6 weeks in St. Lucia

After spending some time in the anchorage and seeing several boats we had met in Grenada come and go it was time to move into the marina where we had booked a slip for a month. Dirk's Grandmother had not been doing to well so he decided to fly home to Germany to see her. This was a perfect spot to keep me as everything I could possibly need was within walking distance. We also knew a couple of the dock neighbors from our travels. We provisioned the boat for me and on the 24th he departed for three weeks. I managed to keep myself busy with friends coming and going daily, I hiked the fort again with some friends for a little exercise.

The fort

Dont want to stand under the Golden Shower tree.

A hermit crab that decided to climb a branch for what?

Crew of Lequesto and Lagniappe

Rodney Bay and the small inlet of water is where the marina was

A prickly tree

Look at all the almonds. Just to hard to deal with

Locals pulling in the catch

Amazing the difference in scenery from June till now. Things have really gotten nice and green. Thanksgiving came and I was invited to go out to eat Indian food with several of the kid boats. I had not eaten Indian since I was a small child and thought it would be a great experience.

Lots of great food

I also kept myself in stock with all sorts of wonderful fresh fruits and veggies from the farmers market.

Passion frits, tangerines, mangos, cilantro, tomatoes, and a very spicy pepper that I ended up saving the seeds from to plant myself. They are incredibly hot and when I chopped them up my hands would burn for hours after. A couple slivers is all it took to put heat in your food. I do like spicy. Once when they were out of cilantro I stumbled across a wonderful substitute. Culantro, or Shado Benny as its called here is a wonderful. It taste exactly like cilantro but is more like a thistle and is stronger in flavor so you dont need as much. It looks like a very hardy plant so I bought some from the lady to try. Lucky for me some of it had a tiny root system and I stuck it in water. I now have it planted in soil that I borrowed from one of the berms there. It seems to be thriving, below is a pic of one, not mine but it shows you what it looks like.

And another days haul of passion fruit, tomatoes and basil And believe it or, that lumpy huge green thing in my hand is a lemon. Love all the fresh stuff there is in these islands.There was also time to spend with the Rat Pack that was catching up to us by having dinner out at a little mexicanish place.

And then plenty of time to see some beautiful sunsets.

Dirk returned and it would soon be time for Christmas. A couple cruiser orphans got together and put on a great pot luck. The pizza place allowed us to use their outside seating as they were closed for the day. Someone even managed to cook a turkey with stuffing. We ate very well.

Afterwards Dirk and Andy set up the amp and played some music for us. What a treat.

Our friends from Moonrise were still in the mariana as they were waiting on new batteries. They saw someone on the dock that had just caught a 600 pound blue marlin and purchased a couple steaks. He then brought us a steak to try. We had never had marlin and we were both of the same consensus, we liked Mahi much better. But it was great to try something new.

After Christmas we set our sights on getting out of the marina and starting to head north. It was time to make tracks.

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