Two Saints

We landed in Saint Lucia on 11 December 2023, and are in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) for New Year’s Eve. Having watched a lot of sailing videos and talking to people about the Caribbean, I had a lot of preconceived notions about what it would be like in the Caribbean. It has been fun getting to see the actual countries, and we are really excited to continue our exploration.

Our first days in Saint Lucia were focused upon getting the boat back in order, getting cleared into the country, and enjoying meeting our new ARC friends again. The broken spinnaker halyard was replaced with a new 10mm dyneema halyard, we jokingly call it our gold-diamond-platinum dyneema halyard, because the word dyneema doesn’t by itself express how expensive a bit of rope can be.

A local rigger helped us get it in the mast, and then we could start exploring Saint Lucia. Initially we didn’t go much further than the local grocery store / shopping mall and the marina, as the ARC had a full schedule of activities for our first week on land. Their national holiday is on December 13th, the same day as Saint Lucia day in Sweden, and it was fun to celebrate Saint Lucia Carribean style. There was a dj and buffet of local foods, rum punch and fresh coconuts to drink from. Dancers in carnival-style clothes kicked off the dancing.

Our buddy boat Samsara took us to a local beach for our first Caribbean swim, where we enjoyed more rum punch on the beach plus a woman came and sold yummy hot vegetarian roti sandwiches. After the prize ceremony and festivities, we waved a number of our friends off before departing ourselves.

First off was Marigot Bay, a short trip down the coast. It poured rain, but it was warm and we sat in a bar and tried their rum punch, a good way to pass an afternoon. Next we sailed down between the two peaks, the Pitons, at the south end of Saint Lucia and the inspiration for the Saint Lucia flag. There, we had a couple quiet days and Jodi did her first ever snorkeling in a protected area under the Pitons. There was a small wooden boat anchored on the beach in front of the hotel at Sugar Beach, and we bought really strong rum punch there and hung out with some ARC friends that we ran into.

Back to Rodney Bay, we picked up a few more parts for the boat, and went out to dinner with our buddy boat Samsara at a lovely restaurant (Buzz) near the marina. It was built with large open spaces around several mature trees and they didn’t have any loud music, rather you could hear your tablemates speak and the musical trilling of the frogs that are omnipresent.

After that we followed our other buddy boat Platon down to Bequia, where we spent Christmas. Bequia is an island in the country of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), and is a crescent-shaped island which provides a beautiful harbor. Bequia was more of the stereotypical Caribbean that I had been expecting, with a vibrant local commerce along the waterfront.

Nordic countries celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, so we were fortunate to be allowed to join the Norwegians in their annual Christmas party on Bequia. There were 120 or so people, with games on the beach and in the water, a small Christmas service, then a big barbeque dinner. We spent a pleasant day and evening with our friends from Angelina and Platon, and enjoyed the local dishes.

On Christmas Day, we joined a different group of sailors for a potluck lunch at Fig Tree restaurant. The owner of the restaurant opens her restaurant every Christmas to sailors, allowing the cruisers to use the tables and chairs and barbeque grill for their potluck meal. Her talented granddaughters played the violin and danced for the gathering.

Boxing day or the day after Christmas is a holiday in the Caribbean, so we celebrated it with a hike up to the highest point on Bequia with our buddy boat Angelina. It was a tough hike at an incline in parts so steep that you couldn’t put your heels down, you walked at an angle on tip-toe. After enjoying our brown bag lunch on top of the hill, we walked down the opposite side and along the western shore of Bequia, before returning to Princess Margaret Beach where we had celebrated Christmas Eve. A snorkeling trip finished off the day.

After all that celebrating, we needed a day or two of rest, so we stayed and did some small jobs on the boat, before continuing on to Canouan island just to the south of Bequia. It was another picturesque island, quieter than Bequia – less visited, less commerce. There we snorkeled in a beautiful little bay where we saw an amazing number and variety of fish and coral, and also wandered a bit on the island.

Our buddy boat Angelina was with us on Canouan, and we joined them in the Tobago Cays as well. The Tobago Cays are small islands inside a large double reef, where there is great snorkeling and an abundance of sea turtles. We have been sighting sea turtles often since Bequia, but here in Tobago Cays we also swam within a couple meters of one. Additionally, we had a ray under our boat when we anchored.

The Caribbean is everything expected in terms of beauty, sun, warmth and friendliness. People we have met are helpful, welcoming, and interested their visitors. We didn’t expect the very high costs of restaurants, moorings and just about everything else here – but we are from Sweden with a very weak currency and much smaller wage levels. Food is expensive for that which is flown in (most of it), but we have paid in every case more for meals here than we would in Sweden. I was expecting that the lower overhead costs would result in a somewhat lower or at least equivalent price level. Magnus freaked out when we paid 24 ECD or almost $8 US / 100 SEK for a head of cabbage.

The local currency is the ECD or Eastern Caribbean Dollar, but you have to be careful because service people often quote prices in “dollars” and they may mean US dollars, which is a lot more expensive. We have a lot of staples onboard, and will eat primarily what we cook ourselves in order to be able to enjoy more of the countries.

If you are still reading, Happy New Year! More to come in 2024.