Difficult Decisions
Saturday 27th - Sunday 28th April 2024
We had a fabulous time cruising with Rod over the past two weeks, but now it is time for us to move on and start to make plans for next phase of our journey. We have about 6 weeks until we haul out in Grenada for hurricane season, and we hope to explore a number of islands on route. The immediate question is how long to spend in St Lucia and which places to visit.
In 2018 we spent quite a lot of time here, and in the most part enjoyed it. I have been excited about the prospect of going back to Soufriere, however, Gloria found the town to be somewhat threatening and hasn’t been too thrilled about the idea. The area around Soufriere is part of a large marine park and has spectacular scenery, including the Gros and Petit Pitons, two pillars of vegetated rock that rise 2,500 ft straight out of the ocean. Soufriere also has an excellent botanical gardens and some good hiking. But Gloria is not wrong; this is a place of real poverty where men hang around the street corners drinking at all times of day, kids on paddle boards constantly try to sell you stuff or beg for money / candy / soda, and adults shake you down for money to look after your dinghy whilst it’s tied to the dock. I personally found it troubling but not so intimidating, although I do believe my swim shorts were stolen from our lifeline where they were pinned up to dry, resulting in some shocking exposee for the remainder of that trip!
In order to make a better decision on whether or not to return to Soufriere, I decided to get more information from the reviews embedded in the electronic Navionics charts that we (and many other boaters) subscribe to. I got a nasty shock. It seems like things in Soufriere have only deteriorated since we were last there. I read at least three reports from the past two years where boats have been the victims of armed robbery whilst on the National Park moorings off Soufriere. In one case, six men, armed with machetes, boarded a catamaran at 3 am and the crew were fortunate to escape with no physical injuries. It’s really unfortunate that things like this are allowed to happen. I would argue that Dominica is a much poorer country than St Lucia, but the people seem to be so friendly and welcoming. We recognize that we are wealthy compared to many people in the Caribbean, and hope that we do have some positive impact by spending our money locally. But no one wants to be constantly hassled or shaken down, let alone put their lives at risk, and unless the authorities stamp out these problems then boaters will simply pass by St Lucia. For us, I don’t think it makes sense to go and stay at Soufriere. We are considering making a day trip there by rental car or perhaps spending a day on a mooring there, before heading off on an overnight passage down to Bequia. We’ll let you know what we decide.
After Rod departed on Saturday we did get some boat jobs completed. We topped up our diesel tanks and refilled 5 x 5 gallon jerry cans at the fuel dock. We filled our water tanks and washed down the top-sides of the boat, and we re-provisioned at the local supermarket. (This was an instance where it was easiest to dinghy across the harbor, tie up to a small public dock and walk to the supermarket. We were met on the dock by the “dockmaster”, or to be more precise, a guy off the street, who insisted we pay him $10 EC to guard our dinghy … which was irritating but not worth arguing about.)
Anyway, we did enjoy our stay at Rodney Bay and on Sunday morning left the harbor and motor-sailed south for an hour to Marigot Bay, which is not only beautiful, but must be the best hurricane hole on the island. We were able to get a mooring in the inner bay.
Mike
13 57.980 N, 61 01.449 W
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