Salty sailing ... 31st January 2018

Salty sailing    ...   31^st January 2018

In preparation for the arrival of our friend Simon, we needed to get to Vieux Fort today.  The town is at the southern end of St. Lucia and is home to the international airport. The guidebook says of Vieux Fort: “it doesn’t have a tourist bone in its body”.  I’m not quite certain what the author meant by that statement but it doesn’t seem overly complimentary.

We departed Soufriere at about 8:30 this morning motoring away from the mooring field.  We soon turned to windward and put up the mainsail.  Once the 30 minutes of fridge cooling motoring was over we realized that the wind was too light to sail. As we motored along the winds began to strengthen.  The seas were reasonable so we started sailing with the full main and full genoa.  After a while the winds had built to 15 kts and we were heeled over at an angle that I wasn’t enjoying.  We partially furled the genoa and carried on.  The winds continued to strengthen and our course (following the coast line) was turning more eastward.  The seas were also building and the sailing was getting a bit more difficult.  As we made progress our destination became closer to the wind so we elected to start the engine and roll up the genoa and motor the last couple of miles. There were plenty of whitecaps and lots of short period wind waves.  Several times I was doused with spray.  Our weather guy supplies daily forecasts by e-mail.  When the conditions get a bit stiff (bigger winds and waves), he refers to it as “salty sailing”.  That’s what it was today.  At one point during our last section, we saw 25kt on the wind gauge.  That was a tad saltier than I was anticipating. 

We anchored off the fishing harbor and had some lunch.  After lunch we got a list together for the provisioning.  Then it was time to get the engine on the dinghy and check out the fishing harbor.  On the walk into town, we stumbled across some guys who were selling tuna.  We bought a three-pound fish and then debated having them clean it versus doing it ourselves and opted to have hime do it. Once the steaks were bagged we came to pay.  To our surprise, the money for the fish went to one guy and the fee for gutting and cutting went to the chap who did the work (a massive $5 EC! or $2 US!). We found the grocery store and got most of the items on our list. Toting it all back to the boat was less of a joy.  Although you can be sure we will enjoy the consumption stage.

Despite not having a "a tourist bone in its body" the town is pleasant enough. It's lively and colorful and you don't get bombarded with offers of taxi rides or tours. It's just a little rough around the edges.

Petit and Grosse Piton, both about 2500ft straight out of the ocean. As you can see at this stage the conditions were calm ... not so as approached our destination!