A Tale of Two Chemists: Two days in Marigot Bay

Two days in Marigot Bay

Sunday 29^th and Monday 30^thApril 2024

Perhaps a more accurate title would be one day in Marigot Bay and one day around St. Lucia. We’ll get to that later.

On Sunday we popped into the Customs office to discover that, after checking out, you have 24 hours to depart the country. Our thinking was to check out here, sail to Soufriere, visit the botanical gardens in the daylight and depart at sunset for Bequia. Later in the day we managed to book a car for a day. The revised plan was to visit the botanical gardens by car and then leave from Marigot Bay, sailing overnight. Once we had all our plans straightened out we went for a walk.

The timing was slightly less than optimal as we were setting out at about noon. After a short section along the shoreline, we began the climb to the ridge. The route was quite steep with lots of fallen leaves covering the path. After a while Mike looked at his phone and announced that we were less than half way to the ridge and the rest was even steeper than what had gone before. We turned around, took a side path and came out at a resort where we remembered seeing lots of birds in 2018. We sat on a bench and relaxed, watching the birds. Our decent ended with lunch at the Doolittle’s restaurant. While we were finishing up, we saw our friends Nigel and Susan Trent motor past on their sailboat Taiko.

Today, we went out driving around St. Lucia with Nigel and Susan. The first stop was the botanical gardens at the Diamond Falls. We had visited these lovely tropical gardens a few times in 2018 and enjoyed them very much. What was different about today was that no rain fell on us! It almost seemed like a different place ... While many botanical gardens are quite manicured, these seem more natural. There is a riot of plants including many orchids, cocoa trees, nutmeg trees and many types of heliconia (Mikes’ favorite). Upon departing the gardens, we made our way to a restaurant for lunch where we enjoyed a Creole buffet.

Next up was the Tet Paul nature trail. Strangely enough, when you arrive at the start of this walk by car, it seems quite modest in length with lovely views. This was another spot we had visited in 2018 with our friend Simon. On that occasion we walked up from the town of Soufriere. Personally, I had been exhausted by the time I got to the start of the nature walk. We completed a circuit around the south end of the island and returned to Marigot Bay with half an hour to spare before we needed to return the car. A drink at the waterfront bar filled the interval nicely! We watched the sunset from the bar and returned to Cotinga, after dropping our friends on Taiko. It was a great day!

Gloria

Dusk inside the inner harbor of Marigot Bay

Abstract sunset in Marigot Bay (20 s exposure with variable focal length using 70-200 mm zoom lens)

Abstract - Chateau Mygo, a waterside restaurant, lit up at night as Cotinga swings on the mooring

Antillean Bullfinch (female) on the balcony at Doolittle's. (They jump when the shutter goes off, and if you use "rear curtain" flash then this is the type of result you can get)