Happy Birthday Maggie!

Happy 14th Birthday Maggie!!
March 8, 2013

Waking up on Patronus after a sleepover

chocolate chip scones for breakfast

A day of touring the island....First stop: Toraille Waterfall

We were the only ones there to enjoy in peace

Showered by the waterfall

Getting a back massage

Visiting the drive through volcano museum

Learning about how a piton forms.  It's actually a volcano that never erupted

The steam rising form the hot springs

Stinky rotten egg smell!

Birthday lunch at the Chocolate Hotel Restuarant

A birthday celebration:  Charles, Craig, me, Karen, Chris, Bob, Erica, Gene, Kat, and Christine

Make a wish.  As we sang happy birthday to Maggie, the candles were flickering and as soon as she was going to blow the candles out, the wind decided to do it for her - right on cue.

Mmmm, good....vanilla cupcakes with chocolate ganache with beach umbrellas

Present time

Time to say goodbye to the Conways.  They are heading north while we stay in St. Lucia for more visitors from home.  We hope to meet up with them in the Bahamas!  It was bittersweet to celebrate a birthday and say goodbye....a very emotional night for our families.

Visitors from home!

Our first of three guests to arrive from Dallas.  We were soooo excited to see faces from home.  Blog followers, meet Charles and Karen.  They stayed at a beautiful, amazingly gorgeous resort (Sugar Beach Resort) that was nestled in between the Pitons on St. Lucia.

View of Gros Piton from the resort pool

First dinghy ride of many to our boat

Beautiful resort view from the dinghy.  We were fortunate to be able to sit on a mooring ball right in front of the resort.  

Yes, this is exactly what it looks like....we are mooning Virgina Dare.  It's too good not to share....we had talked with Patronus and Virginia Dare about coming to the southern part of St. Lucia in March while Charles and Karen visited, celebrate Maggie's birthday and say our goodbyes to Patronus who were moving on.  All of this was done via e-mail.  Virginia Dare really wanted to join us but weren't sure if they could make it happen.  Meanwhile, in one of the passing e-mails, Christine casually mentions that they had a cockpit party - NAKED!  What?!  Exactly what did they mean by this, we wondered.  We came up with all sorts of scenarios in which one might end up naked in their cockpit with fellow cruisers.  For example:  "Hey there so and so, you interested in coming over for a pajama party, sans the pajamas?"  I mean who does that?  Well I guess Bob and Christine do.  Soooo....the 6 of us  (Craig and I, Erica and Chris, Charles and Karen) were sitting beachside drinking an adult beverage when we see Virginia Dare pull into town.  Yeah, they made it....it's a surprise...this is great....we need to get to the bottom of this pajama party.  Next thing you know, we are hatching a plan....hence the reason for the full moon.  Poor Charles and Karen got acquainted with our friends real fast!  Luckily they are good sports and took some pictures for us.

Chritsine giving us the the thumbs up....guess they liked it!

Enjoying cocktails and snacks, which turned into dinner and dessert.  That's how we roll, cruiser style.

 The following day, we took Charles and Karen out for a day sail up the coast of St. Lucia

 We stopped for a swim

Charles and Olivia fishing

Maggie gets picked up by her friend Charlotte on her way to Rodney Bay.  We will soon be traveling back north to Rodney Bay to be reunited with Maggie, Charlotte and her mom, Dana.

That night, Charles arranged for a babysitter (in their villa) for Kate and Olivia so we could go out to dinner with them, Bob and Christine.  What a great night in the swanky tapas restaurant.

 Christine, Karen and I all dolled up for a night on the town.

 Bob having a little fun with the art on the bar

 Really bad picture..but another fun night on Kat and Gene's boat.  Charles and Karen got a good dose of our cruising lifestyle, that's for sure.  I think they spent more time away from their resort than they did in it!

Who's hiding under there??  Olivia and Charles having another fun moment.

St. Lucia Part I

After getting the boat all pretty, we needed to head to the southern part of the island to meet our first guests.  Along the way, we stopped in Marigot Bay.  It was a very small bay, only big enough for less than 20 boats it seemed.  We tried to anchor in the outer bay, but had no luck with the holding.   We picked up a mooring ball instead, located inside the lagoon, surrounded by mangroves and palm trees.

Sun setting in Marigot Bay

One of the perks for getting a mooring ball was having access to the resort pool (and swim up bar).

After our whopping 24 hour stay, we were moving on, leaving Marigot Bay.  But don't worry, we'll be back.....

  

Our first glimpse of the magnificent Pitons!

Pulling into the bay outside the town of Soufriere.

The bat caves near the mooring ball we stayed on.  We could clearly hear the TEN thousand bats squeaking inside that crack!  There was no mistaking that sound.

See, I told you there were lots of them.

Once on land, we went to the Diamond Botanical Gardens specifically to experience the mineral baths.  

Examples of some of the exotic flowers found on St Lucia (in the Botanical gardens)

   

The rocks turn yellow as a chemical reaction to the sulfur in the water that come directly from the volcano.  The water looks black instead of a pretty blue.  This is typical of volcanic water.  The water changes color each day depending on the metal content and quantity of iron and copper.

The PRE-mineral bath shower

The mineral baths.   Don't we look younger already?

Not sure what this is but it's some sort of fruit (may or may not be edible)

Olivia buys a hand crafted carved and painted piece of wood from the artist's studio

Wax On, Wax Off

It was time to get the boat all spruced up and pretty for our 'house' guests.  Well, that's not the real reason we spent 2 nights in Rodney Bay Marina, St. Lucia, but it definitely sounds better.  We were there to get our autopilot rebuilt.  However, that's another saga for another day.  Secondly, Craig wanted to repair a small leak in the dinghy.  Which in reality, according the directions, you must first clean it, mix the glue, coat both surfaces, twice, then put the patch on inflated.  Then deflate it and hold pressure on it for 24 - 48 hours.  Finally, it can't be fully inflated until it's completely curred, in a minimum of 6 days.  Wait, there's more..... you can't use it, can't be direct sunlight or near water while doing all those steps!!  So essentially you need to magically transport your dinghy to the Sahara Desert and keep it there for at least a week.  Which would be fine and dandy if you had a 'spare' dinghy, which no one has!  Geez.   At least in the marina, we could get the 24-48 hour part done and not actually use it.  So, while we were there, we did do a major cleaning and took advantage of being plugged into shore power.

Sailing to St. Lucia

Maggie hand steering 

Arriving in Rodney Bay

Out the back window as the sun sets

Our lovely fresh caught Cero with mango salsa, home grown tomatoes and fried plantains

Anything Goes and Patronus are dock buddies

Craig helping I tie up the sailing dinghy after I fell overboard while washing the hulls before they got buffed and waxed.  Let me tell you, NO one wants to fall in the water in a marina or go in voluntarily for that matter.  The water is usually, ummm, let me rephrase, always, nasty.  I did everything in my power not to completely fall out of the dinghy.  So as a result, I was found with my hands and feet in the dinghy and only my butt in the water.  Craig came to my rescue, my hero!

Craig and Chris examining something on the back of our transom

Defrosting the freezer.  You probably can't see it, but I am using the hair dryer to melt the ice that builds up in the fan between the refrigerator and freezer.  This is a bi-monthly job.  Sadly this is the only time the blow dryer is used.  If you look closely, you might be able to see the rope burn on my arm from my dinghy fall.  Can you say 'ouchy'?

"Friend", that's his name, polishes our stainless steel while his 2 co-workers buff and wax the entire boat.  It is more economical to get this work done here rather than the states.  Our plan was to wax the top of our boat ourselves during the trip.  We thought we would have all kinds of time on our hands.  Wrong!  That boat project just wasn't gettin' done.

All kinds of cleaning products being used

Stocking up on local fruit from the guy in his little boat.  You know, the one with all the flags all over it puttin' around

Kids next door on Patronus and grown-ups drinking wine out of real glasses on Anything Goes!