Day 7 - Jus' Sail

St. Lucia weather can be erratic.  But a good kind of erratic.  Rain and wind storms rarely last for more than 5 minutes; at least in May.  "Hurricane Season" is probably a different story.  But for now, the rain never really threatens to ruin the day.  And so went another early St. Lucia morning: glaring sun, followed by heavy sun showers over and over.

We enjoyed some early morning coffee, and just relaxed.  We had gotten an email from the Jus' Sail owner, who confirmed that we were booked for our sailing excursion later in the day.  We were pretty happy about that, since we really hadn't made any other plans for the day.  Now we had something to focus on.

I decided to run some hill-repeats on the hill right next to our villa.  It was short, but offered a fair amount of resistance, in 3 sections: a short and steep incline, a leveling-off into a false flat, and then a longer incline, slowly increasing in grade percentage.  There were other hills that I could've chosen as my workout, but this one offered the lowest probability of getting mauled by a dog.  There were some other houses, a short way down the road that were being guarded by two very large and vocal Belgian Malinois dogs.  They were eager to scare the shit out of me every time I ran by the house, threatening to squeeze through a small gap in the fence, and surely take a few bites.  And even if those dogs didn't maul me, the mele they created drew other stray dogs in packs, rapidly increasing my chances for rabies.

There weren't many houses around, but one of the ones along the road, I found out was occupied.  As I ran my 2nd repeat, a face popped out of the window and offered some words of encouragement.  "Keep digging!  Good job".  It was a teenager wearing what looked to be a soccer jersey, cheering me on.  He was probably a bit of a soccer player, and was excited to see someone getting a decent workout in.  Even though I was only running for 20 minutes, it was incredibly tough.  The heat and humidity seemed to be at their highest point for the day, and I was dripping sweat within the first few minutes of the workout.  After losing a good amount of water weight, I did some more fake-ass yoga, and was ready to get the day started.

I wandered out to the supermarket to grab some ingredients for Lu to cook for us while we were away.  I still couldn't find some of the things that she was talking about.  I wasn't doing so hot at this whole grocery shopping thing.

We headed off to meet the Jus' Sail crew around 2:30, excited to get a fairly intimate tour of the surrounding areas.  We met James, Pepsi and Herbie.  All were incredibly friendly, and quite laid back.  They knew that they were in charge of setting the tone for the trip, and they made sure that they were able to put people into a relaxed mood as soon as possible.  We chatted a little bit, and then climbed on board the Good Expectation, one of 15 handmade wooden sailing sloops left in the world.  At one point, there were hundreds, even thousands, but they were becoming endangered, if an inanimate object can be considered endangered.  James had purchased this one, fixed it up and made some modifications to it to bring it into the new world of sailing while still managing to keep its soul intact.

James was a lifelong sailor, having started at the age of 6.  He's been sailing since kindergarten.  By the time he was 18, he was a sailing genius twice over.

Though he's been sailing for his entire life, he only purchased Good Expectation about 18 months prior.  He's slowly been working on a business model that's been gestating for years upon years.  And this is just the first phase.  He mentioned to me that its been his lifelong dream to help re-introduce the youth of St. Lucia to water-related activities.  Boating, fishing, even swimming seem to have become foreign ideas to some of the younger generation on St. Lucia, and James finds that fact shocking and saddening.  They'd be missing out on so much by cutting water out of their youth experiences.  And more scarily, they might not actively seek to defend the water and wildlife that surrounds their island.  "How can you be expected to save something that you do not love or even know about", was a quote that he threw at me.  We were not long into our trip ( I don't think we had even left the dock), and we were getting into some pretty heavy stuff.  Clearly, James wasn't just a guy with a boat who wanted to make a few bucks.  He had a much bigger plan.

We made small talk for a little while longer, and it turns out that he knows Jonathan, the kite-surfing enthusiast that we had met the other day.  James has tried kite-surfing and knows the handful of people in that community.  I suppose the world of tourism activities is a pretty small one, and everyone gets to know each other on St. Lucia.  James seemed to have a handle on anything tourism-related on St. Lucia.  Clearly he was embedding himself in the community, and was intent on making himself a public figure.  It turns out that he holds a Master's Degree in Responsible Tourism, a thing I never knew existed.  He explained responsible tourism as being able to strike a balance between introducing a lucrative industry into a country or culture without decimating either.  It would be fairly easy to destroy part of the countryside, negotiate favorable tax terms with the government and plop down a grand resort.  Sure, it would bring jobs and minor prosperity to the country, but it wouldn't truly be helping the country, at least not in the long-term.  People should want to travel to a country to immerse themselves in the culture of the country, not just to see it as just another indistinguishable, albeit pristine, beach as devoid of culture as its sand would be of color.

Needless to say, James was not much a fan of Sandals.  While the success story of the founder of Sandal's is something that no one can take issue with (it was started by a self-made man who had worked on Air Conditioning units, and bought a struggling hotel from one of his clients for $1), the actions of Sandal's are somewhat less inspiring.  It turns out that while Sandal's does bring lots (and lots and lots) of money, by way of rich white people, to the island, it does very little to build anything sustainable, from the country's standpoint.  Sandal's negotiated for decades of tax exemption from the government, so really, the only palpable thing that Sandal's provides to St. Lucia is jobs.  Which is great, yes.  Jobs are jobs.  But this doesn't help build the country.  There is no investment in infrastructure, or education, or anything really.  And only so many people can go on to climb the corporate ladder of Hospitality.  Sandal's does the occasional PR publicity stunt of donating computers to a classroom, to claim that they're invested in the future of St. Lucia, but that's just a single drop in what would otherwise be an overflowing bucket, had Sandal's agreed to pay taxes.

Back to the actual sailboat ride.  Pepsi, ever gracious, offered us drinks the minute we stepped onto the boat.  I was comfortable with water, but Maggie went straight for the rum punch, sprinkled with fresh nutmeg.  We began our journey out of the marina, and already felt like we had spent our entire lives living on sailboats.  On our way out, James pointed out a rather large boat sitting in the marina, and noted that it belongs to a Russian oligarch who had most of his money in Cyprus when the financial crisis hit the small island country.  All of a sudden, that large boat was not used, or cleaned, as regularly as it one had been.  "Some people tend to overstretch themselves", was James' simple but insightful reaction to the whole issue.

Once we hit the open water, James offered me the chance to take the helm and learn a little bit about sailing.  I had expressed some interested earlier in our conversations, and he had made a note of it.  He was offering his sailing wisdom to me, helping me steer the boat simply, but efficiently, down the western coast of the island.  It was easy.  But of course, anything is easy when a 30-year veteran is 3 feet away from you, offering guidance.  He made sailing seem like a natural extension of human capabilities.  It was like walking, only more soothing.  I learned about wind gusts, and wind angles, and rules of the sea, both written and unwritten.  If you're close to a fishing pot, always go upwind, since the pots themselves will tend to be downwind of their buoys.

We sailed and chatted, sailed and chatted.  James had been everywhere, done everything.  We briefly bonded as fellow rowers, and talked a little bit about traveling the Eastern United States.  A place that James found remarkably beautiful.  Whether or not he was just feeding me a line was irrelevant.  The East Coast is beautiful, just not in a Caribbean type way.  The Green Mountains, the White Mountains, the Adirondacks are wonderful areas, and though they're in our backyard, they should be appreciated as if they were foreign, tropical destinations.

He pointed out some of the mega resorts that dotted, or rather, blotted, the island.  He referred to the Windjammer as "that big white monstrosity over there".  And he mentioned that Marriott had plans to buy and build and buy and build, but the recession hit, and they had to scale back on their takeover of the island.  To which James was pleased. 

When we had gotten far enough down the coast, James gave me instructions for what to do in order to tack.  Which is really just a fancy (not that fancy) word for "turn".  We had to turn the boat around.  Which, in fairness, deserves its own word, because turning a sailboat is not as easy as turning a car.  You are at the wind's mercy.  If you try turning when the wind is not quite ready for you (or you're not quite ready for the wind), you can become effectively stuck in the water, motionless, hoping for another gust to get you going.  Wind typically blows in one direction, during any stretch of time, so to move in the opposite direction is not a simple task.  For a lifelong sailor, perhaps it is, but in general, it takes some skill.  James and crew did it effortlessly.  I followed my instructions, which were to switch seats, and pull on the helm, and we were turned around, heading back from where we started.

Pepsi offered us some snacks.  Some local fruits and nuts, served in wooden bowls on a wooden serving tray.  She knew that we were probably feeling a bit hungry, and also wanted to give us some energy for the snorkeling that we'd soon be doing.  Maggie and I and the other couple began snacking.

Oh, right.  There was another couple with us on the boat as well.  James and crew were so good at making you feel welcome that you never felt that you were splitting their attention with other people.  We were sharing the boat with Hugh and Honesty, and their 2-year-old Annabelle.  Yes, her name was Honesty.  A lovely British couple who were just truly good people.  They had worked in some truly devastating places, and worked hard to implement programs to build infrastructure and health systems where they needed it the most.  Hugh's list of previous places of work read like a decorated military veteran: Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, South Africa, and several more.  They were now stationed in the Barbados while Honesty worked on her Master's degree, and Hugh completed a 3-year post with Divid, working to implement some very important responsible tourism ideas along with climate change programs in the southern Caribbean islands.  He mentioned that money and aid were coming into the islands from many directions: The US, the UK, some places in Europe.  And he was in charge of directing the money to the right places and to make sure the programs that received that money progressed.  He and James really hit it off, and even collaborated, albeit for a minute, on how to re-introduce coral to the shores of St. Lucia.  This was another of James' goals.  He wanted to start a coral farm, then plant the coral in a protected area, which would let it grow and multiply, attracting fish, and would eventually lead to the enhancement of sustainable fishing.  As long as the initial coral area was protected, it could allow for the continuous rejuvenation of adjacent areas, which could be used for fishing, education, etc.

We were outclassed, to say the least.  James was running a business with the goal of improving youth culture, Hugh was implementing wealth creation programs in otherwise third-world countries.  Maggie and I were Capitalistic Americans, climbing the ladders in Advertising and Software.  I grasped at the only straw I had, and mentioned that I had a friend in the DRC who was working on improving education for women, in some tough areas.  For a second, they saw me as one of their own, and became interested.  "Where is she stationed?".  "What entity is funding her work?"  Cursory questions to which I didn't have any answers.  I fumbled through my answers, and then quickly retracted into my non-philanthropic shell.  Hugh began talking about the poor state that the DRC was in, and that, if he recalled correctly, was the worst country in the world when it came to rape.  "Stunning amounts of rape.  Just stunning".  I never would have thought to use the word 'stunning' to describe the volume of rape that occurs in a country, but dry and British Hugh was able to pull it off.  He went on: "Not just women, but men.  And boys.  Truly stunning, the amount of rape there".  Maybe he belabored the point to let us know just how out of our element we were.  But Hugh and Honesty and James and Pepsi were ever-gracious, as most British people are, and we never once fell out of place.  Well, except during the whole rape conversation.

Hugh kindly turned the conversation back to us, inquiring as to how we were enjoying our honeymoon, and that we made a wonderful decision to come to St. Lucia.  We told him that we were having a great time, and in an attempt to win a gracious-off, we fired the focus back onto he and Honesty.  "Where did you spend your honeymoon?"  They had gone to Morocco, an "absolutely stunning part of the world".  I let it go.  Maybe "stunning" is just his go-to word.  It wasn't long before James was able to pipe back into the conversation and mention that there's a resort in Morocco that is a shining example of Responsible Tourism.  He had read about it in a case study while getting his Master's degree.  Hugh and James bonded a little more about travel, responsible tourism, and other soul-enriching topics.

We finally arrived a somewhat hidden cove, where we'd park for a bit to do some snorkeling.  I was still at the helm, so I slowly guided the boat around some rocks, as James instructed me to do.  When I relinquished my position to James (that's how it works, right?  If I don't give up my post, everyone has to listen to me since I'm the captain?), Herbie offered some kind words, telling me that I was a natural, and that I should continue sailing after we leave.  I knew it was a stock line that he probably tells everyone, but the sincerity with which he said it made it seem that he truly believed that I had a long and prosperous future in the field of sailing.

We dropped anchor, and Pepsi magically furnished snorkeling gear for everyone.  They also had lifejackets and swimming gear for little Annabelle.  Jus' Sail was truly prepared for just about everything.  We jumped ship, and swam around.  The snorkeling wasn't world class (I wouldn't even know what world class snorkeling is anyway), but it was peaceful, and secluded.  Which is more than can be said for some of the more popular, touristy snorkeling areas in proximity the giant Sandals.  We saw some shiny fish, and some sea urchins, and some phallic-looking coral.  Penisus Coralus, I believe is the scientific name.  We hovered in the water until we were ready to climb back on board.  At which point the crew offered us a fresh water shower to get the salt off of us.  We politely declined.  I kind of like having the salt-water grit on my body for a little while after a good ocean swim.  Hugh and Honesty obliged in the shower, making us feel a little bit like uncultured grunts that liked to live in their own, or at least the ocean's, filth.  No worries.  There was enough grace to go around.

We pulled up the anchor (there's a term for that, right?) and began the short trip home.  But not before a quick torrential downpour forced us all to get cozy in the cockpit of the boat.  It was not a problem, though, as there was a sturdy canvas canopy that James and Herbie were able to quickly unravel to shield us from the heavy rains.  We sat and chatted comfortably for a few minutes, not even worrying about getting wet.  This must have happened 1000 times before, and the crew were prepared for it; almost expected it.  When the rains stopped, they rolled the canvas back up, and went along as if nothing had happened.

The trip was nearing it's end, but not before Pepsi emerged one final time from the hull with a tray of black cake and spiced rum.  Apparently the combination is a bit of a tradition in the Caribbean somewhere.  We were eager to believe whatever she told us, if it led to cake and rum.  We enjoyed the cake, and the spot of rum, and sank even lower into our chairs.

We pulled into the marina area, making a steady course for our slip when a jet ski blew past us, and crossed in front, mere feet from the bow.  James didn't break course, but showed obvious discontent for the actions of such a careless jet-skier.  He was particularly miffed because the kid on the jet-ski was a young local.  One of the people he was trying to help with his grand vision.  They lacked respect for the water, and its rules.  He wanted to rid the area of that kind of activity, and bring about an air of respect for the ocean.  He mentioned a recent death of a somewhat high-ranking French official which was a result of careless boating.  A boat had wandered into an area that was clearly marked as a snorkeling and swimming area, and the poor Frenchman was essentially sliced in half by the boat's motors. 

The British have a way of telling depressing stories without them ending on a depressing note.  There's a matter-of-factness about their storytelling.  They don't tell it to elicit feelings of sadness and depression.  They simply tell the story in the context of a bigger, more important vision.  And this vision is ultimately a positive thing, so the taste that's left in your mouth isn't one of sadness, but one of hope.  Hope that the narrative can be revised to have happier outcomes in the future.

We parted ways with the gracious Brits, and headed back to our villa.  We spent a quiet night eating some delicious pre-made food, and called it a night.

Day 6 - Kitesurfing

Waking up with the sun is a nice idea.  It's so hard to let the day begin without you when you're surrounded by such beauty in St. Lucia.  All you want to do is be part of the day, even if you're not out hiking, swimming, exploring, or doing whatever else is available to you.  We shared some coffee on the deck once again, called a few places to schedule a sailing trip and got ready to head to "our beach", Cas En Bas, again.  It's beautiful, secluded and not even 5 minutes away; how perfect. 

Jus' Sail, one of the sailing companies we called, were all booked for the rest of the week.  We were particularly bummed, because their sailing experience seemed to be a bit different from the mega-catamaran group trips that so many other places offered.  They focused on smaller groups, providing a more low-key, sailing-based experience.  How novel: Incorporating actual sailing into the sailing experience, as opposed to loud music, watered-down drinks and forced dance parties.  Because, really, how many timid random white people on vacation in St. Lucia want to dance with other timid random white people on vacation in St. Lucia?  About 2 out of 40, would be my guess.

As we were heading out the door, the phone started ringing.  It was James from Jus' Sail.  He said that a slot had opened up, and that we could jump on it to do a private charter.  The price was a little steeper than we were hoping to spend, so we sadly declined.  We pointed out that we'd be willing to be as flexible as possible, in case another group/couple wanted to join forces to help split the costs for a full-day or half-day trip.  Dejected that we wouldn't get to sit at the helm of a handmade wooden sloop, we defeatedly called the mega-dance party "sailing" group, and scheduled a cruise to Soufriere for Monday.  At least we'd get on the water in some way. 

We headed down to our beach, intent on taking some introductory kite-surfing lessons.  We parked next to Simon's lean-to, and laid on the beach for a bit.  When we saw that Simon was free, we started chatting with him, letting him know that we were ready to take some lessons.  Simon was created to be a teacher.  His confident, yet laid back attitude makes you feel like you can do anything with a kite while he's next to you, providing direction.  He simply knows kite-surfing (not windsurfing, mind you.  He didn't mind when we made the slip-up a couple of times, but I imagine it can ruffle the feathers of a more intense kite-surfer.  Probably akin to referring to running as jogging).  And he knows how to read people.  He knows how to keep you calm and relaxed to "let the kite do the work", rather than tense up and muscle through everything.

He was just happy that he could teach a couple new people the sport that he loved, and told us he'd start setting things up for us.  We'd be starting on the shore, with a small kite to get the feel of controlling a kite and hunting for wind.  As we waited for Simon to set some things up, we noticed that there were a few more people at the beach today than the day before.  It was a Saturday, after all, and a handful of locals had made it down to the beach to hang out in the shade.  I guess that's the mark of a truly good beach: There are more locals than tourists.  Sandals could have their manufactured beaches; this one they were keeping to themselves.

We began our lesson on a small, 3 meter kite.  He taught us a handful of terms that we quickly forgot (power window?), but the concepts stuck with us.  The clock analogy works quite well.  12 o'clock is complete neutral for the kite, sitting overhead, just hanging out in the wind.  12:00 to 3:00 is the area to "hunt for wind" when you want to turn right, and 9:00 to 12:00 is the area to hunt for wind when you want to turn left.  He taught us to make tight aggressive figure 8s with the kite, starting with 12:00 to 1:00, using a push/pull motion with our hands to direct the kite.  Pushing left/pulling right would direct the kite to the right, and vice versa.  The more aggressively you push/pulled, the more aggressively the kite would dive.  The goal was to make consistently smooth tight figure 8s, incorporating power, but in a controlled way.  We each took turns learning the feel of the kite, and built up some confidence pretty quickly.  Simon was very encouraging, and generally pleased with our progress, and moved us on to the harness stage.  We'd still be doing essentially the same thing, but now the kite would essentially be hooked up to our body, and we could use our body weight to hold all of the tension of the kite, rather than letting it rest in our forearms.  This would also allow us to hunt more aggressively, drawing more power from the kite.  After another 10 minutes or so, Simon said we were ready for the water.  This, even after Maggie accidentally got the kite stuck in a tree.  I blame myself, though, as I told her to move to make way for a horse tour that was coming down the beach.  She moved too far inland, and when the kite fell, it fell into a very hard-to-reach part of a tree.  One of Simon's buddies offered to climb the tree to retrieve it as Simon prepped a larger kite (6m?) for us to take onto the water.

He taught us the basics about getting a kite ready for the water.  You need to lay the kite on the beach correctly, run the lines from the handles correctly (downwind, towards the kite), tie the lines to the kite correctly (after picking up the kite and walking it down onto the lines correctly), and have a friend ready to assist you.  Launching a kite from the ground is a two-person operation, and requires a little bit of coordination.  With the kite downwind of you, the handler, the kite-holder and the handler then have to walk counter-clockwise about 90 degrees to get the kite on the edge of the window, which is the easiest launch spot for the kite.  Once the handler is ready, they give a thumbs-up to the holder, who will gently release the kite, turning the leading edge to the wind to help it into the air, as the handler maneuvers it up into the neutral, 12:00 position.  Simon and his buddy did all of this for us, as it it not as easy as it sounds.

He brought us into the water, and had us to some more wind-hunting, waist-deep.  Maggie went first.  This kite was twice as large as our practice kite, and so the handling was a little more predictable.  It was not as easily affected by sudden changes in wind gusts, since there was more kite to catch more wind.  But it was more powerful, and there was an added element of power control that the previous kite did not have.  Pulling the kite handles closer to the body give the kite more power (I believe it pulls the trailing edge of the kite down, letting more wind catch it), while pushing the kite handles away releases power (making the kite parallel with the wind, letting most of it flow through).  Maggie hunted for wind with her figure 8s, and when Simon felt that she was ready to bodysurf, he told her to get off her feet onto her belly and let the kite take her.  She hunted successfully a couple of times, letting the kite drag her, but the added element of power control proved a little too much, and she soon face-planted into the water.  This kite could really draw some power (and it was half as big as some of the kites that the serious kite-surfers were using).  She got back up, and walked back to a good starting point.   Simon guided her once more through the steps, and once again she was off, body-surfing with the kite.  This run was a little more successful, as she got pretty far through the water, and it ended with a slightly less painful face-plant than the last time.  A few more tries, and Maggie was really getting the feel of things.  She was loving every minute of it.

I ran through the same general motions with Simon, learning the feel of the kite, and trying to let it pull me as I body-surfed.  I don't think I was quite as quick to pick it up as Maggie was, but I eventually got a good run through the water before face-planting myself.  I'm pretty sure everyone's first few runs end with face-plants.  Sort of like The Jump program in The Matrix.  Everyone falls their first time, even Neo.

Simon gave us some more words of encouragement, and told us we'd be ready for the Jet-Ski for the next lesson.  He'd take us out into some more open water, and let us ride downwind a ways, getting a lot of good water time in.  Which sounds fantastic.

Our time was up for now, though, and we chatted with Simon before he was off to his next lesson, a 10 year-old, who was quickly picking up some serious kite-surfing skills.  Turns out Simon is married with a 2 month-old, and his wife, Sandy, is also an avid kite-surfer.  In fact, she was kite-surfing a few months into her pregnancy up until the doctor's told her she had to stop.  And she was already back out on the water, 2 months post-giving birth, doing some serious aerial tricks.  This island is just full of great people.

We laid in the sun for a bit, then decided to hike around the cove to spot some secluded beaches that we had been told about.  It wouldn't be a long hike, but might not be the most clearly-marked trail we've ever seen.  We headed for the start of the trail and were greeted by a younger kid, encouraging us to eat some food at Marjorie's.  It's understandable.  They are just trying to make some money cooking food and selling beers, so why shouldn't they approach everyone they see, in hopes of gaining business?  We politely declined, and continued on our way.

The trail started at a dirt road that doubled as a horse trail.  This was made obvious by the overwhelming stench of horse manure that had been laying in the sun for days upon days.  We held our breaths and walked up the small, barely bushwhacked trail.  It was pretty tough to get through, so we opted to walk along the rocks at sea-level that were exposed and dry because the tide was out.

We continued along the rocks for a while until we came across a small path that led to higher ground.  I decided to check to see if maybe there was a path above the slippery-ish rocks that was easier to navigate.  Indeed there was.  We climbed the short incline up to the small trail, and continued on.  The footing wasn't great, and at some points, the trail walked right along the edge of the crumbling wall, which made Maggie a bit uneasy.  We weren't far from the end of the cove, though, and the trail seemed to get better, not worse.  I convinced her to keep moving forward, and a short while later, we were at the tip of the cove, and could see some more hidden beaches.  One of which, Simon would later tell me is called "5 Dollar Beach".  Named so because a local who lives above the beach charges everyone $5 to use it.  He considers himself the caretaker/owner of the beach, and makes sure its always in good condition ("He keeps it nicer than some of the resort beaches around here"). 

We snapped a few pictures on the windblown tip of the cove, and decided to head back.  It was hot, and the tide would be coming in shortly, potentially stranding us.  The short walk, not without some harrowing steps, was finished before the tide fully came in, and we were back to our beach spot quickly enough.  We were tired, dehydrated and hungry, so we decided to head over to Rodney Bay to find a place to grab some Coke, at the very least; maybe some food as well.  We wandered around the area, but nowhere seemed to open.  We finally settled in at an open-air bar close to the strip mall.  There was a soccer game going on that a lot of people were watching. We saddled up to the bar, and immediately felt awkward.  Not because we were foreigners.  Not because we were taking up precious bar spots while an important game was going on.  We felt awkward because the chairs at the bar were way too low for the bar.  We were physically awkward.  We felt like toddlers sitting at table without a high chair.  We could barely place our elbows at the bar.  I wondered if the bar spots are just trick spots for foreigners, and then everyone could laugh as we fumbled around, impossibly trying to find a comfortable position.  But no, there were some locals also sitting at the bar.  I guess that's just how this bar liked to do things.

Maggie ordered her Coke, but the force-of-habit switch in me turned on (bar + sports = beer), and I ordered a Piton.  I didn't want a Piton.  I mean, I'd drink it.  But I really wanted Coke and water.  Oh well.  I could struggle through a beer.  I slugged the beer, finishing in what felt like seconds, and for some reason, ordered another.  My brain was on autopilot.  I needed to break away.  I drank that one quickly as well, pretending to be intensely interested in the soccer game being shown.  Not only did I not care, I couldn't even figure out what countries were playing.  The scoreboard showed "BAY" and "BSB", which wasn't enough to figure anything out.  The only BSB I know of is, ashamedly, BackStreet Boys.  Halftime rolled around, and I learned that "BAY" was a club from Germany, but that's about all that I learned.  I managed to break out of habit and order a coke.  We finished our drinks and got out while I was still half-sober.  It was too early and too hot to get smashed.

We walked around aimlessly for a few minutes, still in desperate need of food, and then Maggie had the brilliant idea to try the roadside restaurant that we've been passing for about 6 days now.  Prudee's House of Roti.  It was a very small house, but seemed like it might serve some honest-to-goodness great local food.  We hopped in the jeep and made our way to Prudee.

Prudee (or the man we assumed to be Prudee) was outside, standing behind a bunch of buffet style pans, each holding some new glorious food treasure.  We parked the car on the grass/sidewalk, and walked over.  He was preparing a full dinner plate for a guy, and it looked amazing.  Rice, Lentils, salad, potatoes au gratin, and choice of meat.  Yea, this would do nicely.  We said hello, and asked for two plates.  He had fish and chicken left.  Yea, this was a place where you ordered from what was available, and when it runs out, it done runs out.  He had only 1 dish left after we were done, so we got there just in time.  Prudee closes up shop whenever he sells his last dish or roti, so fortune favors the early eaters.  We paid $39EC ($15) for both of our plates, and we were on our way.

We devoured every last bit of food, along with our rum concoction from the day before.  Prudee should really charge more money.  The food was delicious, and there was way too much of it.  We still had some room for our rum concoction, and ended the night with some fruity rum in our stomachs.

Day 5 - Cas En Bas Full Day

We managed an early rise after a generally mosquito-free night of sleep.  Up at 5:30am, hoping to not miss any bit of sunlight while it's available.  We made coffee and had a slow morning on the deck, retreating only a few times when pockets of warm, misty rain came sideways with the help of strong wind gusts.  I ran out early to the supermarket to grab some green figs, "sole fish" and "veg" as Lu had asked, so she could prepare some local dishes for us.  I managed to get green figs, but completely missed the mark on the other two.  I had picked up fish steaks and vegetables, but I was supposed to pick up dry, cured salt fish, and a vegetable packet (which I still am not sure what it is exactly) for green fig salad.  Lu rolled with it, though, and said she'd make what she could with the available ingredients.

We headed out to Cas En Bas again, this time for a full day.  We were hoping to check out some more kite surfing, maybe even get a lesson in.  We parked our car in some tree shade, leaving one of the windows down; we had accidentally left a window open the night before, and it had rained.  The B.O. of the car's myriad previous drivers had been freed by the rain hitting the seats, and had been marinating for several hours.  We hoped that open air and heat would drive the evil demons out.

We walked over to a glorified lean-to, which was the headquarters of Aquaholics, a small (1 person) kite-surfing outfit.  We planted our things down on the windy beach, applied some sunscreen and began our grueling day of relaxation.  While it was quite hot, the wind was strong enough that it would be sure to keep us from sweating too profusely, helping to quickly evaporate any moisture that squeezed out from our pores.

After a bout of laying, my legs were starting to get restless.  I decided run up and down the curved beach for about 20 minutes, just to keep my legs from getting too angry at me for not using them.  I ran for 20 minutes or so, did some more fake-ass yoga on the beach, and cooled down with a swim in the water.  Legs satisfied, I could go back to doing nothing again.

We ran into Jonathan again.  He was skipping more work to do some kite-surfing.  The true mark of an addict.  We also ran into the friendly, but overly persistent fellow who tried to talk us into eating at Marjorie's again.  We politely declined, again.  We also watched a few guided horse tours make their way down and around the beach.  The horses weren't the meatiest animals you've ever seen, but they didn't look entirely unhealthy.  Perhaps its hard for any animal to gain any mass in the constant heat of St. Lucia.  It seems that lean is key on a hot, mountainous island.

As we were chatting, a new, sparkling white pick-up truck made its way down the beach towards us, coming to a stop next to Simon's lean-to/place-of-business.  The truck had a familiar logo on it: Mount Du Cap, the estate where we had been kindly stopped at the security gate the day before.  A large, darkly-tanned, crew-cutted man hopped out and began chatting with Simon and his friends.  We made our way over to Aquaholics to chat up Simon and let him know that we were interested in taking some lessons.  While there, we met Jamie, the guy in the Mount du Cap pick-up truck.  He's a project manager of all of the private homes in the estate.  We told him that we had been stopped at the security gate, and he told us that we should just drop his name and they'd let us drive through.  I joked about lying to the guard about having dinner reservations at one of the restaurants that I presumed existed behind the security gate, but Jamie quickly informed me that Mount Du Cap wasn't a resort.  It was a community of private homes, still in development.  "I've been project manager on all of the buildings that have gone up, so far", he explained, adding that building was especially complicated since the architect demanded that everything "be round".  As if building homes into cliffs wasn't hard enough, the architect's unflinching vision added to the challenge.

Jame went on to tell us that the homes start at about 3500 square feet, and that his company offers the package deal: Land and home.  One can't simply buy the land and build whatever they like.  When they buy the land, they buy the home as well.  And judging from the pictures I've seen online of some of these homes, its quite alright to put your home/money in the hands of these professionals.  The homes seemed absolutely perfect.  And at a starting price of about $2.5MM,  they had better be.

We watched Simon use his lunch break to do some kite-surfing.  Not with a wakeboard, but with an actual surfboard.  This seems a lot tougher than a wakeboard, since you don't have the convenience of foot slips (or whatever they're called).  It made no matter to Simon, though.  He made just about everything board-related look easy.  After impressing everyone with his skills, Simon came back to shore, and just as quickly headed out on his jet-ski with Jamie.  They were headed out to sea to let Jamie, still a relative beginner, kite-surf with the wind in an open area all the way back into the bay.  Kite-surfing, being dependent on the moods of the wind, can be tough for getting where you need to go (much like sailing).  So the easiest way to get a lot of practice time in is to get towed out to sea, and take a long ride with the wind.  Then, when you manage to get the hang of things, you can learn things like turning, and navigating upwind so that you can extend your kite-surfing-induced adrenalin rush indefinitely.

After a while, the sun was starting to take its toll on us, and we figured we should retreat into covered areas before it got too much of a chance to lash us and leave marks of red all over our bodies.  

Once back home, blending fruits and booze quickly became the focus of our day.  We ate some dinner, drank some booze and retired for the day.

Day 4 - Marigot Bay and Cas En Bas

We're still trying to get the hang of this whole mosquito net thing.  We were being feasted for a few hours, and at about 4am, Maggie sat up with the resolve of a military general whose soldiers were being outmaneuvered by the enemy, and made a determination to change strategy and go on the offensive.  We were now in the business of killing moh-skee-toes, in the paraphrased words of Captain Aldo Rain.   We teamed up (Maggie outside the netting, me inside) and high-fived out any mosquito hanging out on the netting, whether inside or out.  Which resulted in quite a few blood stains, seeing as though they had been gorging themselves on our exotic fruit punch, and were probably too fat, dumb and happy to care to fly out of the way of their imminent death-by-giant-hand.  After 15 minutes of carefully orchestrated moh-skee-toh extermination, we fort-ified our bed, and were able to fall asleep a little easier.

We arose a few hours later, victorious in our mission.  We headed downstairs to make some coffee and get ready for the day.  Timothy returned with a co-worker and worked on cleaning and fixing the pool (the algae grows quickly down here).  Once they were finished we headed out the door.  It was time for some driving down to Marigot Bay, roughly 1 hour south of us, below Castries.  I was on the lookout for a music store, which was located somewhere in between Rodney Bay and Castries, but I didn't know exactly where (they're not big on Google Maps, addresses, or road names down here).  I managed to spot the shopping center where it was located, and we decided we'd check it out on the way back.  Maybe I could rent an instrument for the remaining week.  My hands were itching to play a little bit.

As we approached Castries, the traffic picked up a bit.  It even got a little feverish.  I can handle Boston, Philly and NYC, but Castries-style traffic worried me.  It wasn't as crowded or as congested as a major U.S. city, but it was more chaotic.  There's a certain beauty in the cab-laden avenues of Manhattan.  They all adhere to an unwritten law of Physics that generally keep them from smashing into each other constantly.  Reaction times and deliberate movements make these cities move.  Castries traffic has the same pace, but none of the flow.  Their traffic circles, for instance, are free-for-alls.  The driver in the circle is not always given the right of way.  Everyone just kind of centrifugalizes through them and hopes for the best.  I had to abandon my Jersey-bred circle etiquette.  It was tough.  And then we came across the proof of my theory: An accident in one of the circles.  And not caused by idiot tourists!  Two locals had smacked into each other at an odd angle through the circle, and were creating quite the traffic pile-up.  Which in Castries, is really only about 20 cars.  We were able to squeeze by the damaged car and continue on our way.  It would be a while before the cops came to help clear the area.

Once through Castries, the roads opened up a bit, and did their classic wind-and-climb through the hills and valleys of the area.  We weren't far from Marigot Bay, but there's no freeway driving in St. Lucia; you just need to take your time getting to wherever you are going.  

We passed by a purple-pink-ish run-down looking house with the sign "Mama Sheila's", which was a restaurant that I had noticed on TripAdvisor that had gotten good reviews, if only 8 of them.  It was far down the list, and didn't have the 450-review, 5.0 star rating of some other places, but the handful of reviews that it did have rang genuine.  I wanted to try it out.  We made not of the location, and continued on.  Which wasn't for too long, as the entrance to Marigot Bay was about 100 yards away.  We drove down the pot-holed road, down, down, down into the bay, after a local gave us directions and tried to sell us a branch with a leaf on it (to which we said 'no thanks').

As expected, it was beautiful.  And smaller than we expected.  And without a beach, really.  I had a vision of a grand bay/inlet, with a large beach on one side, and giant yacht-moorings on the other.  But really, it was much more quaint and hidden.  Not really commercialized.  Just a place for boaters to tie up and stay for a night or grab a bite to eat as they made their way slowly up (or down) the Caribbean.  We walked along the dock, with increasing awe at the size and complexity of some of the boats.  One group of friends was loading up on supplies, and we said hello and briefly commented on their boat.  We got to the end of the dock, and decided we'd find a place to grab a drink and hang out, then go find some lunch.  As we were wandering, we came across one of the men who had been loading up his boat at the dock.  We said hello again, and this time he stopped and started talking to us.  And he was ready to talk.  We thought maybe we were in for another kidney stone story, but this fellow proved to be a bit more interesting (if what he told us was true).

His name was John, and he was from Clearwater, Florida.  He and his friends had rented a boat through "The Moorings", which he explained to us as "Enterprise Rent-a-Car for boats".  He had been doing it for about 11 years, and always had a good experience.  If you had sailing chops, you could charter your own boat.  Or, if you didn't yet have the experience, you could get boat and a crew (for a little more money, of course).  All told, he said, it's not that expensive if you can split it between a group of friends.  John told us about his sailing expeditions to the Caribbean, Monaco and Greece (he looooved Greece).  "Best vacation I've ever taken.  You have to go", he told us in a surprisingly southern accent, considering he was a Floridian (though, I guess Florida is down there and borders the deep south states.  I just tend to get a different picture of people from Florida, than people from Alabama).  He told us about how they came upon a small island in Greece, after having left the mainland, with not too many supplies left.  They found a place to dock, and looked around for food.  The only place they could find was a house up on a hill, which, they were told, might offer some food if they had any.  And so they went, and met with the owners of the house, who cooked them a meal of the food that they had available (which was simply the fish that they had recently caught, the vegetables they had recently grown, and the giant kegs of wine they had been making).  They ate and made friends and drank all the wine they could handle (which was about 11 pitcher's worth), and ended up only being charged $120 (for 8 people), which the locals thought was a very expensive meal.

John then proceeded to tell us about a trip to Monaco, in which he and some friends boarded jet-skis and went yacht-watching.  They saw quite a grand yacht and decided to zip over to it to check it out.  Only to be greeted by machine guns from the guards on board, as they approached.  The guards were American, and after they questioned John and his friends, they let down their guns (but probably not all of them) and got to chatting.  Turns out George Bush, Sr., was on the boat, which happened to belong to the Prince of Monaco.  

John liked to tell stories.  And we liked listening to them.  So we obliged him once more as he began to tell us about his experience with the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.  He had been living in Atlanta at the time, and, through a friend of a friend, offered to host a group of field hockey referees at his house.  Which meant John was free to go to the games as he pleased, since he was providing a much needed service to the participants of the Olympics.  And so he decided to go to the Gold Medal game between Spain and "oh, I don't remember who they were playing.  Germany maybe?".  He noted that no one was really there.  It's not an overly popular sport, so it didn't really get much of a draw.  He started chatting up a guy that was sitting next to him, who was from Spain.  Neither had really been intent on going to the game, but John did because it was free, and the Spaniard did because he "had to be there".  When John asked why he "had to be there", the man nonchalantly replied, "Because I'm the King of Spain and I have to come to these things.  It's a gold medal game, so I must show up".  

Now, I couldn't tell if John was bullshitting any or all of the stories he told us.  And it didn't really matter.  He was so friendly, and really just wanted to tell us about sailing and the cool things he had experienced.  I tend to think every word he told us was true.

He had to be on his way, but offered to give us a couple of beers, since they had too much alcohol on the boat already.  We agreed and headed down to a the water-facing restaurant to rest our feet.  We decided that drinking outside beer might be frowned upon, but really, I don't think anyone cared.  In any case, we bought a couple of beers from the restaurant, as a gesture.  I'm fine with drinking an extra beer.  Sure enough, 10 minutes later, John came over with a couple beers and a couple cups of ice.  "I'm glad you guys got those beers, all we had were these warm ones".   A few more words and he was off with his friends to the next destination.

We took in the view, finished our beers, and talked about how old people just like to talk and share their stories.  Whether its about kidney stones, or meeting the King of Spain, they just want to chat.  We talked about how little kids do the same thing, although slightly less-refined, as they really just try one-up the other kid ("Oh yeah? WELL I have 17 transformers toys!").  And how you smooth out the bumps as you get older and find ways to smoothly segue into talking points, and relate with the people you're talking to.  And how, as you get even older, the talking slowly turns into lecturing and story-telling, positively passing along your experiences that are, in some way, related to the talking points of the conversation.  And then, as you get even older, you simply just talk at people, spurting out any chunk of knowledge you have about anything remotely related to the conversation (or sometimes not even related at all).  The smooth spots are ragged again, and we end up sounding like the toddler, waiting for his turn to speak; to show-up the speaker and have the final word.  Ok, too deep, I know.  I'm done here.

We were hungry by this point, and so headed up the hill to check out Mama Sheila's, if it was open.  It didn't look open.  Then again, nothing looks definitively open in St. Lucia.  Aside from the KFCs, and the Dominos, and the Subways, which have their fancy neon- or LED-lit signs that let people know the state of the store.

We parked, and I popped inside, seeing a completely empty restaurant, and hearing only a local radio talk show to my left.  I peeked around the corner to see a guy sitting behind the bar, just hanging out.  I asked if they were open, and he emphatically responded, "Oh. Yes, yes!".  I said OK, and told him I'd be back in a minute.  I grabbed Maggie and we headed back into the restaurant.  We asked if we could sit at the bar to order food and chat with him, and he was fine with that.  We introduced ourselves, and he told us that his name was Ferdi ("short for Ferdinand").  He was a pleasant guy.  We didn't look at the menu, as he went on to tell us what they did and did not have available for today.  What a concept: Serve only the food that you have locally available.  I wonder if St. Lucia will also eventually go through a mass-processed, 24x7 availability, food serving phase, only to slowly return to the original way of things.

We both ordered the fish plates, which would come with a little of everything: rice, fried plantains, salad (which they call provisions?), cheesy potatoes, and of course, a fish steak with a vinegary salsa.  It was the best meal we had yet.  We were both stuffed by the end, and all of the food was flavorful, without being super-greasy, or overly spicy.  Sure, the fish had bones that you had to pick out as you ate it, but who cares?  If the meat around the bone is tasty, then its worth it.  We chatted with Ferdi a little bit, talking about all of the typical things that tourists talk about, and he did his best to entertain us.  A great meal and experience, and it cost "$55…Eastern Caribbean!"  He hurriedly, worriedly spouted out "Eastern Caribbean" when he realized that we might have thought the price was US$.  We probably would have paid $55US if that was the case.  2 generous, stomach-stretching meals and a beer might run that much in a place like Boston…though I'm sure overhead is a lot lower in St. Lucia than it is in the South End.  And so we got out of there with full stomachs for about $24.  Not bad.

We headed back to our place, but not before stopping at the music store and chatting with Nathan, an employee who quoted us $86EC for a daily guitar rental.  They're not used to renting for an entire week.  Typically its a guy who wants the guitar for a day to serenade his wife-to-be on the beach sands.  We talked a little bit about Jazz week, and Carnival; two of the biggest music-type events on the island.  And we came to the island right in between them.  We missed both by about 2 weeks.

We stopped off at the supermarket to grab some ingredients for Lu, who was going to prepare some food for us the next day.  We grabbed some plantains, and almost immediately were asked by a sweet older woman what we were going to do with them.  

"We'll just boil them with some salt".  

"And you'll peel them first, right?"

"Oh yes, yes.  We're going to peel them before we do anything."

"Well then, it seems you've become St. Lucians overnight!"

We grabbed some more supplies and came across a smooth, light- and tight-skinned pear-shaped vegetable.  I picked it up, and, seeing that the sweet woman hadn't wandered too far, asked her what we could do with it.  It was a Christophene.

"You can boil it, and then cut it up to put in a salad.  Or you can cut it very thin and sauté it, like you would an onion"

Both sounded wonderful.  We grabbed on, hoping that we'd figure out what to do with it.

We dropped off the food, and decided to wander a bit to a beach on the eastern side of the island called Cas en Bas.  We weren't quite sure how to get there, but it looked it was the closest beach to our villa.  it didn't take long, as one of the roads down the street from us took us directly there.  5 minutes, tops.  We passed by a small resort called Cotton Bay, and onto some dirt roads with some homemade signs.  A quick right turn towards the beach, and we were headed to the Atlantic.  We pulled up, directly in front of a little kite-surfing shack.  We hopped out and saw a few people kite-surfing along this large, semi-circle of a beach.  It was totally empty!  No lounge chairs all the way down, no giant behemoth buildings, no massive branded American signs.  Just a few cars parked on the beach, and a handful of kite-surfers.  We watched them grab air for a little bit, and chatted them up after they came off the water.  Jonathan was new to the sport (less than 5 months), but was totally addicted.  He was born on St. Lucia, to a British mother and American father (or maybe the other way around), went to school in London, then came back here to be around his family (two brothers?).  He publishes a local restaurant magazine (the kind you find in every hotel room, which reviews some of the higher-end restaurants on the island), and loves to talk about food and kite-surfing.  He gave us a copy of his magazine, along with his personal recommendations.  We met Beth, who is a kite-surfing instructor, and seemed pretty intense.  She kite surfs pretty aggressively, and is a woman of few words.  Kite-surfing seems pretty amazing.  We just might have to give it a shot.

A local man tried to convince us to eat at Marjorie's, a shack-like restaurant on the beach, next to the kite instructor, which was supposedly okay, but we didn't feel like sitting down to a meal again just yet.  We did notice the part of a rocket booster that must've floated to shore some years ago.  There was a hand-painted sign in front of the rocket booster which said as much, and we were inclined to believe it.

We headed back out, wandering around the rest of the north tip of the island, finding some empty lots for sale, and finding some absolutely gorgeous homes with views of both the Atlantic and the Caribbean.  One road took us nearly to the northern tip, but we were stopped at a gate by a security guard who wouldn't let us continue on.  The resort was called Mount du Cap, and must have some spectacular views.

After some more wandering, we stopped off in a little strip mall to pick up some Chicken Roti.  It wasn't as good as the Roti from Jambe de Bois, but still hit the spot.  

The sun can zap your energy.  After a long day in the sun, we were ready to relax.

Day 3 - Pigeon Point State Park

After an incredibly windy and rainy night, I woke up exhausted, unable to sleep for all sorts of reasons: Sporadic fits of dog-barking (strays and house-kept alike) which seemed to be part of some decentralized doggie orchestra, the somewhat more persistent chirps and buzzes of all of the local birds, and leaves and rain smacking up against the side of the house as large wind gusts blew through the area.  But there was hope.  We had purchased coffee the day before, and caffeine was just a short brew away.  I got up, covered in only slightly fewer mosquito bites than the night before (we were starting to get the hang of this whole open-air-so-you-need-to-use-a-mosquito-net-which-will-get-stained-with-blood-as-you-frantically-try-to-kill-the-mosquitos-that-made-it-into-the-net situation).  We made some coffee, and shortly after, it began to smoke around the on/off switch, since some coffee had leaked into the bottom portion.  We worried that our convenient, coffee drinking days were over, but the water just had to burn off.

After a quick breakfast, we were off to check out Pigeon Point State Park, which was only a couple miles away.  And, as we would learn, directly next to the Sandals Grande St. Lucian.  There's a loss of wonder any time a beautiful national park is directly attached to a Sandals.  And even more so when you learn that the State Park used to be an island, but a causeway was built in the 70's to connect the island to the mainland, and Sandals was built on said causeway.  Brilliant move by Sandals ("We'll just create the land, and plop the buildings down).  We paid our entrance fee to the park, and took a look around.  It was beautiful.  A very hilly island with two main peaks at either end, both seemingly steep, but both very much hike-able. 

We scuttled over to the first beach, only steps from the entrance, and planted our things down.  We were ready to give our pasty white bodies a dose of Serotonin.  Again, another beautiful beach.  The landscape wasn't unlike Reduit Beach (sailboats, lush mountains), but the beach itself was smaller, and more crescent shaped.  The water seemed bluer, though.  And two-toned, presumably where the depths and floor coverings changed.  We laid for a while, and were soon greeted by a local businessman-come-hustler, who had his own boat and would drive around to various beaches selling fruits and beers, and generally being a friendly local who would give you the full St. Lucian experience.  We knew he was a hustler because he was wearing literal proof: His shirt read "Every Day I'm Hustling".  We had been early to the beach, so we were really the only potential customers for this guy (who told me his name, but it escapes me).  We made small talk, and he tried to sell us some food, but 1) we weren't very hungry 2) I'm a cheap-ass and 3) we didn't feel like drinking booze at 10am. 

He made his way over to some other folks, and then eventually returned to us, just to talk and kill time (but ultimately to hover around us and make a sale).  We talked about Boston and the bombings, about his wife in Chicago, about the local folk music (quadrille) that he didn't care too much for, since it was really for old folks, and any young St. Lucian enjoyed the kind of music you'd expect them to: reggae, american hip-hop, and whatnot.  He hovered and explained that he was waiting for the cruise tour to come in, which he was excited for because it was an American cruise.  He said he loved Americans.  When I asked why, he was totally honest:  "I'll be straight up with you, they just pay for shit.  The Europeans, they argue and want to barter and try to beat you down to save $1, but the Americans don't want to be bothered with all of that.  They just pay and are done with it".  Fair enough, he was honest.  I asked him if he preferred to be paid in Eastern Caribbean or US dollars, thinking maybe its more of a pain in the ass if he wanted to convert one or the other, but he said, "Money is fucking money, man.  I'll take whatever you're willing to give me".  Okay, still doing the honesty thing.  But man, he cursed a lot for such a laid back guy.

By this point, Maggie was done with this guy's hovering.  She was ready to pay a few bucks to get him out of our hair.  We grabbed what ended up being a $10 pineapple from him (even though they're not local) and he cut it up and gave it to us.  It did hit the spot, if not expensively (Maggie: Well, he was right. I did "just pay for shit").

Maggie decided to go for a swim to cool off a bit, and I chatted with our new friend some more (buying the pineapple did not achieve its goal of getting him to scatter).  He tried to sell me some beer, but I told him I couldn't drink when it was so hot.  He tried to convince me that the heat was the best time to drink, but I really just didn't want a beer.  I think he got the point.  He wandered off a little while later.

I went for a swim, and Maggie snapped some pictures.  bath water.  it was perfect.  We laid around some more, then decided to check out the rest of the island.  We were getting hungry too, and we knew there was a restaurant on the (not really an) island (anymore).  We watched some of the local sunbathers play a game of water balloon toss, then headed off in the direction of the restaurant.  We came across Jambe de Bois (The Wooden Leg) a few minutes later, and sat down. 

"White Peeeople!" was a recurring jingle I began singing and would continue to sing any time we stumbled into an area that was filled with predominantly non-locals.  In case you're wondering what the jingle sounds like, think of the 80's commercial for CrossFire, that little two-player silver marble shooting game. That was my melody.  I don't know why. 

We looked at the fairly standard menu of ham-and-cheese sandwiches and potato wedges, and finally came across a dish that was unrecognizable, but that we had heard of as being a classic St. Lucian dish: Roti.  They weren't too expensive, so we each grabbed one, along with some fruity drinks.  They came out after 15 minutes or so, and were absolutely delicious.  It was like fish curry burrito (Maggie's was vegetable, but same idea).  Fish and potatoes and curry and maybe some other spices and sauces wrapped up in a thin tortilla-like wrap and served hot.  Tasty, filling, cheap and authentic.  A very good choice. 

The folks around us had all stayed safe with their more American dishes ("The potato wedges are good, Marie", proclaimed an older, male-pattern-baldnessy white guy to his wife who was sitting next to him, though he bellowed his approval as if she were sitting at the opposite end of the restaurant.)  Another older couple next to us were intrigued enough that they asked us what we had gotten.  They were curious, but not adventurous enough to order them.  They were cute.  Off the boat for the day on one of the cruises, and taking in the sites.  They were a pleasant couple from outside of Columbus Ohio ("The panhandle", which apparently includes Western PA/ Pittsburgh area.  I was unaware that the U.S. had a panhandle other than Florida, let alone a completely landlocked one.)  We chatted, and, as friendly mid-westerners and older people are want to do, we chatted... and chatted... and chatted.  So much so, that about 10 minutes into the conversation, we were learning about the gentleman's recent battle with kidney stones.  We rolled with it, and took his advice about staying hydrated, as dehydration is a major factor in the forming of kidney stones ("because once they crystallize and form, there's no turning back.  They are there to stay".  Clearly, prevention is key).  After his wife stopped him, realizing that we were receiving a full bowel history from her husband, they were on their way, and we stayed to finish our now slightly less appetizing Roti (but they were so delicious that we still devoured them).

We made our way around the island, passing only a few other tourists.  We walked/hiked our way up to the first peak of the island, which was part of Fort Rodney, an important stronghold/lookout area for the British back when France and England would regularly fight over the island like two overbearing men, jealously trying to one-up the other in an effort to win over the beautiful lady.  And the island, an indecisive princess, sometimes choosing one, sometimes choosing the other before declaring the whole thing a stupid game and claiming her sovereignty in 1979, free to do whatever she wanted, with whomever she wanted (Maggie: JUST like on Beverly Hills 90210 when Brandon and Dylan were fighting over Kelly and after a 3 month cliffhanger where we were all wondering which guy she was gonna choose, she was all "I choose myself!" UGH. God, what a drama queen!...Sorry, what were you talking about again?? Oh right, Fort Rodney...)

A few old cannons sat atop the first peak, bearing some sort of British Royal Emblem, and pointing out to sea, now peacefully pointing visitors in the direction of gorgeous vistas of both the Caribbean and Atlantic.

We then headed to the other side of the island to climb/walk the other peak.  It's a small island, and the peaks were not formidable, so we just decided to climb both of them.  This peak was slightly higher, and gave better views than the first peak.  It was a little more bare, no forts or cannons atop it (the other peak was North-facing, and maybe a little broader, so it lent itself more to military advantage.  I guess. 

We climbed down, checked out some of the other historical structures on the island, and then made our way back to our house.  We were a little sun-tired, and decided to spend the rest of the day at the house, sunbathing and swimming.  We had a nice quiet dinner of leftovers (I think), and though we were recovering, we were still adjusting.  I passed out very early, and Maggie was not far behind.  Hopefully tomorrow we'd be fully refreshed.

Day 2 - Situate ourselves with Rodney Bay

We had an early rise because the sun was pouring through the windows.  We were still exhausted from the trip, and didn't feel well-rested.  Also, we had no coffee.  It was going to be a long morning. 

We first met with Diane, a prospect of the new generation of St. Lucians.  She surely had earned a degree in hospitality management from the local community college, and was putting it to very good use- personally meeting with us to answer any questions we had about the house, restaurants, nightlife, or St. Lucia in general.  After a conversation filled with numerous cell phone interruptions (maybe she skipped the class where they teach you not to take other customers' calls in front of clients), she was on her way.  We had asked her about Castries, and she basically told us not to go, since I'm guessing its not super tourist-friendly. Some places are fine for tourists to encroach on; others, not so much.  

We decided to orient ourselves with Rodney Bay, the closest little area that had a supermarket, bars, restaurants and beaches.  It didn't take long, as Rodney Bay is not that big of an area.  We grabbed some much needed caffeine (in the form of comically large cappuccino mugs) at a local coffee shop.  It was only 10am, but it was hot.  Hot drinks were a bad choice.  But our need for caffeine superseded our need for general comfort, so we slugged down the coffee and continued on our way.  We headed up to the St. Lucia Yacht Club, which looked partially run down but was, in fact, a fully functioning boat club.  Funny thing about St. Lucia properties: Some buildings are in decent shape, and even very nice, but the areas immediately around the buildings tend to be totally uncared for.  There's no concept of overall appearance.  It's a miniaturization of the broad theme of St. Lucia as a whole: If you focus on certain things, all is rosy; but when you look around and notice the surrounding areas and the details, you get a much clearer picture of St. Lucia.

We walked back to our car along the beach, scoping out a few bars along the way.  Reduit Beach truly was beautiful: Long and narrow, dotted with yachts moored in the water, and those lush, green volcanic mountain structures rounding out the horizon.  Aside from the occasional local salesman (i.e., guy selling chair rentals, towels, etc.), it was a very serene experience.  I gotta give the guys credit, though.  They're hustling, trying to make some cash.  It's not really very different than the Fudgy Wudgy men down at the Jersey Shore: You make money by getting yourself out there and working your ass off to get in front of as many people as possible.

We headed back to the car, but not before being greeted by a man who claimed to be head of security at the hotel we were staying at.  I was quickly able to figure out that he wasn't actually the head of security there, or probably anywhere.  He rambled on about a cricket match and needing money, then pulling out a tennis ball, all of which confused the hell out of me.  All except the needing money part.  I kindly dismissed him and we continued on our way.  Different city, different technique, same panhandler.  

We grabbed some more groceries (now that we were a little more situated, and realized that things weren't 3 times as expensive as back home), and also went to look for some dramamine, in case we thought that a forthcoming sailing trip might make one of us (Maggie) seasick.  The local drug store didn't seem to have any, so I asked the Pharmacist if they had any motion sickness medication.  Like a pharmacist from the 60's (70's? 80's?  i don't know), he opened up a bottle and rationed out 4 separate pills into a tiny ziplock bag (which cost EC$0.86 by the way), and wrote instructions on how to take them.  Wow, St. Lucia is like a baby America: Budding slowly, and though spurred by tourism rather than by rampant greed of riches from gold and oil, still headed in the direction of a nation that can sustain itself.  It's just about 40 years behind.  Give or take a decade. 

Come to think of it, everything seems like you might imagine America if the technology was 50 years out of date.  Crumbling, ill-conceived and repaired roads, still-tight regulations on OTC drugs, and mostly local restaurants with only a few recognizable chains (Jared must've made it down to St. Lucia, Subway is here!).  Though, with all of the walking that St. Lucians do, mostly up and down strenuous hills, I hardly think Subway's core tenet of "eating fresh" to lose weight is something the average St. Lucian thinks about.  For the American tourist though, its familiar food in an unfamiliar place.  I'm sure we'll cave and stop there at least once on this trip. I've been eating nothing but Subway for lunch for the past 2 months and I've got a hankering just thinking about it. I'm sure a savvy American could make a good living introducing St. Lucia to any number of new innovations that have hit the U.S. in the past 20 years.  No need to re-invent the wheel, just bring the wheel somewhere they haven't seen it yet (Maggie: So, we're gonna move here and open a Dunkin?)

We headed back to our place, unpacked our groceries, and hung around by the pool for a bit.  Lu gave us some rum punch that she had made for us, but had forgotten to give to us the day before.  We had a few sips, and it was delicious.  She taught me how to say "It's strong" (ee foh, or something like that, phonetically, at least).  Too much and I'd be "Sooh" (drunk).  I offered to give her a ride to her bus stop when she was ready to go.  It's a bitch of a walk up and down the hills, and a good mile, at least.  Sure, everyone's got a commute, but why make her walk if she doesn't need to.

I got back just in time to let Timothy, the pool guy in to clean the pool.  He was wearing some baggy Lakers shorts, was bald with some manicured facial hair, and looked like a pretty big dude.  Again, St. Lucians are a generally fit bunch: walking miles uphill to get to work to do hard manual labor in the Caribbean sun is a sure way to keep the weight off.  I offered him some rum punch, which he accepted and we drank.  "Bon Sante", which I think means "to your health".  He brought in some mangoes for us (probably a move orchestrated by the management company), which ended up being very very good.

After he took off, I decided I wanted to try to get some exercise in, and maybe explore the immediate area.  I knew I wasn't going to go far, but wanted to get at least 20 minutes of running in.  Maybe some hill repeats.  The hills, they are everywhere, so it would not be tough to find a section to run over and over.  I explored a little bit and found a few other houses in the area that are probably rental units, along with some other houses that are in various stages of construction, including the totally-stopped-with-no-intention-of-completing-it stage.  I also came across a pack of stray dogs, or rather, they came across me.  I was scared shitless for a second, until I realized that they were more startled to see me than I was of them.  I ran in their direction, and they all scrambled.  This isn't unique to the area where we're staying; stray dogs are everywhere.  They mostly stay out of the way, but occasionally they wander into the street and force you to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting them.  Horses, too.  They're less frequent, but it's not unusual to come around a corner and see a few horses grazing near the road, sometimes crossing the road slowly and without care for the giant metal machines hurling themselves around at 60 kph.  We've only been on the island for 36 hours, and I've almost hit a dog and a horse.  Let's hope we can keep a clean St. Lucian driving record.

I finished off my workout with some fake-ass yoga (Trademark) by the pool, and cooled off with a quick swim.  It was just about time to get ready to head back to Rodney Bay, but just for a drink.  We had leftovers from Lu that we wanted to finish up.  After some quick showering, we headed on back to Rodney Bay.  

Spinnakers was our first destination.  It's basically in the center of the long stretch of Reduit Beach, and offers a nice panorama for sea, sand and mountains.  We sat at the completely empty bar, which was surrounded by the nearly completely empty restaurant.  Sure it was a Tuesday, but it was prime dinner/drinking time.  Where was everybody?  No matter, we'll make nice with the bartender and get the good info.

Or not.

The bartenders were nice, and we made a few attempts to get the conversation going (I ordered a bartender's special, letting him make one of his own concoctions), but they just seemed disinterested.  They were pleasant enough, but maybe they were exhausted from dealing with tourists and didn't care to make friends with anybody.  They weren't mixologists who wanted nothing more than to talk about the craft of making drinks.  No, they were employees, trying to quietly make it through their shift and head on home after what was looking to be a slow and therefore, low-income, evening.

We headed out of the bar, chatting about David Foster Wallace's article about cruise ships, and how they were a floating duality of extravagance and misery.  Extravagance for the passengers, whose all-inclusive packages gave them everything they'd ever need at any hour.  Misery for Wallace, who sees beyond the extravagance into the probable misery of the lower-level crew, most of whom were separated from their families for most of the year, sending their earnings home so they could keep them afloat from afar. (Maggie: Our conversations are not normally this cultured. In fact, 90% of them revolve around miscellaneous body functions and/or what cute/evil thing the cat is doing at that very moment).

On the way back, we saw some police on mini-motorcycles zip on by, mostly just making their presence felt.  We drove by some of the other bars, but they were equally as empty.  We decided to head back to the house, but not before checking out Gros Islet proper.  We turned down the main avenue, and instantly felt like we were in the ghetto, despite the lively Steel Drum band practicing their routines on the corner.  I think we were in the ghetto, but really, this is just what some parts of St. Lucia were: tiny, lopsided shacks all packed in close to each other; people and dogs freely wandering around the tiny, drainage-ditch flanked streets, with loud music pouring from the 6-seater restaurants into the streets.  This was the place of the Gros Islet Friday Street Jam, and surely was safe, but without some calibration, could definitely seem a little rough.

We headed back to the house, and, still exhausted from the flight and the day's activities, called it a night.

Oh yeah.  They spell it "tyres" instead of "tires".

Day 1 - Arrival

Day 1:

After a classically exhausting wedding weekend, we were barely ready to wake up at 3:30am to hop in a taxi to head to the airport.  But the promise of the longest-vacation-to-date for the both of us was motivation enough to get us up (and keep me up half the night, nervous that I'd sleep through the alarm.  We had been bit before by taxis that, for whatever reason, didn't make it to Jamaica Plain to pick us up even thought we had called and confirmed one, so we decided to go the safe, albeit expensive, route of Uber.  Yes, it's a little pricier than a taxi, but is very reliable, and still loads cheaper than driving and dumping the car at long-term parking for 13 days.  I pressed the Confirm button, and the little black car icon started heading in our direction on the map.  15 minutes later, a giant Lincoln Navigator pulled up, driven by Pierre, a large, but soft-spoken (or maybe he was just tired as hell) black man with a French (Creole?) accent.  He was playing Frank Sinatra, undoubtedly a passenger favorite.  And while it was playing a little too loudly for 4:00am, we went with it.  He skipped a few tracks to play "Fly Me to the Moon", which I'm guessing is his go-to track for anyone headed to the airport.  After that track was over, he switched CDs and started playing us "Beethoven in the Ghetto", which he said was originally a tape (cassette!!) he received from a friend in 1992.  He had liked it so much that he burned the tape to a CD, and has been holding onto it ever since.  It sounded just like you'd expect with that title: Classical music samples with some solid hip-hop beats behind them.  In 1992, it was probably pretty imaginative and inventive.  But 21 years later, it seemed pretty mundane.  Still, It was new to our ears, and interesting, even being half-asleep.

I shamelessly tried to get us upgraded on our flight, throwing around the word 'honeymoon' to anyone who would listen.  I tweeted at JetBlue, figuring that would be a nice direct line to someone who could make things happen, if all else failed (read: if the ticket counter folks who had to start their shift at 3am didn't give enough of a shit to upgrade two exhausted-looking goofy people).  The ticket counter woman had, in fact, upgraded us not to first class (because JetBlue doesn't do first class; they just make all seats a little more comfortable), but to the "extra legroom" seats, which, for a tall person, is just as good, if not better than first class.  We didn't need free booze at 5am anyway.  

Our layover took us to JFK, and while it was only about 8:00am, my body was ready for lunch.  A nice in-the-airport-price-inflated sandwich will do nicely.  As I waited for my sandwich, which I ordered WaWa style through a touch-screen menu, a woman I can only imagine as the complete embodiment of a native Southern Californian turned NYC wannabe socialite approached one of the sandwich preparers:

"Do you have bacon?", she muttered, in an accent even Fred Armisen's character in The Californians would be proud of.

"Yes [of course we do, you idiot]".  (The menu showed bacon as a 'topping', so it was pretty obvious that they did, in fact, have bacon.  And their specialty was sandwiches, so bread was a safe bet as well.

"Can I get a roll with just bacon on it?" she asked, assuming it was going to be presented to her, magically.

"You need to order through the touch-screen".

And so she tried to order her roll with bacon on it.  Only to fail.  Without really trying.  I think she expected the touch-screen to greet her with a single question: "Why, Hello Audrey!  Would you like these working-class losers to personally make you your favoritest of favorites?  Press "Yes" or "No".

After not seeing a "Yes", button, she quickly grabbed the sandwich-maker again:

"I don't see a button for bacon"

"It's there, you have to scroll through the options"

"Can you just make it for me?"

"You have to order through the touch-screen"

"Can you help me, then?"

At this point, the sandwich-maker turned the touch-screen around only partially, so they could both see it (I'm assuming she wanted to let Audrey know that she was, in fact, an idiot and that there was no secret to getting a roll with bacon on it).  She zipped through the menu options to uncover the hiding place of the bacon, and completed the order for her.  A few minutes later, Audrey, barely grateful, grabbed her sandwich and was off, out of my life forever.  I rejoiced.

All was smooth for the next few hours: check-in, flight, mediocre movies, immigration/customs, car rental, etc.

One of the in-flight movie options was Warm Bodies - which we had both read - so we were excited to see it as one of the options...and then equally disappointed when the movie turned out to be a dulled, beaten down shell of the book. And so I silently apologized to a few friends who consistently pull out the "the book was so much better" card.  They weren't being snobby, they were just sad and needed to vent. (Maggie: HA! You've been getting half-baked movie versions of otherwise amazing books for our entire relationship and it makes me die a little inside each time. Now you know what it feels like. ::Does an 'I told you so' dance::)

Anyway, once we were through immigrations/customs, we headed down the only road leading out of the airport to our destination on the exact opposite side of the island: we were southeast, our place was northwest.  Only 30 miles or so, but mountains and rainforests stood between us.  We made it through the winding, deteriorating roads disoriented (they drive on the left), and came upon the only major city in St. Lucia, Castries.  I should now probably mention that there are essentially no street signs in St. Lucia, which makes life a little difficult when they close down a bunch of roads in Castries for a holiday celebration.  Having no GPS, and only a cartoon, tourist-caliber road map didn't help the situation either.  After some initial struggle and concern that we'd fall into one of the side drainage ditches, we regrouped with the help of Colonel Sanders, a familiar face in an otherwise foreign city full of local shops, and carefully found our way around the closed streets, following our own detour route.

Once through Castries, we made a quick stop at a local grocery store and had a brief panic attack at the prices, not realizing that the local currency is Eastern Caribbean Dollars, not US dollars ("$20 for cranberryjuice?!?"). Lesson quickly learned and then we were off to our place.

We were greeted by Lu, a short, sweet native St. Lucian with 4 children, who had prepared dinner for us and gave us the basic rundown of the house.  After some awkward standing around, she was off and we had the place to ourselves.  It was exactly as it looked in the pictures: Perfect.  Part of me was concerned that the glamour shots were really just that, and the actual place was some dulled, beaten down version of "The House in the Pictures".  

One thing that The House in the Pictures didn't reveal to us was the amount of locks and bars on the windows and doors.  All windows had bars over them, and all doors, in addition to locking in the normal, door-handle kind of way, also had vertical deadbolts at the top and bottom.  Which, though a little unnerving, was also refreshing.  We had been uneasy since landing at the airport, having fumbled our way through the shack-lined roads of the island, through the crowded, dirty streets of Castries, and up the somewhat remote hills of the Cap Estate to our villa.  St. Lucia is tropical paradise, as long as you look in the right directions.  But, like any country, the blind spots are rough parts.  And when rich white people build magnanimous houses and fill them with fancy things and have more money than you've ever seen in your life, theft and robbery are going to exist.  It's a feeling you can't shake off in 5 minutes.  And while the bars and locks ease your tension a little bit, they greet you every morning and night to make sure your tension doesn't fully go away.  The shining light in all of this, is that though there may be resentment of all of the extravagance, there is the knowledge (or hope) that this is all making St. Lucia a more economically stable place.  Hopefully roads have improved and there are more schools as well as new industries that the new generation can specialize in and make a good stable living for themselves and their families.

We reheated the dinner Lu had made us: boiled plantains and curry rice, fish with salsa, pumpkin soup, fish salad.  It felt like a family meal.  Though I can't recall the details because we devoured it so quickly, it was delicious.

A quick swim in our pool, and we were ready to call it a night.