On Feb 15th, we sailed from St.Vincent to Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. It took ~ 7 hrs in 15-20 knots of wind with 3-5 foot seas, averaging 7.5 knots. Good sail until we got in the lee of the island and had to turn the motor on. Arrived too late to check in so we anchored off the beach and put our yellow Q flag up. The Q flag is an old tradition still used today to represent a ‘quarantined’ ship that isn’t approved for entry yet.
Andrew checked in the next day and we brought the boat into a slip in Rodney Bay Marina, a place we considered home for 3 months in March 2020 when COVID hit the island. We spent the afternoon cleaning the boat and catching up with Vision, the Rastafarian fellow that looked after our boat when we left it here for hurricane season in 2020.
We learned that Vision, who was to do some varnish work for us, had been attacked by a guy with a machete the week prior and got his thumb chopped off! He would need some help getting all the work done and we wanted to support him, so the next day, he showed up with his buddy, Kennedy, dragging a paddle board to use in cleaning the hull of the boat.
Andrew and I were commenting on how not much had changed since 2020, except that everything was open and busy. The floating vegetable guy, Gregory, still visits every day. Our favorite restaurants were all still there; including Elena’s for pizza and ice cream, Bosun’s for curry, Cafe Ole for protein bowls & smoothies, Rituals for sushi and Sea Salt for fish. The one thing that was different was that Elena’s had a new ice cream shop (next to the pizza restaurant) that had bathing suited kids lined up all day, everyday. Since we were having part of the galley varnished, I took a break from cooking and we revisited all of the restaurants at least once.
In the few days we were there at the dock we filed our taxes, finished most of the planning for the upcoming Guadeloupe Cruise that we are organizing and I enjoyed swimming, yoga and kijong with Susie at the pool.
We met up with our friends, Wendy & Darrell (s/v Siroccho) for pizza one night and enjoyed after dinner drinks and fireworks from the deck of our boat to celebrate St.lucia’s independence, afterwards. We began preparations for our trip to Martinique, when we heard the horrible news about the sailing couple, whose boat was hijacked by escaped convicts off Grande Anse beach in Grenada (a place we have anchored many times recently). The bloodied boat was recovered in St. Vincent, the convicts were recaptured but our fellow Salty Dawg sailors, Kathy & Ralph, were never found. It has shaken the entire sailing community!
We moved off the dock on 2/23 and back out to the Bay for departure the next morning. Wendy & Darrell were still anchored there and invited us to their Tayana 55 for sundowners. It was very similar to our good friends’ (Mike and Mary’s) Hylas 49, Dream Weaver, which made us miss our old boating buddies even more.
The next day, we were to get fuel and head off to St. Anne, Martinique at first light but apparently the sailing Gods had other plans. When we were maneuvering around the gas dock, we heard a bad knock in the engine. After filling up, we went back out to the anchorage so that Andrew could open up the engine compartment and have a look. He found 3 of the 4 bolts that hold the shaft in place had loosened and one was missing! Luckily, he could tighten things up and found replacements so we could get underway only a few hours behind schedule. Good bye for now, St. Lucia!
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