WALLILABOU and SAILING UP TO ST LUCIA FOR CHRISTMAS

Raising the St Lucian courtesy flag on Christmas day after a very wet and rolly night.



Breakfast was good with Dizzy being intrigued by my bobble.

After a period of strong winds from the NE which is the wrong direction for heading North we got a forecast for two days of moderate winds from the SE so although it meant missing out on a Bequia
Christmas we lifted the anchor and headed North stopping at Wallilabou for a shower and massage with all the fresh water a man could wish for. Even Dizzy seemed to want to come along as he was sitting on the bottom step as we left for the hike up to the falls.

Wallilabou is a deep bay with a steeply shelving profile which means dropping the anchor and having one of the local ' beachfront service providers ' or boat boys row a line ashore. It is also the place where one of the Pirates of the Caribbean films was shot and the locals have held on to some of the props and buildings as tourist attractions. They even have asked Disney to come back and repair some of the deteriorating buildings and the pier. I reckon the chances of Disney doing this are slim or none and Slim has left town.

There has been a fair bit of rain recently so the flow over the falls was pretty strong and a few seconds pummeling was all I could take before going under. The local kids were enjoying it too!

We left early next morning and romped the 56 miles up to St Lucia with the GPS reading 10+ knots at times as we surfed down the big Atlantic swells under some magnificent rainbows from the occaisional rain clouds that peppered us. We arrived in Marigot Bay just in time to be greeted with a major rain event and thunderstorm which is ongoing as I write this with the lightening being almost continuous and the radio full of reports of significant flooding. To make things worse after we checked in and Patricia cooked an excellent dinner which we had to eat inside instead of in the cockpit the winds and swell reversed possibly due to the gianormous cu-nim sitting on top of St Lucia and we started to rock and roll. Had the visibility been better I would have pulled anchor and headed around to Castries but I decided that it was safer to stay put even if we needed seat belts to stay in bed. With the winds being reversed in the anchorage there were people playing bumper boats all night with much shouting and fending off. We were spared that but had to spend time roll proofing stuff on flat surfaces, tracking down clinking bottles in cupboards and even decided to drop the dink back in the water as it was difficult to tie it down and prevent it moving which means chafe and much squeaking.

Speaking of squeaking Dizzy Sox produced some splendid squeaky meows on passage as she vented her disapproval of the whole sailing thing, especially when we had spray from our bow wave finding it's way into the cockpit. It may have been warm but it was wet. After cuddling up to my leg for a while he found a protected spot under the dodger and viewed the world from there. He had been very vocal as we left in the dink or in the morning as he tries to gget me up to give him his brekkie.

Anyway MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY.