Soufriere, St Lucia

Another day another sail, this time a very early start awake before light and setting off around 06:30am to make sure we made St. Lucia in time to catch customs and immigration and check in. Another fantastic and fast sail as far as St. Vincent then a very slow motor in the lee of this mountainous green island in sun so hot that despite factor 50 and pulling Kevin’s shirt I had on over my head most of the way I had burnt the back of my ears by the time we arrived in St. Lucia. Less focus on fishing today with the freezer stocked up again we just concentrated on keeping the boat moving enjoying full sails up for the first time in a long long time until we got to the channel between St. Vincent and St. Lucia which was quite lumpy and breezy and we were up at over 7 knots again arriving into the shadow of Pitons again by 3pm.


Kevin leads the way through the dead calm in the lee of St. Vincent under full but not filled sails

I went ashore for supplies and to check us in, customs and immigration was very simple and we soon had our passports stamped once more and were cleared in. I visited the ATM and a small local minimarket which was packed and about 6 people queuing at each till. There were several barefoot men stood at the door and to be honest after being approached / greeted by about 5 local guys by the time I had got in there, I was just keen to get back to the boat and didn’t really spend anytime sightseeing. I understand that there has been some development of the town in recent years and it is quite brightly painted and very authentically Caribbean, but I was still swaying from our bouncy trip and after too much sun I didn’t really want to spend too much time there.

We were moored just under the shadow of one of the Piton mountains / hills which are a famous landmark of St. Lucia. The area is heavily forested and the sounds of the wildlife was quite over powering in the back of the boat that night. We fell asleep to the sound of the surf on the pebble beach and the calling of cicadas and other unidentified creatures in the trees.