Week 33: Marigot Bay, St. Lucia (0nm)

This post is part of a series called Cruising the Caribbean

Alec’s family arrived in St. Lucia shortly after Ballin and Katherine’s departure for two weeks of relaxation and adventure with us. Week one was all about the former and we settled into our base at Marigot Bay for an unconventional pre-Christmas week.

AND THEN THERE WERE TWO SIX

For a day and a half after Ballin and Katherine left, it was back to just the two of us. The boat felt empty, but we also felt joy in being able to spread out more again. Serenity feels so luxuriously big when it’s just the two of us! We took some time to do the usual necessities after guests leave us – cleaning up the boat, sorting laundry, etc. plus getting to those things we said we’d fix in Martinique but hadn’t quite gotten around to.

Just as we were starting to get a bit lonely, Saturday arrived along with Alec’s family. It was so wonderful to see them! Having lived near them in England for so long, it had felt weird not to get together regularly since we left. So, we were all very excited to spend time together! They were staying out in the Caribbean for two weeks; this first one we’d all spend on land in Marigot Bay relaxing and revelling in the availability of unlimited hot showers (or is that just us?) 😊, before we’d all head off on Serenity to explore by boat for week two.

Alec’s morning paddleboard
Intense concentration on cards
Taking the water taxi across the bay
Drinks at Doolittle’s
Now THAT is a sunset 🙂

We had a wonderful week in Marigot Bay, filled with: time in the pool, morning yoga / pilates / hikes with the hotel fitness instructor Jay, a cooking class, rum tasting, a tour of the hotel gardens, lots of happy hours, long nights of sleep and a new card game called Kaboo that Liv and Elliott taught us.

Views from the ridge hike around Marigot bay
The colours are unreal!

In order to make Serenity ready to receive Alec’s family, we also had a few jobs to do, so spent a bit of time on the boat finalising the last of the repairs from the Atlantic. As often happens (and is one of the things we love about the sailing community) when doing repairs while other cruisers are around, this led to making friends with several of the other boats at the marina. Our next door neighbours, Amethyst, lent a few tools and a hand when we needed it (plus kindly let us off easy when we accidentally stole one of their fenders at the end of the week). And, further down the dock, James, Georgie and Imogen of Nemesis generously donated materials to help us fix the back of the boat where our old bumper had disintegrated. The Nemesis crew, who in addition to being lovely people are impressively good at yoga (which we discovered during the hotel’s morning class offerings), also shared their experience and excellent advice on cruising spots in the Grenadines, where we hoped to head the following week with Alec’s family. This proved pivotal, because they helped us pick where to spend Christmas, which ended up being truly magical – but that is a story for next week’s post!!

Making friends at yoga…
…and along the dock
The rotten bumper is gone!

The Caribbean is full of wildlife and Marigot Bay specialised in a tiny bird called the Lesser Antillean Bullfinch. Very inquisitive, friendly, and bold, these little guys visited us every day while we were working on the boat. I’m sure there were multiple, but we couldn’t really tell them apart, so we imagined it was just one especially friendly bird and named him Clarence. As Clarence got to know us, he felt increasingly comfortable aboard the boat, and after a couple of days was not afraid to come down into the saloon to clean up the crumbs off the kitchen counter. Alec eventually got him to eat right out of his palm!

After some initial hesitation, Clarence gets up the courage to eat straight from Alec’s hand!

CHRISTMAS PREPARATIONS

My favourite Marshall family Christmas tradition is the exchange of stocking presents. They have a special way of organising it: each person does the whole stocking for one other. A stocking must consist of 10 small presents with a total budget of £100. While doing Christmas in the Caribbean would make stockings more difficult, we’d all agreed that we couldn’t imagine the day without them.

To simplify things, we planned that everyone would do half their shopping before we met up in St. Lucia and that we’d then spend a day out on the island to do the second half together. This led to a fun excursion out to Castries (the large town north of Marigot Bay) and the surrounding area. Our driver took us to several artisan shops, a market, and an outdoor mall, wherein we all found the final 5 presents for our stockings (stay tuned for next week’s post where we reveal the best finds!).

I also managed to convince the driver to help me sneak off to buy my Christmas present to Alec. I was feeling very proud of myself for finding somewhere to get a guitar in St. Lucia, and we hid it in the back of the van where I hoped I could keep it a secret. I admit I wasn’t terribly forward thinking though, because, once we got back, I realised there aren’t a lot of places on the boat to hide such a large item. In fact, there are none. So, I was forced from the outset to hang the guitar on the (very conspicuous) wall mount that I had planned as its long term home. While I did wrap it, the shape of a guitar is unmistakable, and Alec immediately guessed what it was. Perhaps the lesson is to think of something smaller next year if I want to keep it a secret!

Our day out concluded with lunch at the Pink Plantation House hotel, which is up on the hill above Castries. What an amazing spot! The house, which is very pink indeed, is down a long, narrow track hidden amongst the dense vegetation. Once through the gates, the grounds open out and you have the most wonderful view over the bay of Castries. The restaurant is on the house’s raised back porch, with an even better vantage point to survey the island below. The food is almost entirely made from locally sourced produce and was fantastic! Alec tried barracuda for the first time – who’d have known it’s so delicious? – while I went for the crab and a signature St. Lucian coconut curry. It was very Instagram-worthy and even tastier than it looked! Highly recommended if you visit St. Lucia!!

The view from the Plantation House
Coconut curry… in a coconut!
We clean up okay 🙂

TIME TO FLOAT

With that, Christmas presents were done and only final preparations remained for our second week with Alec’s family out on the boat. The hardest last task was thinking of a Christmas meal we could cook on board, since the usual turkey and trimmings were definitely not on the cards! Luckily, everyone quickly agreed a barbeque would be perfect, and it didn’t matter that it would be a bit unconventional! So, fully stocked with food and gifts, we made beds, deep cleaned and made ourselves ready to host Serenity’s biggest house-full yet. By the time Alec’s family came aboard we were ready for adventure again, this time looking south to St. Vincent and the Grenadines…

Our Christmas week was magical and probably our best on the boat yet, so keep an eye out for Alec’s post next week detailing what we got up to!