May 23, 2001 -- St. Lucia Bound

We got up this morning and listened to the radio for a report from Pengallie and Tahoe. They decided to leave this morning at 2:00 AM AST to head to Bequia. They offered to relay back to us the wind and wave conditions that they were seeing. When we talked to them, Pengallie reported that they saw seas of 4 to 6 feet and winds around 20 knots. Mariah left first, followed shortly by Sojourner. We, on the other hand, had to put our dinghy up on deck before we could leave. We got underway about an hour after everyone else left. Because we were expecting higher winds at the southern end of Martinique and the northern end of St. Lucia, we decided to undercanvas and motorsail. We cleared the wind shadow of Martinique and the winds climbed to 18-22 knots. The seas went from 3-5 to 6 -10 feet quickly! It was a lumpy, if fairly quick run. We caught up with Sojourner and Mariah about thirty minutes out of Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. About midway through the trip, Mariah called to report that he had seen a pilot whale surfing down a wave toward his boat and he thought that was fun. Bear in mind, of course, that pilot whales aren't much bigger than dolphins. Even still, we informed Mike on Mariah that he had a rather twisted sense of what was fun! After we dropped anchor, Mike and I dropped the dinghy so we could clear customs. On the way, I picked up Dan from Sojourner and Mike from Mariah. We headed in to clear customs. On the way in, we saw Just Dessert. We haven't seen them since Fort de France in Martinique, and that was only briefly. We cleared customs, and then on the way back we stopped by Just Dessert for a drink and to chat a bit. Since Mike and I had talked about dinner out at Pizza Pizza, I suggested that we all make an evening of it. Everyone agreed, so we made plans to come back in at 6:30 PM. We did the ferry thing, and hauled Dan and Jan (Sojourner), Mike and Barb (Mariah), and Mike and Dawn (Just Dessert) to Pizza Pizza. It made more sense to take one dinghy than four, since the dock at Pizza Pizza is very small. However, we were just a bit on the crowded side in our dinghy. It seats six, not eight, but we were only going a couple of hundred feet, once we picked up Just Dessert! Of course we could have left the dink at Just Dessert's boat and walked over, but it was a couple of miles around the water or a short trip across. Dinner was a lot of fun. We caught up with Mike and Dawn on all of their adventures, and also to hear all about the Mariah's and Sojourners adventures as well. After dinner, we went to the Ice Cream place and then headed back to the boat and to bed.