St. Lucia

The Philadelphia airport. See the terminal at the top right, that's where we landed. The terminal at the bottom left is

where we had to run to. In other words, we ran through the entire airport!

Marigot Bay

Doolittle's restaurant & Bar. Our villa is the white

building top right.

Bernie & Sarah

This is the crab we saw at breakfast every

morning. Here it is eating it's breakfast of ants.

View from our veranda

Sarah snorkeling with Sergeant Majors swimming

around her

Sarah sitting on our veranda drinking Piton beer

and writing in the travel journal

The fishing village of Anse La Raye

Sunday Dec 21

We woke up bright and early for a Sunday morning to the sound of Sarah's mom's voice calling us at 4:20 saying she was on her way to pick us up and take us to the airport. Oh it was too early to be up.

We got to the airport at 5:30 and were the only ones going through the security line, so of course, they stopped Sarah because she was the first one through the line. Wand wand everywhere…

The boarding process was delayed a little because of a reason we soon discovered once we stepped foot into the plane. The plane was freezing cold. I think it was 24 degrees that morning and it felt less than that in the plane. Apparently there is something on the runway that the planes “plug” into to give them power while they are parked. Well, this plug-in wasn’t working so no heat on the plane until after we de-iced, took off and we were at least 30 minutes into the flight.

9:00a.m. we finally got off the plane and everyone bolted. Most everyone had a flight to hurry and get to. It was funny watching everyone running off the plane through terminal F, to the shuttle then to Terminal A. We ran too… Sarah was way ahead of Carol – Run… walk… run… walk…talk about out of shape! Ran for nothing because the plane didn’t board until 9:50 and eventually left the terminal at 10:20.

Once at the airport in St. Lucia we had to stand in line with our passports and paperwork, find our luggage and then find our taxi driver through the mess of people trying to be our taxi drivers. Luckily, Carol had the hotel arrange for a taxi to meet us there – that’s where we first met Andrew who became our “personal” taxi driver for the week. We found him holding a sign with Carol's name on it.

Our ride from the airport with Andrew took 1 ½ hours. We saw a lot of interesting things on our drive – lots of livestock tied up on the side of the road, guys with machete’s in their hand walking down the street, women carrying things on their heads, etc. And since St. Lucia is under the British Commonwealth, they drive on the opposite side of the road than we do. It’s a very, very, very beautiful island with lush, green vegetation as far as the eye can see.

Once we reached the end of the road (literally), Andrew whistled for the Water Taxi. It is the only way to get to Marigot Bay Beach Club and Dive Resort and runs 24 hours a day.

Bernie welcomed us at the reception desk and had another fella take our luggage up to our room. For dinner our first night, we stayed close by and ate at the resort’s restaurant called Doolittle’s named after the movie that was filmed there in the 1970’s. Sarah had the Tagliatelle with Garlic and Oil while Carol ate the Chicken Colombo and we shared an appetizer of Garlic Bread with Cheese. All of this with Piton Beer of course… and Carol had a Marigot Sunset drink. A live band played with lots of old school songs – Lionel Richie and Eric Clapton.

Monday Dec 22

We woke up around 8:30, took a shower and went to Doolittle's for breakfast. There was a crab near our table eating it's breakfast of ants. We saw this crab every morning afterwards and found it quite amusing to watch.

After breakfast we went for a stroll exploring the resort. As we walked along the beach to get a few pictures / video, we got bombarded by several of the water taxi peeps - otherwise known as beach bombers. They want to make sure you know that they will be more than happy to take you anywhere for a "good price".

Later, we headed over to the resort’s sundeck and went snorkeling. There was a British family (father, son, daughter) who had the same idea that went in before we did and left while we were in the water but the father left a seashell on Carol’s chair – how sweet! The water was soooo salty and our goggles kept getting fogged up but it was a GREAT time! This was Sarah’s first snorkeling experience and she couldn’t wait to do it again. We saw lots of fish … yellow, blue, silver, black, black with yellow… Carol also saw some sort of lobsters or water spider or something. There were lots of sea sponges, spiney black things, reefs…and the water so clear and warm.

For lunch, we took the water ferry across the bay and walked a little ways to Chateau Mygo. The restaurant was very colorful, as most of the places are. Carol had fish and chips and Sarah had the chicken and chips (that had holes in it, looked left over and dry, and was all dark meat…ugh!) The beverage was the best tasting of it all, Piton beer, of course.

After lunch we decided to walk up the road leading to a place where we could overlook the bay. The hill was humongous!! It was a tough climb but well worth it for the beautiful view of Marigot Bay and our resort. Along the way, we saw lots of lizards and a random bull with the typical white bird near it.

Relaxing on our veranda quickly became one of our favorite things to do. We took some time out and enjoyed the sunset before meeting Andrew for our taxi ride to dinner at the Green Parrot. It was mostly a French style restaurant (not on Carol’s list for a reason). Carol had Shrimp Cocktail, Salad and Steak with Wine and Mushroom sauce while Sarah ate French Onion Soup, Salad and Chicken Curry. Again, the best part was the Piton beer. Afterwards, we went back to Doolittle’s and ordered tropical drinks. Carol tried the “Big Bamboo” and Sarah had the “St. Lucian Planters Punch”. Both were very yummy. What a great way to end the day.

Tuesday Dec 23

We had to get up bright and early this morning to go snorkeling. We booked with the Dive Fair Helen outfit. The boat picked us up in our harbor and we headed south to the Anse Chastanet reef. The best snorkeling site in St. Lucia. There were so many colorful fish, brain sponges, barrel sponges, pinnacles, and other types of sealife. We'll tell you a little bit more about the reef and more about the fish we saw later on.

After 1/2 hour of snorkeling, it was off to Soufriere where our tour group brought us a nice hot lunch to eat on the boat. Lunch consisted of rice, noodles, bread, chicken, fish with the head still attached (ugh…), water and a red punch. After lunch we headed back out for more snorkeling at what is known as Superman’s Flight. Apparently part of a Superman movie was filmed there. The current was pretty strong in this area which pulled you along at a pretty quick pace so you didn't have to swim at all.

Superman’s Flight was our favorite. While snorkeling along the reef, there were parts that looked so close you could reach out your hand and touch it or you almost felt like you were going to scrape along the reef. Then there were other parts where you would see the reef and then it would just drop off into a deep blue nothing. The changes in the sea floor were amazing… sand, reef, rocks, and deep blue nothing – down to 1800 ft deep. Carol saw a Blowfish and Squid. Sarah saw an eel and a sea turtle. The sea turtle was ½ under a rock and when Sarah came up to try to tell the others, she was only above the water for a minute but the current was so strong that when she went to look again, she was already so far beyond that neither the guide or Sarah could find it again… c’est la vie. Our guide had also seen a barracuda that was about 3 ft long.

We arrived back at Marigot Bay around 4pm. We had a couple Piton beers on our veranda as we enjoyed the view of the bay and watched the hummingbirds buzzing about. For dinner we decided to dine in Rodney Bay at Buzz Seafood Restaurant. This was the best dinner we had the entire time in St. Lucia. It was worth the 40 minute drive.

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Poinsetta at the Botanical Gardens