Rodney Bay, Saint Lucia. Our usual spot in front of Pigeon Island. What is the first thing we'd do as we arrived? Besides checking-in of course...
Do you see this Turkish guy happily walking with a package, a huge smile on his face? What on earth could be in this box and make us so happy?
Our brand-new anchor windlass, the same model as the old one for hopefully an easy installation! Pure joy and soon an anchor that goes up at the press of a button again!
Visa
But, of course, the initial reason why we had to come to Saint Lucia wasn't the windlass, it was another round of visa application for Yalçın. For mainland France this time. Here we go again! Printer out, downloading document after document, writing letters of explanation, signatures etc...
And a few days later, a dinghy ride to drop Yalçın off to the bus for Castries. Direction: the French Consulate...
... with a rainbow in the background... do you believe in lucky signs?
Later that day, our good friends from SV Istanbul arrived from Martinique to drop off their guests at the airport the next day. Meeting with them again for a short week was a treat. We had a lovely dinner over to their boat with delicious food freshly brought from Turkey by Tuğçe and Emre with whom we had the luck to cross paths. They were also the first people to learn that Yalçın's visa application had resulted in a crashed computer that couldn't be fixed on the spot and that he'd have to go back to the consulate in a few days when they'd fixed the problem... Do not put too much trust in those lucky signs!!
Boat work
Of course, one of the main activities in Rodney Bay turned out to be boat work... as usual...
Number one was to reinstall the boards that allowed our quarter berth to be entirely enclosed for guest privacy. We were supposed to have guests quite soon, including a guest of honor, my Mom who was very slowly warming up to the idea of sleeping on the boat. Making the cabin more private was a must and since we have had these boards come with the boat and lying around for so long, why not try to put them on...
Rather than a re-installation, it was an installation as every board had to be individually refitted to the proper height to allow the accordion door to slide properly. The project that was supposed to take 2 hours took 2 days - not unheard of for a boat project - but all in all the result wasn't too bad.
The windlass installation was also of course another boat project, and it went smoothly while Yalçın was back in Castries to finally hand out his application. Other projects followed like sanding out the top of our toilet door in order to make it close again (crucial for guests as well) and changing the pressure regulator of our propane tank to make it leakproof...
Finally Fort Rodney hike
Fort Rodney had been overlooking our favorite anchorage from the top of Pigeon Island, and we had contemplated it as well as the opportunity to visit every time but had never gone for it. Probably because we are cheap as it is a 10 USD fee per person and we always found it quite much for a short hike and a fort, so we had been waiting for the perfect day.
Well guess what, the perfect day never came but our time in Saint-Lucia was coming to an end and we had done enough boat work: it was time.
So we hiked the steep way to the top...
... and were rewarded with a gorgeous view of the town...
... of the anchorage...
... as well as the man-made land corridor that leads to Pigeon Island, which is de facto not an island anymore!
But there was a second peak, with less fortification but still, we had to go for it!
Gorgeous views of the North, towards Martinique
That's us in a few days...
And views of the South of Saint-Lucia. Can you spot the Pitons?
There is no proof that Marie tried to steal a canon on her way down...
... nor that Yalçın acted as a pirate at the entrance of the small museum that we checked out at the end of the hike.
The pirate we are talking about eventually got his visa (not at the point of his sword!) but it took a full month for the application to get processed and for us to get an answer in Dominica when our Berkeley friends came to visit. But getting a little ahead for ourselves here, so leaving it there!
February 2o23