Jan. 5 St. Lucia
I had breakfast at the hotel restaurant, it was buffet style for 60EC, I should have gone down to the marina as I could have had a full English at the Starfish Grill for half that. I had made arrangements to meet Dan at the dingy dock at Happy Day bar, Skyelark is now anchored off Pigeon Island until the next charter, and I wanted to give him some stuff to hold on to for me until I return from the States. I am flying home on US Air and they charge $25 for the first checked bag so I am only taking hand luggage, mainly the things I don’t need for Caribbean cruising. I left my tee shirts and shorts on board so they could be sent to the laundry, no need for those in Buffalo in the winter. After I got back to the hotel Trendy stopped by and we hung out by the pool and the bar waiting to check out. My plan was to wait until 1:00 to see if anyone looked like they were leaving and then see if they wanted to share a taxi to the airport as it is $80 US, quite a lot to pay on my own. When the time arrived no one was in the lobby so Trendy suggested I take the bus to the airport, I had plenty of time so I figured why not give it a try. We took a bus to Castries and then he walked me over to the area the Vieux Fort buses park and I took got on with my carry on bag and back pack. I had to balance them on my knee the whole way, but the total fare including Trendys ride to Castries was only 20 EC ($8 US) so it was worth it. The flight I booked had an overnight layover in Philadelphia and I figured I could sleep at the gate, but they wouldn’t let me go through security because my ticket was for the next day, so rather than sleep in the main terminal (they let homeless people sleep in there) I booked a room at the Sheridan Four Points for less than $100 with free shuttle. The next days flight left on time and Kim picked me up at the airport as arranged, in all it has been a wonderful vacation.
