2024-06-22 Tour of St. Lucia and on to Bequia

Monday we took an all day tour of St. Lucia with our friends on Matcha.   Our driver Richard picked us up at 8:30, and we did an almost complete circumnavigation of the island.  To be honest, the roads are so twisty turny, it was hard to tell where we were without constantly consulting a map.

Beautiful views, and Richard was a wealth of information.

West coast of St. Lucia, town of Dennery

Our guide Richard telling Dean about the history of the town.

Just a random photo as we drove along the southern side - beautiful island

Town of Soufriere on the east coast.  The west coast has more flat lands for cultivation than the east coast.

We stopped at the Tet Paul Nature Trail, and walked up to a viewpoint with great views of the Pitons, which St. Lucia is known for.  Gros Piton and Petit Piton.   You can hike the Pitons as well, but that looked to be a bit more than we wanted.

Quite a few steps to go on the nature trail

Panoramic of Gros Piton (left), and Petit Piton

The tour gang, Matt and Charlie off Matcha

Anchorage at the base of Petit Piton.  We did not anchor there, gusty winds, and some reported boat boy issues made it a place to avoid for us.

Bananas growing alongside the trail.  Bananas grow everywhere on the island

Pineapple.  Takes about 7 months to grow to maturity, several can be on one bush.  

After the hike we headed to the Diamond Botanical Gardens, Mineral baths and waterfall. We had a nice tour, and our guide pointed out and named a lot of plants and trees, and their common use for medicinal purpose- which we will never remember the names of, let alone what they were used for.  For use, just a beautiful walk.

Common name for this one was red hot dreadlocks

Beautiful blooms

Mineral fed stream - never clear

Waterfall.  Minerals have stained the rocks

The mineral baths

We did not partake in the baths.  It is hot water baths, which sounded unpleasant on a hot day, and we were getting hungry, so headed to a restaurant serving "authentic" St. Lucia food, for lunch with an incredible view.

Lunch

The view from the Beacon restaurant, where we had lunch

Back to the dinghy dock by 4 p.m. so we checked out of St. Lucia planning for a first light departure in the morning.

We thought we would have good wind, us and about 6 other boats all with the same plan.  We all ended up motorsailing, so bit of a bummer, but had 70 miles to the next stop, so could not go too slow.

Dropped anchor in Bequia, just as the sun was setting.  Bequia is a cruiser favorite. Protected anchorage, small laid back town, with some groceries, restaurants and hikes.  

Large anchorage, so boats are fairly spread out.

We walked up to Fort Hamilton for the view.  Fort Hamilton is really just a gazebo and some cannons, but quite the view.

View of Port Elizabeth, Bequia

We found another trail, and walked part, but were not sure where it went, so backtracked, but got some good stair exercise.

Amazing how steep some of the roads are.

Many colorful houses on the hills 

Admiralty Bay, main anchorage in Bequia.  

What's a walk in the Caribbean without some goats

We took a 2.5 mile dinghy trip out to the far west point on Bequia to see the Moonhole.

The Moonhole

Other buildings besides the Moonhole - all deserted.

On the way back we stopped at a couple of spots for a snorkel.   So nice not to have to wear a wetsuit, as the water is about 86 degrees.  Still not a lot of coral, or color, but some places look to be making a comeback.

Ocean surgeonfish (Thanks Monica)

Lots of variation in a small area

Swam through a ton of small fishes - they were about 1" long

Saw lots of white sea urchins

Couple of Ocean Surgeonfish (Thanks Monica)

Spotted moray hiding down in the rocks - we let him be

Dean spotted this peacock flounder - this photo is zoomed in.  

Same peacock flounder, do you see it?

We will be in Bequia for a while longer.  Still have another walk, another snorkel, and ice cream to try before we leave.