Rodney Bay, St. Lucia
14.04.278N
60.57.148S

At 8am this morning, we slipped our mooring lines and along with Rainbowrider, slowly motored out of the harbor in the “cleavage” of the Pitons out into the Caribbean Sea. As with the scenario yesterday, there was no wind. Eventually they did pick up and we were happy to unfurl the sails having already motored about 10 of the 35 miles to Rodney Bay further north on the western side of St. Lucia.

The transit itself was uneventful and we were able to set the auto pilot on a course and let it go. A few rain showers passed overhead to break up the routine but all in all it was a nice morning sail.

As luck would have it, a rain shower passed overhead just as we approached the tiny channel that leads to the Rodney Bay Yacht Club. We elected to wait outside the channel until the shower passed by to make sure no sudden wind gusts surprised us while we were in a channel with no maneuvering room. We called ahead to make sure the fuel dock was empty and lined up to enter into the channel. From our starboard side another sailboat raced to beat us to the channel. Being the conservative sailors that we are, we let him. To our chagrin, he too was headed for the fuel dock. It was somewhat satisfying to see a powerboat on the other side of the channel cut in front of him just before he made it to the fuel dock but still that left us back 3 boats as there was a boat on the dock waiting to back off.

Now picture this if you can: as you enter the harbor from the narrow channel, the fuel dock is on the port (left) side and straight ahead. Beyond it is a commercial dock (commercial as in dive boats and day-sail square-riggers (pirate boats)) with several boats tied to it. To the starboard (right) side, there is a turning basin between the commercial docks and the Yacht Club and associated slips there. So in order to fuel up, you have to slowly enter, port side to and when you’re finished, you have to back out far enough to swing to starboard to clear the commercial vessels before having the room to use the turning basin to pivot around to head towards the anchorage and yacht area even further to the right. Add to this 4 boats in the turning basin waiting to be fueled, a small current heading back out the cut and of course, here comes another shower and its associated winds. Nothing we couldn’t handle but it certainly made the day more challenging. Dale ran around readying the dock lines and hanging fenders while I did my back and forth thing trying to keep the bow into the wind and not drift too far in the direction of the shore or back out into the channel or into anyone else. Occasionally, I’d do a pirouette just to line things back up again.

Once we were refueled, we headed to our favorite spot in what is called the ‘inner harbor’ which is past the main anchorage, through another narrow channel which opens up into a small but very well protected harbor surrounded by town homes and expensive mansions. We anchored next to Rainbowrider who wanted to know what in the world took us so long.

We dropped our hook in 9’ of water into sticky mud and scurried about getting ready to not only clear into St. Lucia but also to clear out, since we are leaving tomorrow morning. We spoke briefly with Scott & Heather on Scott Free who were on the dinghy dock when we arrived and were advised that the rules had changed somewhat in that not only Dale had to go to customs but I had to go as well. Good thing I put on shoes and brushed my hair. We made our way to the customs office and Dale proceeded to fill out the forms while I sat off to the side. No ever said anything to me and we were cleared in and out of customs as usual except for the fact that I was officially there in person.

We ended the day by spending a nice evening in the swing in cockpit watching the sunset and planning our trip to Martinique tomorrow. Since we’ll be leaving out of Martinique straight for St. Croix, we’ll be spending a lot more time listening to the weather to make sure we have a 3 day window for our 50 hour trip. At this point, it looks like we might be in Martinique longer than we had anticipated.