Dec 17: St. Lucia
Our flight arrived on time and a mountain of luggage was unloaded from the plane, very little of it belonging to any of the passengers. On a positive note, a guy from Vieux Fort did get his bag that was missing in Antigua. I filled out the lost baggage paperwork and started to head for the nearby bus stop, not wanting to pay $20 - $25 dollars for a taxi with just my carry on. A woman say my Antigua tee shirt and asked if I had seen her Skipper, she was supposed to be on the flight. I hadn’t and noticed she was wearing a Girls for Sail tee shirt, so I mentioned Kay who sails on that boat occasionally, the woman then offer me a ride to the marina .It was still early so I stopped at Café Ole for coffee and a toasty. I almost didn’t recognize Skyelark, with her new sun awning in place, but she was in her usual berth as Dan said she would be. We exchanged greetings and talked about our crossings. Dan’s crew caught a marlin, about two metres long, and with the help of the gaff I gave him for Christmas last year they were able to bring it on board. The freezer is now stocked with marlin steaks, Em must be thrilled, as she doesn’t care for fish. I helped Dan with some boat chores, removing a burnt out battery and tailing for him as he went up the mast to work on the furler. Whenever we haul Dan up in the bosons chair I try to talk Em into getting the broom out so we can play Danny Piñata, but she never goes for it. After lunch and a shower, I ran into Trendy. We went over to the Ocean Club, the marina bar, since it was too hot out to sit at the patio bar. We were joined by Chris, the lead singer in a local rock band, and Boris, a retired British yachtie who was going home fro the holiday having just sailed up from Trinidad. After several beers, they kicked us out as they were getting ready for the Managers party for the ARC. Back at the boat I put on my new tee shirt, the latest in Skyelark crew apparel and we headed off to the party. Now picture this, free food, free booze, and several hundred sailor who had just spent 2-3 weeks sailing across the Atlantic; yes to quote J. Geils “there was a party going on!”. What a fantastic time, great live music and the comerodery of people who had collectively shared a great experience. This wasn’t my first such shindig, so I staked out a spot between the kitchen and the main bar area. As the food came out we descended on the poor servers like a pack of hungry wolves. One young man carrying a platter of fresh mahi-mahi fingers (strips of fish lightly breaded and deep fried) made the mistake of stopping. After I had my fill, I started feeling sorry for him with his bewildered expression and asked him “you’re new at this aren’t you”. He nodded and I told him you have to keep moving or they will eat the whole plate. He did and was soon surrounded by another mob. At the awards ceremony in previous years I’ve seen the waitresses come out of the kitchen in groups of three and then run off in different direction to avoid the awaiting hordes. Once the free stuff ended, we headed out to the boardwalk bar, where a live band was keeping the crowd jumping until about 10:30 pm. After that it was back inside Ocean Club for a few nightcaps of ice cold Pitons.
