Saint Lucia again (by land)
We have already been to Saint Lucia once at this point, but both Daisy and Anna had a travel plan home leaving from Saint Lucia, so we sailed back to drop them both off.
The easiest place for us to do this was the Marina in the north called Rodney Bay Marina. This time however there was no space for us in the Marina apparently, as ARC January boats were just about to start arriving. (Even though when walking past the marina, our old spot was available for the duration of our time back here)
Anyway, we saved some money by anchoring… Much more beautiful than a marina anyway! (and the marina still had the same shower block codes ;P )
We hired a car for the 2 days we were planning on staying in Saint Lucia again.
On day 1 we would be dropping Daisy off back in the south of the Island, so wanted to explore the west coast some more on the way down and drive back up on the east coast. So roughly 1 lap of the lower part of the island.
Our first stop was Castries. The port area here was filled with numerous cruise ships. We explored a vibrant local market and indulged in some shopping. We couldn’t resist picking up some locally made soap and materials for making hot chocolate (the local way) for use back on Hannah.
Looking online while writing this post, its actually Cocoa Tea that we bought a kit for with a Cocoa stick. You can see a how to video on YouTube that goes above and beyond what we have tried.
A short drive further down the island we found a little view point that overlooked Castries.
Next we reached Marigot bay once again, this time from land! We stopped at another viewpoint for some nice cold drinks and snapped the below picture which really shows off the mixture of boats in the bay (including some sunk / grounded). You can also see why this bay is a hurricane hole for boats, as its nice and enclosed.
We enjoyed our time in the waterfalls in St Vincent, so went on the hunt for some more in Saint Lucia. A quick online search on our drive brought us inland to Anse La Raye Falls.
We parked at the end of an unpaved road and started hiking toward the falls. The cascading waterfalls tumble down a series of rocky tiers, creating a serene and tranquil oasis perfect for swimming and cooling off from the Caribbean heat, BUT there are signs that say not to go in the water as its used for drinking water, so we just went to look around.
Next stop of the tour was a choclate factory that we just happened to see as we drove past. The tours were pretty expensive, but we did enjoy browsing the shop and buying a few tasty treats. Anna bought a little thank you present for the 2 of us, and we can confirm these choclates were all delicious!
Nearing the south of the island, we stopped off at a few more view points and beaches before reaching the airport and having one final drink before wishing Daisy goodbye. 😘🙋♀️👋👋
It’s been quite crazy, but also great having 5 people on board once again, but it’s time to start reducing crew and speeding up our little adventure.
The first task of the second day was to say fairwell again and drop Anna at the more northern airport of Saint Lucia first thing in the morning. Its lucky that the airport was tiny as we got there much later than planned, Anna was the last one through check in. Who would have known there would be such traffic jams in the Caribbean! 🙋♀️😘👋👋
Now down to 3 crew total, we spent an awful lot of time driving aroud the north east of the island trying to find our way to a little beach and generally having a look around.
Google maps isn’t the most accurate in these parts so it took us several hours to find the right road to take us there and once there the route back to the marina would only actually take us 15 minuites.
The beach had a small resturant for a quick drink while we watched the kitesurfers go back and forth and generally thought about the plan for the coming weeks.
Also there was a rather cute dogo…
We returned the car in the afternoon, had one final meal out, picked up a few more provisions from the shops and headed back to the boat ready to sail back north to Martinique.
It’s also worth mentioning before moving on, Saint Lucia is one of those places that is quite heavily influenced by a love of signs, many of which seem to be irrelevant or ignored.
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