The Three 'R's of St Lucia

St Lucia provides so many new experiences to have and things to learn but in particular it has definitely given me a new appreciation for the following three R's:-

1. Rain
2. Re-supplying
3. Roaming 

Rain
I knew we would be here in the rainy season but experiencing it is very different. Yes indeed it is officially here and has given us a very wet welcome! Other than the whole open-shut game with the hatches, and having to keep tipping out the dingy, it is causing a lot of bother in trying to get any washing dry. I am now on a record of 12 items pegged and un-pegged 9 times in 2 hours... determination or stupidity?? Not sure. But there is nothing like swimming and then having the heavens open. Swimming and having warm rain fall on you is bliss so it's not all bad :)



Re-supplying
Going shopping here is a very fun experience. Up until now there have been very few places to buy things all under one roof and fewer that have a wide selection . Yet St Lucia littered with  'Super J' supermarkets which are exceptionally well stocked and really well priced. It's like being a kid in a sweet shop. You don't realise how spoilt for choice we have it back home. Most places have been either expensive for things you want , the don't have them or you get one option only. You could tell that we had been missing it all after taking 2 hours to complete one shop! The best parts? Huge slabs of Sirloin steak for less than £3, big bottle of rum for £2 and the most delicious Mango's coming in for the equivalent of 5 for £1... that's a good solid diet right?

Roaming
St Lucia has to be one of the easiest places to get around I have ever visited. The local mini buses come by at least once every 5 minutes  and can take you to every corner of the island. Plus there is never a dull moment when you travel. The sharp corners taken at 70 that edge the sheer cliffs or the game of chicken that they like to play overtaking other cars (or lorries) on blind corners keep you very awake and alert.. plus there is always the radio. Normally it pumps out brilliant local Reggeton or a mixture of drum and bass and reggae to keep your toes tapping but our most recent journey was to the tune of the 'Love Doctor'. 'What is Love?' and 'How men can show it better' were the topics of the day and got everyone on the bus in a brilliant back and forth discussion. Even the driver chipped in and, as a couple on the bus, we got involved as well. It was brilliant fun and to be honest I was sad to reach our stop.


Tia and Jarvis, Over and Out!

Spot the difference

Up until last week our journey had either been insane-o 'hello-goodbye' rushing or, when in one place, has been stupidly happy times with amazing friends. Due to that we have had very little interaction with other cruisers... up until now. Previously there has been the odd quick drink, a passing discussion on the weather (very english) or a coincidental passing when shopping for last minute supplies in the supermarket, yet it has only been in the few weeks that we have had some good solid conversations with some wonderful travellers and I think it has made us very aware of some of the big differences between us.

Conversations have yeilded these things over and over again:-

1. Every cruiser we have met so far have been 'on the sea' for AT LEAST 2 years
2. Not one of them have any plans to stop this amazing lifestyle and are just going to keep going either indefinately or until they tire of it
3. All the yachts in question are much bigger and better equiped

Now here is my point... If you look on those amazingly helpful cruising sites e.g. Cruiser Forum, you will find a million and one threads on the budget that people have to undertake such an adventure (probably one of the most talked about items that gives the least amount of solid answers). There are polls on how people fund everything, what you can afford to get by on and, true enough to an answer I keep on hearing, "You can sail on what ever you have", there seem to a good wide range of people from both end of the scale. So my question is.. where are all the people like us?  Where are the uber budgeters? The ones that are limited in time and have a 'go home' date? and... to be frank... the less organised ones?? (Surely we are not alone)

 For us, like it or not, we ARE limited in the amount of time we can do this. We saved our butts off for ages and, even with our hard work to fix up and kit out our lovely Croc Bones, she is still much less equiped than most (No water maker, no generator, lower quality sails etc) due to funds. That same reason also means we are strictly budgeted for this trip. What does that mean in reality??? Well put simply - in Feburary 2012 we will be heading home.

We could have saved for longer. We could have lower budgets each month (but where is the fun in not actually DOING anything). We could probably use all our wiles and find sponsorship or work our way around, be care-free and aimless. But we haven't and honestly we are really happy with our plan. There are not many people our age who get over a year off work, learn a whole new life style from scratch, learn a whole new skill from scratch and get to see half the world! 

We may be pretty different to most of the cruisers out there,and potenially seem like 'part-timers'. But right now we are loving our lives and knowing that this IS going to come to an end is making us enjoy each and every minute of it! I just hope we can either meet others like us or at least inspire people who think that they can't do something amazing until thay have no strings attached - you can. Use those strings to guide you and push them to the limit... you will have the best time of your life!

Gros Islet beach

Seamoss and run...  a local favourite

Tia and Jarvis, Over and Out!

A pause in paridise

After another lazy day in Marigot Bay (hehe that rhymed) eating beautiful fresh passion fruits and swimming around the lagoon we headed the final short distance north to Rodney Bay. This is as far north as we are planning to go until Hurricane Season is over and done and I am very happy to finally be at this point. We have booked in for three nights, looking realistically to stay until at least Tuesday before the toodle on south. It's an exceptionally well stocked marina with all facilities needed and Jarvis has even spotted a huge hardware warehouse that can be seen from the boat that he is itching to check out!

So now that we are all tied up, have power, water and all the other 'luxuries' that we had before so taken for granted and had a full night of enjoying sleeping without any rocking (a serious novelty) it is time to get back to business on the maintenance side of things..

There are currently two core problems causing drama on Croc Bones:-

1. The Bow Thruster. It is completely non functional - one day it worked and then.. nada. This made for some pretty excessive 3 point turns in the marina when we arrived! We could live without this mainly anchoring everywhere for a while but we will need it by the time we get to Columbia and best to do it while the boat is not moving.
2. A bigger problem...our batteries are being funky. That is to say that they are not charging fully, despite what the battery monitor is saying, and then are discharging at twice that rate! It is getting worse quickly and is now to the point of needing to charge them for at least 3 hours a day even when we are just on anchor and not using the autopilot (our biggest power drain)

Jarvis man-mechanic to the rescue... hoping to come back to you all with good news tomorrow.

In the meantime check out the 'Maintenance Jobs' section of the site where we are starting to put down all the back dated maintenance 'fun' we have had along the way. This includes all the costs, overspends, and solutions we found and will be being updated by the man himself as we go.  The first section is now up and at'em and the developments of our progress up to where we are now and beyond, will be coming regularly!

So, whilst my lovely mechanic gets his fixing skills on, I intend to finally cave in and *gulp* ... clean, wash and the like. But hey, when your washing pile becomes this big...

... maybe it's time!

Tia and Jarvis, Over and Out

Spruce as a Moose???

And then there were two...

It is now back to just Jarvis and I on the boat until around October time. After a heartfelt 'so long' to our friends we came back to the boat and thought we'd give her a clean up.. y'know, potter around a bit have a look at the battery situation (getting oh so much worse on the charging front since the new alternator..eep) and, as we have awesome internet, do all the little jobbies that keep pileing up.

....6 hours later we have hardly made a dent!

All those little things that we have been putting off from a full oven blitz to a hull scrub and then from catching up with emails to friends to sorting banking.... the time seems to just munch it's way through the day. Maybe we have been boatified too long now and are used to having a whole day just to do the washing up... but it just seems immence the sheer amount of things to do!!

Internet time is sparce as a general rule - so those kind of things go in a very tight order of importance:-

1. Email the mums (we love them and they worry)
2. Update the blog & FaceBook (to let everyone we know, and some we don't, be in the know as to our adventures)
3. Email selection of friend on a rolling rota (sad i know but only way we can email everyone)
4. Upload photos
5. Other - internet banking, finding info about places, donwloading music/books/recipies (when we get awesome connection)

And as for the boat jobbies, well in 32 degree weather it makes most of them seem like a "we'll do it tomorrow"  task instead.

So now we are left with a list as long as long as my arm of stuff to do and, to be honest, apart from the emailing and blogging, we really have no desire to do any of it!

With a view like this...

Marigot Bay nestled into the rainforest :)

... I think the accounts, the cleaning, the boat maintenence and clothes washing can all be relegated to a job for 'mañana', after all it's only each other who has to deal with it now so erm.. no cleaning until October it seems :)


 Tia and Jarvis, Over and Out!

Choices

With our two beautiful friends here in the Caribbean for a few more days we decided to add another island to their belt before they left. A quick click for a flight and they were headed out from Barbados to St Lucia for the last 4 days of our time together.With a small bitter sigh of regret we packed up and left Bridgetown to head on to Vieux Fort.

Now this incurred much regret on my part for two reasons:-

1.  We only had 1 week of rest compared to having 3 weeks at sea. This did not sit well with me (I am thinking it should always be at least a 1:1 ratio)
2. I honestly couldn't imagine anything better than Barbados.... Turtles, Happiest people in the world.. i mean, why would I want to leave!? 

But it didn't take too much persuasion after seeing the photos in our Cruising Guide for St Lucia, so after bagging a priceless Boat Of The Marina photo...

hello to the Jolly Rodger 2 in Bridgetown. I think this is our boat role model. One day we will too be as Piratey as this bad boy, until then "Ahoy Me Harties"

  ...we packed up and headed onwards.

A happy 16 hour sail on a broad reach sent Croc Bones scooting into the night sky. There were fireworks that intertwined with the stars above during my watch that were marking the start of celebrations for Whit Monday. A local religious holiday that is followed by a massive food festival that lines the streets and made the sail really enjoyable.

We arrived and crashed into deep sleep until early afternoon. After the customary eventfulness of going through immigration and customs ( a back and forth go-here-go-there-wait-go-back-wait-stay-more wait annnnnnnnnnnnnd done) we spent the evening catching up with our friends and staring blissfully out into another breathtaking, burning sunset.

An early rise the next day sent us on our way up to Souffrire. Now its a Win-Loose situation this 'being in the wrong place for hurricane season' malarkey. We win because there is no one around and we get pretty much the whole of paradise to ourselves... but we loose because we are now on constant alert for weather warning and are paying close attention to the NOAA website.

Souffrire means "Air of Sulphur" and the smell definitely backs that up.  After dropping anchor outside a bat cave!! OMG, very freaky and cool! We started with a climb up Petite Piton.. the smaller and non-tourist traveled Piton mountain (after starting up you can very much see why). 650m of huge boulders, sheer cliffs and tight crevices means you need to be on top form and have your wits around you to get up. We very cleverly (ehem) climbed at midday and devoured the 12 litres of water we took with us. 4 hours later and feeling a bit worse for ware our boat boy posse made up of Kevin, Darren and Xpert (Jarvis thought he said he was an X-man) took us to the local mud and Sulphur baths to ease away aches and pains .....

We climbed the one on the left

..and to throw hot mud at each other. Finally topping the day off with a visit to the Piton Waterfalls which were closed, not that that seemed to hinder anything. We splashed and played without a care in the world until the sun started to go down and then headed back to end an amazing day with a full belly of food. The owner was this awesome local guy who very excitedly told us he had, for 15 years, lived right by where my Mum and Jarvis' Dad had been born in London. What a small world.  

Bat man??

It's an incredible feeling having every moment take your breath away more than the last... i can only hope it doesn't stop anytime soon.

Tia and Jarvis, Over and Out