Thursday – 15 Dec, 2011
This year my friend Tony is joining me on the holiday charter to the Grenadines. He isn’t a sailor, but he has been to many different places and should fit in just fine on the boat. Our JetBlue flight arrived early at UVF in the south of St. Lucia. I made sure to book us seats on the left side of the plane so we could see the Pitons on our approach. I had prearranged a shared cab to Rodney Bay ($50 for the two of us) and Joel, our driver was waiting for us as we exited C&I. The ride from the airport took us through the countryside past banana plantations and lush valleys with the mountains in the background, their peaks covered in clouds. We dropped off the other fare, a Lucian woman returning home for the holidays, and then proceeded to the marina in Rodney Bay. As we approached and sighted all the masts and the familiar surroundings I could feel the last remnants of stress just wash away.
As we were parking, Ken, from Coyote II, walked by and we chatted a bit. We hauled our bags to Skyelark and Em came up from down below to greet us as Dan retrieved some cold Pitons from the fridge. I had been following their daily blogs during the ARC and we had some laughs over the funnier moments. It took great restraint but I did not kid Dan about Em beating him to the finish line on Great Escape, the boat she skippered. After some refreshments we went down to The Starfish Grill, which is located in the marina. We all opted for the Thai chicken noodles (39 EC), which were nicely flavored, but the pasta was a little starchy. Tony and I were tired from a long day of travel, but although it was tempting to hit the sack, we decided to head down to the Rodney Bay strip and see if we could find some of my friends. The first bar we stopped at was Whiskey In The Jar, located in Ku-De-Ta restaurant. As luck would have it Trendy was at the bar and we exchanged warm greetings. He and Nick (my son) have been keeping in touch since our trip last year. We grabbed some stools at the bar and ordered up some beers and also their very nice spiced rum, the service was quick and friendly. We later moved to a table outside to take advantage of the slight breeze and for a little people watching also. From there we went to Rehab (no not that one, the Bar) for a couple more before finishing up the night at Caesars. Tony decided to try a tropical drink and ordered a Mai-Tai which was quite strong. After a few we were finally ready for bed. Trendy called a taxi for us and it turned out to be Joel, who had given us the ride from the airport, small world. Anyways it is great to be back in St. Lucia and on the boat again, Tony fell right into the groove so I know this is going to be a good trip..
