Rodney Bay, St. Lucia
14.04.319N
60.57.157W

Today is our big day of touring St. Lucia. Roger & Elaine picked us up in their dinghy and we met up with Mike & Sara off Wayfinder, Buddy & Melissa off Indigo Moon, and Carol & Wayne off Take Time, outside of Scuttlebutts. Chris, our guide was delighted when his fare of 6 increased to a fare of 10. Our first stop was to pick up a larger minivan.

At our next stop, a look out over the harbor of Castries, Roger was attacked by all of the venders. For some reason or other, he must of looked like a soft target. None of us had an ounce of sympathy and egged the vendors on by calling him Captain. How he escaped without buying beads, t-shirts or a hat is beyond me.

After a couple of more look out stops, we toured a bakery that made cassava bread. Cassava is a root that is ground into flour and shaped into what looks like a thick 6” tortilla. Flavors such as ginger, cherry, apple-raisin, salt-fish, and peanut can be added. Then the bread is baked on top of banana leaves on an huge iron skillet over a wood fire. The end result was a heavy bread that only took a few bites to fill up on.

Some of our other stops took us to a look out over the fishing village of Soufriere, where colorful fishing boats were anchored along the shore. Another was along a banana plantation where the stalks of bananas were enclosed in large plastic bags to keep the sun, bats, and insects off them; after our years of living in Puerto Rico, I didn‘t know that commercial bananas had to be protected in such a way.

We toured a botanical garden which, although was very beautiful, paled in comparison to the two we had previously toured. However, this one had a waterfall that created the warm mineral springs that Empress Josephine used to bathe in. Chris has advised us to bring our bathing suits, so we were prepared to spend the half hour or so soaking in the mineral waters. Although they were invigorating, they didn’t reduce our age by the 15 years as advertised.

Our next stop was at a ‘drive through volcano’. We climbed out of the van, crossed over waterfalls where the water temp ranged from 80-100F. We followed the park guide to where the thick black sulfur water was bubbling up and huge plumes of steam rose over the bubbling pits of the ‘dormant’ volcano. The sulfur aroma was intense, to say the least. It was explained that as long as the gasses are being emitted, instead of building up under the crust, the volcano will not erupt and therefore, it is considered dormant. You already know my thoughts about that.

By this time, we were all ravenous and stopped at Ladera, a restaurant high on an adjacent mountain looking directly across to the famous Pitons of St. Lucia; great meal; better view. Since the restaurant is completely open, they had water pistols on the tables to discourage the birds from scavenging. With a group of 10 aging pirates on an outing, you can imaging where that led. I asked a waiter as we were leaving if they ever had water fights before. He nodded and said “everyday”.

It was about 4 o’clock and although the island of St. Lucia is only 24 miles long, Chris gave us the option of continuing on our circumnavigation of the island (which would take another 4 hours) or call it a day and head back (which would take 2 hours). We were all tired and called it a day.

On Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride back, several of the passengers concentrated on not losing their lunches to the switchbacks and hairpin turns. Since Dale & I were in the back, we only saw when we came within an inch or two of hitting other cars. Melissa, who was sitting in the middle of the second row had a bird‘s eye view of everything and at one point threw her hands up to cover her eyes since she was sure we were going to hitting somebody or something.

As he did before, Chris returned us to the marina safe and sound. A little woozy, some a little nauseous, but safe none the less. We all decided that we had had too big a lunch to worry about dinner. We grabbed an ice cream cone to settle our stomachs and called it a day.

Tomorrow we will once again head south to Soufriere, to the anchorage between the two Piton mountains we saw from the Ladera restaurant. The view should be spectacular.