Anse Cochon -- Surprise!

Sorry for the lack of posts this week -- it has been a busy one. Back in January, my dad mentioned that he might be able to come out for a visit in February or March. I told him to keep me posted of his plans and let us know. We checked our SSB email the afternoon of February 6th and found a message with this subject: "I am booking a flight for Feb 7". What?!!? So for the next 24 hours the boat was a whirlwind of activity as we prepared for our guests. My dad and his girlfriend Suzie arrived in Marigot Bay around 11pm the next night. We caught up over a few Pitons (which for some reason, my dad keeps calling "Pintons") and got them settled in.

The next day we hiked to a scenic lookout over Marigot Bay. We had to walk through Marigot Beach Resort to get to the trail. You know it's steep when the resort gives its guests the option of walking up 250 stairs or taking a mini-cable car. We took the stairs, plus the hike, and though my calves were sore the next day the view was totally worth it. Marigot Bay has more tourist resorts than Soufriere, so there is definitely more nightlife. We decided to do a pub crawl that evening. We started off at JJ's Cantina for happy hour, where we were approached by Christine, an island lady who braids hair. She gave Suzie a "gift" of two braids; she claimed she could braid "like a computer" and she wasn't kidding -- you could barely see her fingers they were moving so fast. (She was so good that Suzie actually had Christine do the rest of her hair the next day.) Our next stop was the Rainforest restaurant. Our guidebook said it was a fancy place, but we weren't prepared for the valet service at the dinghy dock. It was dark, and a well-dressed guy walked out with a flashlight and guided us to the right spot for the dink (in a small lagoon lit with underwater lights) and helped tie us up. Finally we headed over to the Hurricane Hole bar, where three of us had the lobster dinner and Kevin enjoyed the best burger yet in the Caribbean (our apologies to Chris and Barb -- the burgers down at the Oasis are a close second!). By this time we were all a little hammered, so we skipped the other two bars in the bay and headed back to the boat. My thanks to the makers of Piton for my killer hangover the next day.

Yesterday afternoon we headed over to Anse Cochon and found some pretty good snorkeling. There is a wreck (the Lesleen M) lying in about 65 feet of water just a few hundred feet from our boat. The visibility was good and we could see the whole length of the wreck (165 feet). It was a freighter that was sunk on purpose to create an artificial reef. There were quite a few fish, a lot of sergeant-majors and we even saw a green turtle swimming around down there. Nearer to shore there was some excellent snorkeling as well. Today we'll head back down to Soufriere so our guests can get a glimpse of the real Pintons, er Pitons.

Where we are:
Location=Anse Cochon, St. Lucia
Lat=13 55.667
Lon=61 03.513