A Tale of Two Chemists: Happy for the Rain

Happy for the Rain

Thursday 28th - Saturday 30th November

Thanksgiving turned out to be a really wet day in Marigot Bay. You might think that was a little depressing, but actually I think we all sort of enjoyed it. The rain forced us to have a lazy morning and we headed over to Doolittle’s bar and restaurant for lunch - which was lovely. More lazing around in the afternoon was followed by two trips up to the top of the mast to replace the ‘topping lift’. We only just managed to finish fitting the new line before it got dark.

Fortunately, dinner was already prepared - smoked salmon chowder - not your typical Thanksgiving dinner, but very tasty nonetheless.

On Friday we rented a car and and drove around the southern part of St Lucia. We had only been driving about 20 minutes when we ran into an unusual problem. A minor landslide had caused a coconut palm to fall over and block the road. This apparently happened only minutes before we arrived, but the local drivers were quick to react, grabbing machetes and chopping off the easily accessible coconuts, thus making the best of the experience! Luckily, we had just passed through a section of road works and within a few minutes a large bulldozer / digger arrived and made short work of moving the tree. Highlights of our day included walking round the lovely botanical gardens in Soufrierre and hiking along the Tet Paul trail, with outstanding views of the Pitons that soar almost 3000 feet directly out of the ocean below. By early afternoon we still hadn’t eaten lunch, so we stopped at a roadside restaurant and had an excellent meal of garlic pork loin with ‘ground provisions', pasta and salad.

Driving the rental car in St Lucia was a bit nerve wracking, not because the roads are so difficult, but because we carry such a large financial liability when renting the car. With this company, it is not possible to get car insurance for a single day rental and a $USD 2000 deposit is required. Worse than that, you are forced to sign an agreement that if you breech the contract you are liable for the full value of the vehicle … $35K ! Thankfully all went well and we did get our deposit back.

This morning we departed Marigot Bay and motored up to Rodney Bay. As we arrived we could see there was some kind of regatta taking place. We managed to get anchored without getting in the way of the racing boats, and for the next couple of hours were treated to a great spectacle. It appeared that there were several consecutive races, and at times the boats came really close to Cotinga. It was really fun to watch. We were able to stir ourselves into action in the afternoon and re-filled our diesel jerry cans and brought some more groceries.

14 04.675 N, 60 57.58 W

Mike