January 6, 2006 – ST. LUCIA (Day 9)

It's our last day and I was very excited to get off the ship. My plans were to visit the Grand Market in Castries, take a bus over to Soufriere and hire a taxi to take us to the "drive-through" volcano and Diamond Falls reserve for the sulfur spring bath. Walking up and around Castries we were constantly harassed by taxi drivers. We found some refuge in a small duty free mall where we eyed some Cuban cigars and alcohol. We ran into Sam and Sean there who told us they had rented cars the past two days and it was awesome. The rental car costed less than hiring a taxi for a couple hours plus you had it for the whole day. We said we were down to split the cost if they wanted to do it again. I wanted to check out the local market first and they were coming along and then we bumped into Brian and Heather. Total coincidence! We chatted for a bit and thought, hey why not try renting a car again. We went back into the mall and the receptionists said the cars were sold out. Samantha tried to call and find other hostesses but no luck. Then we were offered a taxi for $20 US each for the whole day. Samantha made sure that he would take us to all the sights we wanted to see; she even asked if he’d be our driver up to 11pm and he said sure whatever you wish (liar!). We thought it was a great deal and said we'd start the tour after we stopped by the market first. The market turned out to be pretty touristy (mostly stuff made in China that they also sell in the Bahamas and Hawaii) and the fruit selection sucked. We saw one guy buy a coconut and after drinking it said the juice tasted weird...probably not ripe yet. I passed by the food stalls and saw a local sucking a chicken bone dry..his whole plate was polished off! So I went to the stall and pointed to him and said "I'll have what he's having." It was stewed chicken over rice...yummy! I added some hot sauce and savored it in once we were back to the minivan taxi. Apparently our taxi driver had recruited two more passengers who were on another cruise. They had to be back by 5pm but that was their problem. Our first stop was a lookout point over Castries; there were a bunch of aggressive vendors. The taxi drivers probably got kickbacks for taking us to these spots. Along the way “Yellowman” pointed out a field of banana trees; they cover the bananas with blue bags to protect the fruit from damage. Bananas are St. Lucia’s second most valuable industry next to tourism. We saw many banana plantations, passed by an old sugar refinery, drove by a few picturesque fishing towns, and finally reached Soufriere. One of the people in the van had to stop at a bank and Yellowman disappeared for about 40 minutes leaving the rest of us in the car to fend for ourselves against begging children and a crackhead. There was a lot of hustle and bustle in Soufriere. Street vendors selling cartloads of fresh fish.

January 5th - Grenada (Day Five)
The captain on EC1 seems to like to hear his voice over the intercom so we were woken up by him again this morning. St-Georges & Carenage port in Grenada were surprisingly beautiful…tied for most beautiful port with Port Elizabeth, Bequia. Picked up some maps and directions to the bus terminal from the Tourism Office and off we were. We went walking and found the Food Fare, a supermarket I read about. This was the most impressive grocery store i’ve seen so far in the Caribbean…stocked with a huge selection of cheese and tons of thai cooking sauces! We kept on walking around and popped into many little food shops looking for a snack. We never really found anything…most places were already sold out of their beef rotis, so we found the #2 bus and headed to La Sagesse. They dropped us in front of a narrow paved road (more like driveway). It was a scenic and quiet walk down. We saw lots of lush greenery, an Indian man who confirmed this was the right way to the beach, a black ox, and more goats. On the way back Kevin spotted a group of ants working together to transport a large bug. We’ve never seen a group of ants working together to carry something…must have been about 40 ants working as a group. La Sagesse Nature Center is a hotel owned by a Polish lady, Nancy. She greeted us when we entered and I told her we would hang out on the beach and then come back for lunch. I picked a secluded spot (apparently infested by mosquitos), laid out the beach towel, and ran out to the water. This beach was very unique. The sand was not white but mocha color, the softest most powdery sand ever. It was tightly packed so when you walked on it, it didn’t spread all over your feet. The water was warm like bath water and there were little gentle baby waves. We swam around for a bit and I relaxed on the water, floating on my back with my arms out like a cross. It was the most relaxing 30 minutes of the entire trip…suspended in a calm ocean, warmed by the sun and water, completely silent and peaceful. Swimming always makes me hungry so we retreated back to the hotel’s restaurant. We snagged a table right next to the beach and ordered grilled kingfish, pumpkin soup and a side of fries. The fish was delicious but the most interesting part of the meal was the salad dressing. It was a beet and cabbage vinaigrette dressing which I poured all over the fries. Nancy, the owner, joined us for a while. She was living here since the 80s and had the nicest things to say about Grenada (but not about Americans). She just bought 7 acres in the rainforest and said there were little farms up there that were the “sweetest” things.

After lunch, we went back to the ship to shower and change. We stopped by Food Fare to buy Caribbean hot sauce, bread, blue cheese, havarti and sausage for late-night snacks. We had dinner at the Creole Shack; a cafeteria-style restaurant filled with locals. We tried the stewed pork, pumpkin, cole slaw, pelau, and fried fish. Delicious! We were hassled by a bum and a man named Walter on the walk back to the ship. He told us tons of stories about being in the Vietnam war, living in San Diego & San Francisco, and being born in 1949. Interesting stuff but I doubt most of it was true.

Back on the ship we snacked on the cheese, sausage, and bread. Kevin had a late night snack of fries while I was sleeping. I was pretty tired and was out cold for the rest of the night.

January 4th (Bequia)
I've heard about Dawn's Creole Kitchen before (probably by perusing other travel blogs) so I stopped in. I ordered a fresh glass of Passion Fruit juice and we shared a table with Marc. Marc was originally from New York, was semi - retired and living in St. Vincent. He and his wife were masseuses and he had lived in the Caribbean (on various islands) for the past 10-15 years. He was eating the lunch special (stewed Creole chicken); it looked delicious so I changed my codfish burger order to the lunch special. The next hour (yes it took that long for my food to come out) we chatted...he told us about the Bequia and the islands and we told him about us, our trip and our engagement. He recommended that we try the Devil's Table but when he heard we had reservations for the Lobster Fest at Moskito Bar/Grill he said that would be an even better dinner but a little pricy. He knew the owners, said they were a Swedish couple, and said it was probably the best restaurant on the island. Good thing I didn't switch our dinner plans to eat at Sugar Hill in Mount Pleasant (although I would have liked to check this place out since i'ts a local hangout)...Moskito Bar/Grill seemed like a terrible name for a fancy restaurant and not the place for someone with mosquito allergies to have an enjoyable dinner. Marc bought us another glass of juice and then took off to make the 2pm ferry back to St. Vincent. He was a nice guy and feed his chicken bones to the local dogs (who were well-trained, loved the bones, and were obedient when we wanted to be left alone).
My lunch arrived when Marc was leaving...it tasted even better than it looked. Stewed tender, tasty chicken (with a side of hot sauce =), pickled beets, salad, rice, and potato salad. I savored every single bite. It was a very comforting homestyle dish...pretty much made my entire afternoon! After feeding the dogs the remaining bones, we wandered around up to the street to see if we could catch a cab or bus. We watched Elvis on pan at Keegan's for a while (quite good...did a good rendition of Madonna even) and within 10 minutes, a local red minivan appeared to take us back to Port Elizabeth for 1 EC each. We arrived to the harbour just in time, 5 minutes before the dingy left back to the ship. We headed back to the ship to shower and nap until taking the dingy back into town at 4:30pm.
On the ride back, we noticed the harbour was even more full of beautiful ships..Kevin was like a little kid at a toy store pointing to the ships he liked best...sticking his whole body out of the boat's window. Kev stopped by Lina's but they were sold out of their sandwiches and I stopped by the Euro Market but there wasn't much Euro about it. So we grabbed a taxi (the girl at the tourism office said it would be a steep, long walk to Friendship Bay if we went by bus) which was 20 EC and headed to the opposite side of the island.
The ride over was less than 10 minutes...the island is pretty narrow...3 miles from one side to the other. Apparently Friendship Bay Resort owns the land around the entire Friendship Bay. The restaurant was very fancy; my favorite part were the wooden swing chairs at the bar. Kevin said he felt like he was sitting in a high chair. We roamed around for about two hours - checking out the facilities, hanging out on the dock with some locals who were fishing, having a drink and watching the sunset. We met a couple from Boston who had sold all their worldly belongings and purchased a boat to retire on. What an adventure! The wife had the boat docked in Boston for two years and she commuted to/from work and lived on it to make sure she was cut out to spend the following years on a boat. They had been sailing for twenty years and suggested we read the Christopher Doyle series as it was somewhat of a sailing bible. We took a picture, they gave us their card, and we headed to dinner. I had reserved table #15, a table for two right next to the ocean. The service wasn't as slow as I expected (thank god because Kevin was very anxious to make it back to watch the USC game). The first dish was amazing...better than Aqua...a lobster cappucino - succelent grilled skewer of lobster on top of a capuccino cup filled with Lobster broth. Probably the most tastly thing i've eaten on the trip! Second was a lobster bruchetta; not bad but could have been better. Third was grilled lobster tail atop mixed veggie, rice, and a side of hollandaise sauce. After dinner, we called for a cab and shared it with the couple we just met. They treated us to the cab fare and we promised to write them. What a sweet couple! We were dropped off at Salty Dog at 8:45pm and there were already two guys waiting for the game. We all know how the game went...not a good experience for Kev but it was cool to meet two new yachters. At first we though they were brothers because they totally looked alike. It turns out one went to UT Austin and was a plumber before "Retirement #1" and the other went to Yale for undergrad, Baylor for med school, and was a children's eye surgeon. He was the one who sold his house and bought the 3bd/3ba boat (probably more like a yacht). They were both really cool (despite rooting for Texas). We also met Randy at the Salty Dog; he said he'd over for us as he left at 11:50pm for the ship. We had to leave 5 minutes later during the middle of the third quarter; Kevin was a wreck. We ran into Alan et al, loaded on to the dingy and were back on ship. We hung out with Randy on the jacuzzi deck as the ship took off from the harbor. He was nice enough to let Kevin use his cell phone to occasionally call home to check the score. He was a jeweler and is probably one of the most well-traveled people i've ever met (Brian probably takes 1st place). Globalgems.com is his shop; great guy. After Kevin heard the bad new/final score, he clammed up and went back to the cabin. It was a silent rest of the night as our boat headed for Grenada.