Lucia lies about 30 miles south of Martinique, and we sailed there on a fast beam
reach in a 20 knot trade wind. We're beginning to get spoiled on these one-day
inter-island sails.
Here's a couple of pix we took on our approach to Martinique.
Diamond Rock, below, just off the southwest corner of the island,
has an interesting history. Back in 1804, when the French
controlled this island, the British from nearby Antigua decided this
would be a great location to station a warship to harass trade to
and from Martinique. Rather than assign a ship, then captured this
rock, armed it with guns, a crew and supplies, christened it the
HMS Diamond, and held it for 18 months until it was recaptured by
Napolean's ships.
We anchored in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, on the northwest corner,
and cleared in through Customs and Immigration at the Rodney
Bay Marina, which has seen better days. St. Lucia is like a more
populous Dominica, with rain forests, volcanoes and dramatic
coastline. More than on other islands we've been to so far, though,
the contrast between the gated and walled-in luxury resorts and the
impoverished towns is striking. Bananas are grown all over the
island. As in Dominica we were warned in advance about the
pushy boat-boys in Rodney Bay, but we haven't found them to be a
problem at all. In fact, several of them, like the fruit man and the
laundry boat, offer excellent and low-priced services.
Rodney Bay
The Fruit Man visited us daily with fresh
bananas, papayas, mangoes, tomatoes,
oganges and local root vegetables
Pigeon Island lies at the north entrance to Rodney Bay and
is the site of a major British fort. Later on it was connected
to the mainland by a causeway filled from the dredgings
that created Rodney Bay Lagoon and Marina, thereby
becoming the more alliterative Pigeon Peninsula.
Jay gathering seed pods
Visiting some of the sights in
the interior rain forest
We claimed to be locals to pay the more expensive
entry fee (actually, the locals fee is in $EC, making it
only $2 US, and luckily we had ECs)
Bathing beauties on the beach in Rodney Bay
Steve browbeat Tom and Russ into
a hike through the rain forest
Hmmm ... I think we might be lost!
Russ teaching Jay to play cribbage
Yes, we are in the Caribbean.

We planned to leave Rodney Bay on Monday, May 7, sail south to
Soufriere, still on St. Lucia, for one night, then head out for St.
Vincent on Tuesday morning. Early on Monday, Steve dinghied into
the Rodney Bay Marina, inside the lagoon, to clear us out through
Customs and Immigration. Afterwards he stuck his head into the
marina office to ask the location of the fuel dock. The very helpful
young lady pointed it out across the inlet.

So, Steve dinghied back out to Dakota Rose, rousted Jay, they
weighed anchor and motored into the lagoon to the fuel dock. As
they were pulling up, the attendant ran out and yelled "No diesel, no
water, no gas, pumps broken for two weeks!"

The most interesting aspect of this situation isn't why the marina
office didn't tell me this. No, the most interesting aspect is, if they
have no diesel, water or gas, why do they still have a dock attendant?

So, we stopped about halfway down the coast in the very pretty
Marigot Bay where Moorings has a base, including a fuel dock with,
if you can imagine it, fuel. Since it was pouring down rain all day, we
decided to moor here for the night and leave a little earlier on
Tuesday.
Stocking up on fruit before we
leave Rodney Bay
Crafts for sale in Marigot Bay -
turtles carved from river lava rock
Scenes From Marigot Bay
We had a great, Creole-style dinner at JJ's, a neat restaurant built
on stilts in the midst of the mangrove swamp at the head of
Marigot Bay. They even opened the kitchen an hour early to
accommodate us. The cute, young cocktail waitress told Jay that
he looks like Jesus Christ, which we both got a kick out of.

On Tuesday, April 8, we awoke at 0800, paddled the dinghy to the
dock where we bought croissants for breakfast, tuna sandwiches
on baguettes for lunch, and a couple of baguettes just to have as
spares, then headed out at 0830, bound for St. Vincent.
The twin Pitons guard the southwestern point of St. Lucia,
a landmark of which the locals are justly proud, even
naming their local beer after them. The peaks can be easily
seen from as far away as St. Lucia