Walking and other bits.

Now my take on our last 10 days to add to Anthony’s blog. Friday evening is firmly established, as you may by now have gathered, as ‘rum punch at the Yacht Club’ night. During our 7 weeks together here, we have seen some pretty gorgeous sunsets, but last Friday’s was the best yet. Still no green flash, but the colours ranged from green, aqua, purple, pink, turning over about 10 minutes or so into bright gold and orange as a brilliant crescendo. Of course, the photos don’t do it justice but you get some of the beauty of it.

After we watched the sunset, and had finished a rum punch, or two in Mr Davies’ case, we were ready for the Karaoke. As Anthony said, it was great fun, very slightly alcohol fueled (as ALL good Karaoke evenings should be) and, of course, entertaining. The last time I did Karaoke, I was in China and I have to say that the Lucians do it every bit as well as the Chinese. I had forgotten the joy of letting rip with an oldie (no, not a euphemism!). Bohemian Rhapsody got us in the mood, but I not convinced it lived up to Anthony and Jacqui’s rendition so many years ago? The ladies’ turn, Anthony forgot to mention, was ‘Mamma Mia’, so you can imagine the mood we had for that, and the final, boys vs girls rendition of ‘Summer Nights’ rounded things up splendidly. In between these there were a couple of guys doing a bit of Country and Western and a classic or two from the man running the  Karaoke. He obviously practices a lot.

The following morning I did another ladies’ walk, this time to the east coast from the cricket stadium. We met at 6.30am as usual and headed east along a muddy track. after half an hour or so, we arrived at a beautiful, wild beach with distant views of Martinique, not quite visible on the photos below. The beach had a palm tree or two and, sadly, loads of driftwood, plastic and other man made debris. With rolling waves and green hills, had it not been for the 28 C or so, the views would have not been out of place on the south of IW. Across the bay I could see what looked like a glamping outfit. Apparently, it is owned by one family who use it for gatherings and, although it looked a bit like safari tents from a distance, it is actually only beach hut type cabins. We wound our way around the bay and came through a clearing into a field of cows. At first they looked harmless, but a few soon approached and one, I soon realised, was definitely not a heifer. It had large horns too and approached to only a few feet away. As Claire Woodrow & I know, cows and walkers are not the greatest of companions, so I was wary, although Finola, seemed relaxed and talked to him gently, assuring him we came in peace. We tried to walk nonchalantly past him and his harem, and he didn’t charge, but they did follow us through a small copse and up to the glamping camp. Our destination was the top of the small hill on the headland, where there were some ruins of an 18th century farm and look out, where we were to have our breakfast. From the top we had a fantastic view of the coastline which was pretty spectacular as you can see below. The east coast of St Lucia is completely different from the Caribbean beaches on the west, which are calm, free of debris and picture postcard beautiful. The east is full of rugged cliffs and mountains, interspersed by small sandy and rocky bays with the Atlantic Ocean rolling in bringing weed and assorted human detritus from across 3000 miles of shipping lanes. It is also the coast where turtles come ashore to lay their eggs and dolphins and whales can be spotted (none last Saturday, sadly). The ladies told me that there is a lot of drug smuggling on this side which all developed after the US cracked down on drug trafficking across it’s southern borders. This pushed the drug barons to use the small and under funded Caribbean islands, who are so much less well equipped to tackle the problems.

We had just finished breakfast, when we spotted a downpour heading towards us across the ocean and decided to take cover under the covered eating area of the camp. We all made it down just in time as the heavens opened. The cows, and the bull, took cover too, under the trees around the area, and you can see from the photo how close we were to the bull at one point. Just look at those evil eyes as he sniffs the heifer! As the rain cleared we got a treat of a gorgeous rainbow and you can almost see the pot of gold at the end. We walked back a different way and thankfully left the cows behind us.

You know about the rest of the weekend from Anthony and great fun it was. Just to say that we have been watching tropical storms form, arrive, pass and form again. At the weekend it was tropical storm Karen, now on its way to Puerto Rico and the BVIs, that passed over Grenada to the south of us. The northern edge was what stopped play at the cricket and gave us a pretty wet day on Sunday. Before that it was Jerry, that passed a week ago, a bit to our north but gave us a couple of wet days and passed close to Anguilla, and Lorenzo has now formed south west of the Cap Verde islands but is forecast to veer well north of us and is now heading towards you all. As each passes, the sea in the bay changes and there are some large swells. On Saturday, a wave came right up to the steps of Spinnakers and surprised a lot of people on sunbeds in front of it. The kids still went out in their oppies though. Getting used to the Caribbean weather patterns is interesting and I am learning a lot about them. I always liked geography at school. St Lucia seems to have been lucky so far this year and this is said to be because of El Nino, which is driving the systems north. I hope I haven’t spoken too soon.

As I finalise this blog, we are waiting for our first house guest. Lucy is on her way from the airport and we are soon off to meet her in the bar of the Bay Gardens Hotel where the airport transfer bus stops. Anthony leaves us on Monday to head home for 2 weeks and he is actually worried about the cold!! More from me in a week or so to see what Lucy and I get up to…..