Same as with St Vincent, many sailors have skipped St Lucia lately, as there have been some security issues here as well. We spent about a week on the island, on three different anchorages, and had no security issues.
Our first stop was near the iconic Pitons, which are two impressive “cone-like” mountains. They are located in the Southern part of the island, inside a marine park. This means that the area is protected from fishing and anchoring, in particular.
We were met well offshore by one of the local “boat boys”. For those who are not familiar with the term, boat boys help you to grab and tie to the mooring, as you can’t really reach it when your boat’s height is a couple of meters above the water. You pay a fee (normally about EUR 7), and they assist you.
The boat boys often live of guiding and other services as well, and once you get connected to one of the guys, most sailors will stick with him at that anchorage. We have experienced at some locations throughout the Caribbean that the boat boys become quite aggressive and compete amongst themselves, whereas other locations they collaborate and have made a really good system out of the service. The latter is obviously the most preferred to most.
As always, we had to check in, so we took the short dinghy ride to the nearest town, Soufriere. It is a sleepy, fishing town, and most sailors don’t spend much time in the city.
Of course we had to hike the Pitons! We decided to go for the highest one, the Gros Piton. We started a really steep climb from the beach next to our anchorage. After about 45 minutes, we reached the base of the path leading the way up the mountain. There was a welcome center there, with a guide who shared that it would cost USD 50 per person to climb the mountain!
We are definitely okay with paying for activities when we visit these islands. Covid has really hurt the local economy, and things are definitely not back to normal yet. However, USD 50 is way too steep. The guide explained it with the fact that you will need a guide to do the climb. However, it is not a technical climb, so we assumed this is a way to ensure local jobs.
Unfortunately, as a result, we decided to go for another climb. We would definitely pay to support the local economy, but this was just too much. The hike we chose is called Tet Paul, and it brought us to an area where we got a great view of the Pitons.
We were supposed to stay at the Sugar Beach Viceroy Hotel located just onshore of our anchorage a couple of years ago. Covid hindered the family holiday to an awesome hotel, so we had to visit it now. We took a well deserved drink at the bar after our hike, and they were soooo good and unique to the place, so we had to take a picture of the drink menu. Lots of inspiration for a future Noxoma cocktail!
As we sailed towards our next anchorage, we got some beautiful views of the Pitons from the sea. They are truly an impressive and iconic mark for the island. We only hope they make them more accessible for people.
We anchored a couple of times on our sail North, the second anchorage being Anse Cochon, where it is only one hotel and some local boats that visit during the day time. It turned out to be a good and quiet anchorage where we took out our SUPs, had a few dives, and just relaxed for a few days.
As we continued our sail North, we passed a village called Anse La Raye, which Carine’s sister lived in for a month some 35 years ago. She sailed in the Caribbean for six months, and visited a total of 28 islands. Even though we feel like we are island hopping quite frequently, we will probably not be close.
Our third anchorage, Marigot Bay, is located about in the middle of the sail on the leeward side of the island. It has a few spots to anchor outside a channel that leads to a lagoon inside a calm bay. We prefer to anchor in as good quality of water as possible, so we stayed outside of the bay, by the channel.
The last anchorage we chose, was Rodney Bay, right at the Northern most point of the island. It is a huge bay, and is the sailing center of St Lucia. It is well equipped with a marina where several of sailing charter companies have their base.
Inside the marina area, there were some beautiful properties right on the water, as well as several nice cafes and restaurants. As it is after Easter and getting towards the end of the season, it was very quiet while we were there.
As we got ready to leave St Lucia to go to the next island to the North, Martinique, we contemplated that this island seemed, so far of the ones we have been to, to be the island that had least recovered from Covid yet. Tourism has not picked up yet, and the locals we talked to seemed hopeful mostly, but also tired from the past few struggling years. We only hope that more people will start visiting this island soon again.
