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27 January 2012 - St Lucia

Diane’s brother Henry and his wife Marilyn were here over the past week, enjoying St Lucia. They stayed at the Bay Gardens Resort, an excellent facility that we can highly recommend. We had no problem visiting them there since it is not an all-inclusive resort, although we only sat by the pool and drank mango smoothies once during the week. The rest of the week was quite busy doing other things.

First, Henry wanted to experience SCUBA diving, in the ocean. So, as a former Instructor, I gave Henry some personal lessons, training him in the use of his mask, regulator and buoyancy compensator. Together, we made two dives under the hull, where we had anchored just adjacent to a reef that was 12 - 25 feet deep. After he became comfortable with that, we then tried a drift dive on a shallow reef (16 feet) nearby at Pigeon Island. At the age of 57, he showed that he can learn new skills! 



Of course, we also walked all around Pigeon Island, climbing to both peaks, and had wonderful views of Martinique to the North - only 26 nautical miles. One of the more interesting things that we did was a Segway tour. Diane and I have done this once before in Madrid Spain, but this was the first time for Henry and Marilyn. They found the vehicle very easy to learn and fun to operate. 





We also had a private tour of the island by taxi, price negotiated by Diane ($ 50 per person instead of $ 110 offered by the local tourist shop). We visited the volcano, the Pitons, Rainbow Falls, a chocolate/cocoa factory and a rum distillery. It was an excellent tour and provided a balanced view of the island. We stopped for lunch at Soufriere where both Diane and I tried the local BBQ pork - a first. 





In this photo, you get an idea of all the possible rum concoctions made by St Lucia Distillers in Castries -- maker of “Chairmans Reserve - Spiced” --- my favourite.