It is a fine thing to be out on the hills alone.
A man could hardly be a beast or a fool
alone on a great mountain
- Francis Kilvert (1817) -
I had stopped in Rodney Bay very briefly during my penniless fast-tracking towards Finland in 2006. I also knew this was the landfall for the ARC, the mass Atlantic crossing run by an event management company for those who need a bit of extra reassurance in disguise of a "race" (Though it really is a rally), as well as big parties before and after. (Phoaaa... I fell into the trap of putting my dollars worth in about a topic that continues to heat up conversations and sometimes almost divide cruisers into two camps, Arcs and Narcs.) But nevermind, no skin off my back and very little interest to me, we've got bigger oceans to tackle and our own fears and worries to conquer.
Climbing a coconut tree takes tonnes of strenght and the right technique. Notice the ease at which I'm applying both of them in this quick vertical performance before departing Martinique...
We had been given the last year's cruising guide for the Windwards. Those who have read this website long enough would know my opinion on cruising guides. Those who haven't, are about to find out. You see, one guide book suggested anchoring to the southern end of Prince Rupert Bay (Dominica) so that you would not get hassled by the boat boys. In other words, it suggested to go cruising and make no contact with locals and give no business to them? With such an attitude, you'd better stay home. And yes, I know that things in Dominica have changed for the better. That's the other point: In addition to the cruising guide being full of attitude problems, it is also ALWAYS out of date.
It's amazing how much salt water a little Yamaha can tolerate. In 50kn gusts of wind rushing down from the 700-meter high wall of Petit Piton, the tender - too tight at the back of Aliisa - started doing 360-degree flips. The next day the wind was unfortunately a little lighter and the tender only managed a 180-degree flip. Full service required again. I'm getting quite good at it.
The only valid and possibly correct information they have is the information that you will see on your chart anyway. (It would be easy to fill volumes and write thousands of pages by describing the charts: Keep clear of the rocks just south of the entrance to the harbour or Half a mile will keep you clear of all dangers of the coast etc. Let me just get to the bottom of this: Cruising guides are useless and reading them will result in a mass-intake of misinformation and load you with completely inaccurate pre-conceptions about a place, its people and the experience that you will possibly have there. Now that I got that out of the way, back to Rodney Bay.
We anchored in front of Gros Islet, a small shabby suburb next to the marina. (According to the cruising guide, it's famous for violent crime and one should not anchor near it. The violent crime is obviously caused by rampant use of drugs and alcohol. Amy Winehouse was reported to be partying there too and that was a bit too much evidence for us. We moved into the marina.)
Rodney Bay Marina was large, pontoons were wide and the charges were high. Travelling stopped here but it was nice to take a hot shower and top up the tanks and batteries.
Rodney Bay marina was the first one since La Gomera in the Canaries, early December. (Hmm... a few months without a marina worth mentioning? We must be getting soft...) Anyway, we had made a silent agreement that this would be our few days of marina holiday. To give the batteries a real good charge, to fill the water and diesel up to the brim, to wash the decks... and to remind ourselves how much nicer it is at anchor!
The staff at the marina were well chosen, or well trained. Most of them were genuinely friendly and laid back. Yet, the whole marina area turned out to be a yachtie community and we felt isolated from the "real" St. Lucia. (Whatever is "real") We did make a point of going to the famous Jump-up Friday night in the "notorious" suburb of Gros Islet. It was clear that a once truly local street party had lost some of its original charm. About half the people were tourists, getting pissed, of course, while the local dudes were eyeing out the western girls, hoping to score an exotic woman. Maybe some of the white guys were doing the same for local girls. The food stalls were ok and the atmosphere was mildly festive. Dangerous? Well well well. I'd like to see the local tough guys wondering in the streets of Helsinki during the Labour Day festival...
Mattias, Sym, Amy, James, Freya, Simon and Kat helped me - the only one over 40 - feel young again! Bugger though, the feeling was all gone next morning...
Nevermind travelling in foreign countries. In came Sy Doris, Sy Quartermoon and Sy Otahi. Add to that young Mattias with his 6-meter Sy Carma. Suddenly we're in a very happy little yachtie community, pleasantly isolated from everything but the beach, a bottle of rum, three guitars and good company.
It was time to go traveling again, I hoped. The standard "a few days" in one port turned out to be the usual 10 days. Not bad, actually, "a few years" of cruising might turn out to be a decade. Maybe I'll live for 200 years.
We motored 16 miles south and pulled in to the town of Soufriers. Some cruising blog - can't remember which one - had a headline: "Soufriers, Paradise found". It must have been a different Soufriers. The usual business with the local dudes, greeting you and trying to make a living. Unfortunately I wasn't up to paying money for someone to pick up the mooring for me, so we did it ourselves. It turned out to be Silvio's mooring. Nice dude, tried 40EC* but settled for 30 for one night. I'm not much of a haggler. (*1EC - East Caribbean Dollar, 1US - 2.7EC)
The Pitons - also featured in the flag of St.Lucia - are two volcanic plugs, lava mountains, rising about 750 meters above sea level and descending steeply down to the ocean floor to depths around 1500 meters. A nice spot for that spectacular sailing picture, though we seem to need a little more practice in planning and excecuting such photo shoots...
Soufriers was a shithole, really. My usual charm hardly worked. There was no point in doing the fist-to-fist greeting, smiling, or stopping for a chat with a townful of idle youth, their heads full of crack, cocaine and alcohol. (I refuse to add "charlie" to the list, it being the least harmful of all known drugs. Being Friday night and all, the neighborhood just 10m from our mooring seemed particularly rough. Local speed boats were whizzing past and the feeling was restless to say the least. At sunrise, it was time to seek peace and quiet in the Pitons. (By the way, did you notice the lingo I've learned? Jamaaan, want some Bob Marley? No thanks. Actually, Aliisa doesn't carry any drugs onboard. None).
Perhaps from a very young age, Mattias from Sweden had hidden feeling of masochism. Not the sexual kind, but the kind that would eventually manifest themselves in sailing across the Atlantic in this tub. The 19-foot boat which Mattias built himself, sailed back in a container.
I'm glad he got over the masochism thing.
We ended up to the other extreme: Perfectly beautiful and totally boring. At the Pitons, the water was clear and clean but ashore was nothing but a five-star resort and its ever-so-polite staff. A few days of R'n'R would do it for us. Until one day, walking down the beach, we saw Tony. Dying for some contact with real St. Lucia (other than giving money or buying ganja), I stopped for a long chat. Tony was at work, restoring furniture and doing finishing touches to the Jalousie Plantation Resort. After a quick tour of the place, Tony invited us for lunch at his place. Our stay at the Pitons had just been extended by three days. And now, in order to get this bloody updated online, I'll let pictures do the rest of the talking.
Love each other and show it every day!
The lively little suburb in Soufriers, at the southern edge of the bay, provided us with lots of noise, a steady smell of cannabis and well lit, safe and secure mooring.
"Let's go to my place, I've got a really nice pumpkin soup on the make" -said Tony. (Balboa) And we went.
The man on the top of the world. After 27 years in Canada and lots of world travel, the native St. Lucian Tony had found the closest possible place for inner peace. His plot overlooks the highest mountain and grows everything the man needs. Watch this space. Tony and Aldana's Retreat is opening in a few years. A Rasta Resort, my kind of holiday. I'll see you again, Tony.
Tony was proud of his plot and excited about his plans. We scored bags of veges from him, plus of course I will now be the sole agent in Australia selling the holiday packages for his Retreat.
Jah Bird taking a short flight over the bay at Soufriers. In fact, I think he was on a long flight, only occasionally touching down on earth. Respect, Peter!
Hey, too easy with a palm growing horizontally. Nice one though. Unlike me, this dude managed all the way to the end, held on with one arm while ripping jellynuts off the palm with the other. I felt dizzy just watching.
Want some perspective?
I'm sorry to do this, but I feel compelled to. You see, this site has been filled with either whinging about little shit that doesn't really matter or raving about how wonderful life is. And it is. But just to make sure we don't forget to appreciate all that we have, to love life and appreciate our privilige to enjoy it, I had to post one more picture, to put things in perspective. The picture is from the Middle East. It's just one image, showing a figment of the kind of reality that too many people live with in this planet. Peace, man.
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The condition of alienations of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one"s mind,
is the condition of the normal man.
Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd,
and thus to be normal.
Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years.
Our behaviour is a function of our experience. We act according to the way we see things.
If our experience is destroyed, our behaviour will be destructive.
If our experience is destroyed, we have lost our own selves.
- R.D. Laing -
A 3-year-old child, dead in the rubble after daily violence in Gaza. I dare not even think or imagine the pictures we might see in Darfur, of raped girs that are hacked to pieces in front of their family. Sorry guys. But let's not pretend it is not happening. Every day.
