Jan. 6, Casteries
Got up and took my usual walk, I didn’t have any real plans for today other that to go to the market and try to find a hiking stick. Trendy came by early and took the walk with me, then he went to the marina while I took the bus into Casteries.

The fruit vendor heads out to the yachts anchoered in the bay

The market wasn’t as busy as on Saturday, but there were a lot of stands open, though no ripe mangos yet. I picked up some fresh mint and limes for mojitos back at the room, I wanted to get some homemade green sauce but all that was available was Barons which can be purchased at the grocery store cheaply. I didn’t find any nice carved sticks but one woman offered to sell me the branch she was uses to prop up her stall awning, but it was too light and short. I went back to Spicy Delights for lunch and had some more Blue Marlin served with the usual sides. The market is right across from the cruise ship dock so if you are ever on a cruise here and don’t want to do a tour the market is a nice place to walk around and Spicy delights is a great place to get a real taste of St. Lucia.
Dan had called earlier and told me there was a WARC party at the marina in the Bread Basket Restaurant at 6:00, so I got all cleaned up, put on my official Skyelark Pacific Odyssey tee-shirt and took the bus to the marina. I got there a little early so I stopped at the Boardwalk Bar for a drink; the usual crowd was there, including Paul and Carol from Canada who have been following my blog.

Some of the crowd at the party


The WARC flag
The World Cruising Club knows how to put on a party; I have attended many of them after the ARC, but this was the first time I went as a participant. It was the first meet and greet for the crews of the 40 or so boats entered in the event, with crews representing 15 different countries. The Yellow Shirt Team was out in force making introductions and taking time to chat with everyone. I may be biased, but our tee-shirts have the best design of any of them; they are the result of a brainstorming session when the yachts were storm bound in Portugal on their way down from Southampton to Las Palmas.

The best crew shirt in the fleet, most of the legs have already sold out.

We had tickets for free drinks and varieties of snacks ( I can’t spell hors’d vores) were provided.
The patio was only reserved for a few hours and the party started breaking up as the staff replaced the dining tables that had been removed to facilitate mingling between the crews. Dan and Em were going to Rodney Bay for some curry; they invited me along but I was still full from lunch. I caught a ride over in the dingy anyways and stopped at Rehab for a Piton before going home back to the hotel around 11:00.

Very envious. Wish I was in St Lucia about to start the World Arc!

Say hi to Paul and Susanna (WARC staff) for me and also Tom Toohey skipper of Alpheratz. Tom did part of WARC 2010 as crew and we also met up in Maine in 2012.

Keep the reports coming.