Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Soufriere, St. Lucia

Yesterday we spent an hour digging out our scuba gear in order to try to dive the Devil's Table. I say "try" because we weren't very successful. We finally got both sets of gear into the dinghy and motored out there only to find a very strong current and tide-driven surge. It was definitely unsafe for two people to dive on their own without a chaseboat; we would've drifted out halfway to St. Vincent! So we headed back in. Not to let all that prep-work go to waste, Kevin decided to don his gear in order to scrub Solstice's props and hull. Unfortunately it ended up being more of a hassle than it was worth (we usually just use snorkel gear instead of scuba gear) -- we were only in 6-8 feet of water and he kept stirring up sediment so that he couldn't see. And to top it off he got himself, his wetsuit, and his BCD covered in tiny brine shrimp (think Sea Monkeys). Ick. But then he tried to climb out of the water while still wearing full gear and he broke the swim ladder off -- what a fiasco! One of the brackets broke completely and the other one is bent and twisted. So now we can't go swimming. Well, we can go swimming but can't get back aboard the boat without getting smurfy blue bottom paint all over ourselves. We knew those brackets were chintzy so we do have two spares but Kevin didn't have time to fix it yesterday since we still had to grab some last-minute groceries and clear out of the country.

St. Lucia Pitons

We left Bequia at 4am this morning for the 55 mile journey to St. Lucia. We had our sails up but winds were very very light, almost nothing. In fact at one point the sea in the St. Vincent Channel looked like glass; it was a very strange sight to see in an area known for its steady tradewinds. So we motored with our sails up. We gave up and dropped the jib but left the main up (this will factor into the story later). We arrived around noon and had hoped to pick up a mooring in an area known as the Bat Cave, but as we headed into Soufriere we could see that all of those were taken. Plan B was to pick up a mooring ball in a different area, Malgretout, at the base of one of the Pitons. A boat boy came up in his skiff and offered to tie us up. (In the Malgretout anchorage, you pick up a mooring but then you also have to tie your stern to a tree on the beach.) Malcolm helped get us situated and then started giving us information about the area and offering to arrange a taxi to customs and possibly a tour for tomorrow. So after Malcolm left, Kevin went up to the bow to check on the mooring line and he just happened to look back and notice that our mainsail was still up. We had picked up the damn mooring, tied ourselves up broadside to the wind about 150 feet from the rock-strewn shore, and then sat there chatting for ten minutes! Which just goes to show how little we actually sail. Folks watching us pick up the mooring must've thought we were either total pros or total idiots, depending on their perspective. Thank goodness there was no wind at all and we were able to quickly and sheepishly take down the sail. I am still shaking my head in amazement -- who forgets to take down their sails?!? Proof that no matter how long you have been cruising you are bound to do something pretty dumb every once in a while.

Where we are:
Location=Soufriere, St. Lucia
Lat=13 50.632
Lon=61 03.787

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