Bequia & Beyond

Norm’s two week Easter break is over and that means it’s back to the regular routine of Norm teaching and me blogging, now and then. Yes, life is tough in the Caribbean. Our Sarnia friends Lou and Dewey were here to share the holidays with us. We took them around St. Lucia for the first few days and then headed off on some new adventures to some other Islands.

We flew from St. Lucia to St. Vincent and then took a ferry to the small Island of Bequia.
Lou is a sailor and we just happened to be in Bequia for the Easter Regatta. While it was fun for him to see all the boats he was a little frustrated that he couldn’t sail with them.
Bequia is a tiny Island, part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It is 7 square miles with a population of 5-thousand. We walked from one end of the Island to the other, over a two day period. The weather was hot to walk in but there were several refreshing beaches along the way.

We visited a beautiful pottery studio that was built among the ruins of an abandoned sugar mill and finished our walk at a turtle hatchery.
It's run by Orton King, a retired fisherman who has made it his mission to save the hawksbill turtle from extinction. He collects the eggs, hatches them and keeps the turtles in pools for five years, until they are old enough to survive in the ocean. This one is his pet turtle.
http://turtles.bequia.net/

We took a day sale on an old schooner, the “Friendship Rose”. The crew was quick to offer sea sickness pills, ginger all and ginger cookies throughout the morning to prevent people from

getting sea sick. We didn’t take anything and were fine.

Once at the Tobago Cays there was a two hour stop for snorkling or swimming. The pictures don’t do justice to the color of the water. It was really beautiful.

From Bequia, we spent a few nights in St. Vincent. We hired a driver for a day to take us around the Western side of the Island. It's beautiful.

We did a 3 to 4 hour hike to Trinity Falls.
The walk was through a beautiful rainforest with awesome vegetation. Happily no snakes but I’m pretty sure I heard a wild boar grunting.

Our driver then took us to Dark ViewFalls.
We had to walk over a suspension bridge made of long bamboo trunks to get there.

Parts of the Pirates of the Caribbean films were shot in St. Vincent. Our driver was hired to help scout out locations on the Island. They’ve kept part of the sets intact for visitors.

That's just a small sampling of what we did over the two weeks. I'll fill in some more blanks over the next few days. Thanks to Lou for some great photos.

Up the Piton

Another week...another visit. This time our son Deny with his girlfriend Catherine. They took a well deserved break from their University studies to spend March break with us. As is often the case, our first stop was at the beach next to the Hewanorra airport.






Norm took a day off mid-week so that he, Deny and our friends Jan and Jana from Slovakia could walk the tallest Piton. It took them an hour and 50 minutes to reach the top. It's 2,619 feet tall so that's like hiking up three and a half CN towers.

I went zip lining through the rain forest with them...alot tamer than climbing the Piton. The wide variety of trees and different plant life are truly amazing.

Catherine realized one of her dreams by taking a day cruise on the Unicorn, a ship that was used in Pirates of the Caribbean and Roots. And to top it off, one of the extras from the movie is a deck hand on the ship. He posed with Catherine and Sarah, our roommates daughter. She was also visiting during March break with her boyfriend.

The ship stops at Anse Cochon and people can swing off the rope to go for a swim. Deny didn't hesitate to jump in.

We drove through Soufriere on their way back to the airport. Prince Charles and Camilla had just been through for a Royal visit. The city was all decked out to greet them. A number of streets had been repaved, buildings painted and some of the kids dressed in their traditional Creole costumes.

Mud, Chefs & Chicken

Imagine being covered with thick black goo and actually enjoying the experience. That’s what our daughter Elyse and her fiancé Daniel did on their last day in St. Lucia. On the way to the airport we stopped at the sulphur springs near the drive in volcano. They say covering yourself up with mud is very healthy for the skin. They even sell sulphur soap and sulphur powder at the tourist
Kiosk nearby.






Who knows whether there are long term benefits. But for the short term, Elyse and Daniel enjoyed it and Elyse said it made her skin feel really soft. But admittedly, it took awhile to wash the mud off. A very kind St. Lucian woman helped Elyse wash it off (I guess she thought Daniel wasn’t doing his job or something)








Earlier in the week they went off on their own to do the rainforest canopy tour where you go up into the hills of the rainforest on gondolas and come back down on zip lines.






Later that day we did the Pigeon Island walk. It takes about an hour and a half and includes a good 20 minute hike up a steep hill. But the view from the top (and the cool breeze) makes it all worthwhile.











On the way from Pigeon Island we discovered what happens during break time at the nearby Sandals resort. We saw this image of the cooks and couldn’t resist asking them for permission to take their picture. They kindly obliged.










There is little waste when you buy a whole chicken in St. Lucia. Not only do you get the innards, you also get the feet. In fact, you can buy a package of chicken feet, or claws, or whatever they’re called. I think they make good soup. They create a lot of gelatine.

Waiting for the plane

Elyse and her fiance Daniel have come to visit this week. It was a stressful time for them leading up to the trip. They weren’t able to confirm their flights until Thursday night. This when they were hoping to fly out on Westjet on Sunday. But they got their flights and arrived on time Sunday afternoon. They flew into the Hewanorra airport in Vieux Fort at the southern end of the Island. It’s not far but it still takes up to an hour and a half to get there. We left early in case there were traffic problems and went to the beach next to the airport to wait for them. What a beautiful wait.



Many people at this end of the Island have horses. And it’s not unusual to see people on horseback on the beach. They ride without a saddle. In this case the rider took his horse in the water to cool him off.







You can’t go anywhere in St. Lucia without seeing animals. There are always dogs of course as well as goats and chickens. But we got a chuckle seeing this cow walking along the airport fence. She was tethered at one point and must have broken free. After we picked up Elyse and Daniel there were six cows walking along the fence, one behind the other. They must have been looking for the first one.



There are many beautiful trees between the road and the beach area. They grow fairly flat and close to the ground. It's a perfect spot to sit an watch the planes come in.


















We took Elyse and Daniel to the beach to show them the paradise they’re visiting. They didn’t swim but they got their feet wet. I’ll add a picture of them when I get access to Elyse’s camera.





One of the new vegetables we’ve discovered that we really enjoy is christophena.
We cook it the same way we cook potatoes, peeled and boiled. But it’s quite runny. So sometimes after we boil it, we drain it, add cheese and bake it in the oven. You can also boil it in the peel, take the inside out, mash it and add it back to the peel to broil in the oven. It’s yummy.


And here’s that recipe for Coconut Squares that I mentioned in an earlier post. Everyone in the house really likes them. But be warned...they're rich.










Heat in a saucepan or microwave
½ cup butter
2 cup brown sugar

Remove from heat to cool and then add
2 eggs
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 ½ cup desiccated coconut
2 tsp vanilla
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until firm

The Road to Dauphin

One day this week when Norm was teaching and Wanda was busy entertaining her company (two couples are visiting Dale & Wanda) Carl and I went off on one of our fieldtrips. We use these little trips to discover a new part of the Island and more often than not, to try out the beer at a new bar. Our destination this time was Dauphin…a small village and beach on the northeast corner of the Island.


Going on one of these adventures may seem simple to the uninitiated. Just follow the map and go, right? Not so easy. We haven’t been able to find a good map. There are no road signs, nor in many cases, are there signs announcing which town or village we’re driving through. So if we don’t stop to ask, (and we haven’t yet) we just head in the direction of the ocean or the mountain peak and hope for the best.


We went through several little villages on fairly decent roads before the pavement gave way to a dirt road. It’s where we decided to turn back last week when we were driving with Gisele and Allen. But Carl has a four wheel drive and his vehicle is able to make it in places where our car can’t. We drove along for a few kilometres, dodging rocks and potholes, until we reached the village of Dauphin. The houses were small and in some cases primitive. On the left the houses were built into the hillside above our heads and on the right the houses were below us. A woman washed her clothes in a bucket in front of a huge water tank in the center of town. Each house had a black water tank either in front of or behind the house. It turns out that they are unable to pump water up to the town so that a tanker truck regularly delivers water to fill up the water tanks. The area seemed quite impoverished but the people smiled and waved as we drove by. The dirt track became narrower as we drove and we saw many piles of horse manure. We concluded that the road is used more often by horses than cars. After about 5 kilometres of driving through a beautiful valley, we finally reached Dauphin Beach. The sand was almost black. There was a tall cliff on one side covered with cactus and aloe vera plants. The beach was littered with debris brought in by the waves. It’s not a beach used for swimming so it doesn’t get a regular beach clean up. But all in all, a beautiful spot.




On our way back through town, we were stopped by a woman walking down the road carrying her son. Her name is Nadia. Her two year old son is named Austin. She asked if she could get a ride into Castries. She had to go the pharmacy to pick up nose drops for Austin who was sick with a bad head cold. As we drove the 20 minutes or so into Castries, she named every town and village we drove through. She rolled the window down and yelled hello to at least 20 people along the way, including two guys riding in the back of a pickup truck on the roundabout. They were all her cousins she said. She has a heck of a lot of cousins. She answered her cell phone and told the caller “I’m in a car with some white people, showing them around”. She gave us her number and said she was available any time to be a tour guide or to do hair braiding.





We had an interesting time at the market last week. A good part of the market is outdoors with vendors selling their produce under big umbrellas. The umbrellas did little to protect them on Saturday when there was a huge downpour. Usually the rain lasts only 5 minutes or so but this storm went on for at least twenty minutes. All of the customers who were outside ran into the covered part of the market and hovered in the crowded stalls waiting out the rain. The selling stopped. People just chatted with each other and waited for the rain to pass. It’s the way of the Caribbean. Relax. Wait it out. It will pass. It was interesting to listen in on the discussions, although we don’t understand most of the patois that is spoken.


We won’t be buying any peppers at the market over the next few weeks. Our balcony garden is starting to bear fruit. We’ve got beautiful orange & red peppers, eggplant, parsley and basil. Our cucumber plants didn’t make it and while the tomato plants are producing, the tomatoes have a disease that is very common in St. Lucia. It’s apparently impossible to avoid if you grow tomatoes here. So we’ll be sticking to peppers, eggplant and fresh herbs.


Next entry I’ll tell you about a new vegetable we’ve been enjoying and I’ll share a new recipe for Coconut Squares that I got from one of the parents at the school. It’s absolutely yummy!

Blooms & citrus

It's supposed to be the dry season in St. Lucia but so far we’ve been getting a fair amount of rain every day. It doesn’t last long but it is helping to keep all of the beautiful flowers in bloom and the plants lush. We’ve been seeing a lot of poinsettia, both red and white. They are more like a tree than the plants we are used to back home. Often they are in a hedge in a yard or hanging over a fence. The make a stunning show.

We did a bit more exploring with Gisele and Allen over the past couple of weeks. We spent one Sunday on the Eastern side of the Island where there are stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s much rougher than the Caribbean Sea on the Western Side. The huge waves and beautiful sandy beaches are tempting but it’s very dangerous to swim there. The undertow is vicious and many people have drowned. This view of the Atlantic was taken from the site of an old sugar plantation we visited.

The plantation ruins have been developed as Fond D’Or Nature Reserve and Historical Park. It’s one of several old sugar plantations on the Island. Sugar cane used to be a big crop here before it was replaced by bananas. St. Lucia still produces a lot of rum but the molasses from the sugar cane is now imported from Antigua. The photo you see is one of the old buildings on the sugar plantation. It was impressive to see the massive tree growing through it.

Travelling further south on the Eastern side of the Island we passed places with the interesting names of Malgretoute (despite all) Patience and Mon Repos (my rest). We toured Mamiku Gardens, a newer tropical garden. It’s set on 12 acres of land surrounding an old estate house. The garden specializes in orchids. They were growing in gardens but they were also growing in the crooks of trees. There was also an herb garden with plants that could cure anything from headaches to menstrual cramps and gall bladder problems, etc etc.

We’ve talked about how much we enjoy the fruit on the Island. Sometimes it’s hard to identify the fruit, even if it’s one we’re quite familiar with. In this case, Norm is holding a lemon. It’s the size of a regular grapefruit at home. It’s no surprise though considering the grapefruit we get is the size of a cantelope. We’ve had more than our share of grapefruit lately. Our cleaning lady offered Carl some grapefruit as log as he could pick them up. She comes by bus and didn’t want to carry them all the way here. Carl didn’t tell anyone about this because there’s a bit of competition going on between him and Norm over who can get the most grapefruit for the best price. Norm had been winning the competition up until now because his grapefruit lady at the market continues to give him good prices and some freebies every week. We went to the market and bought our regular five or six grapefruit only to discover when we returned that Carl had a bag with sixty grapefruits to share with the household. Needless to say, we’re getting our share of citrus these days.

And I’ve taken a fair share of ribbing over my new retired status. I officially retired from the CBC on December 31st. Allen and Carl insisted I join them at this spot in the market in Castries for a photo. It’s where the retired folks meet up to drink beer and play dominos.

Let it Snow & Sailing along

It’s been a long time. Much snow has fallen at home and the weather in St. Lucia has cooled slightly to a more comfortable level. We returned to Moncton on December 13 to spend Christmas with the kids and the dogs. But we had an unexpected delay when our flight from Newark to Moncton was cancelled because of bad weather. After a two and a half hour wait in line to talk to a customer service agent, we found out we couldn’t leave until the next direct flight 24 hours later. So we were stuck in New York without winter clothes. Norm had a short sleeved cotton shirt. I at least had a cotton jacket with long sleeves and a warm hoody that I was able to lend him. The airline refused to put us up in a hotel but “generously?” gave us two blankets and a pillow to help us sleep in the airport. We booked a hotel instead and used the blankets the next day as scarves to help us keep warm. Norm likes to say we made lemonaide with lemons. We took a shuttle into New York and then bought tickets for the double decker tour buses. They were great. We could get on and off whenever we wanted. We would sit up top to see the sights but when it got too cold we’d go downbelow to warm up. It’s amazing how much we were able to see that way. It was a lovely day but a rude introduction to colder weather.

The weather in Moncton was another shocker. We had four storms within one week…each of them between 20 to 40 centimetres. It was the week Deny and Catherine had chosen to go to the Dominican Republic with their friends so Norm had to do a lot of shovelling on his own. I helped with the walkway but at the end I could barely get the snow over the snow bank. Fortunately we had a big melt afterwards so that the snowbanks shrunk considerably.
We had a nice Christmas, spending time both at home and the cottage.

The driveway to the cottage had to be blown out twice. Norm and I had planned to meet there for supper and to spend the night after one of the storms, but the guy hadn’t had a chance to clean out the driveway. I got there first and had to hike at least 800 feet into the cottage, stomping the snow with my cross country skis. There was no question of gliding. The snow was too deep. The worst thing is that I had to carry the prime rib roast I was making for supper, along with other groceries, in a plastic bag in my hand. The dogs were very interested in that grocery bag. But I made it, despite the minus 25 degree weather, and the cottage was toasty warm by the time Norm arrived. What a lucky guy!

So we’re back in St. Lucia. Norm’s sister Gisele and her husband Allen are visiting, and enjoying everything the island has to offer. Last week we sat in on a time share presentation at the Windjammer, a resort down the road. As a thank you, they gave us a nice discount on a cruise to Soufriere, at the south of the Island.

The cruise was on a catamaran. We left at 8:30 and docked again at 5:00 pm. We cruised from the Windjammer past our house. We sailed by Castries and throughout the West Coast of the Island. We could drink all of the rum punch or beer that we wanted. The rum punch was so strong that we preferred a mix of half punch, half passion fruit juice.

Once we landed in Soufriere we were taken by mini-bus to Toraille Falls. It’s a 15 metre waterfall that we get to after walking through yet another tropical garden. It was a great place to take a quick dip. The water hits you pretty hard but it’s very refreshing.

From there, we were taken to the world’s only drive-in volcano. By drive in, they mean that the parking lot and road are actually built on top of the volcano. The Canadian government helped develop the tourist site. It is quite amazing. There is steam rising from the craters and the mud continually bubbles up. In the past, they used to let tourists walk closer to the craters. They would cook eggs in the boiling mud to prove just how hot it was. But that ended after a tour guide fell through one of the cracks. The ground can move and create new fissures. The guide was jumping up and down and a hole opened up and he fell in. He survived but was seriously injured. The volcano is active and scientists say it will erupt again, maybe as soon as 100 years from now. But they say there won’t be lava. There will be a big blast as strong as an atomic bomb and people will be killed by the poisonous gas that will be released.

Our next stop was at a working coco plantation where we were treated to a lovely buffet lunch. We had a short tour of the site and an explanation of how they process coco beans. After drying the beans in the sun on large trays for a few weeks, they pour them into a big cast iron pot where a worker polishes them by doing a coco dance. He washes his feet, adds water to the pot, hangs on to each side, and then swings his legs from side to side as the beans swish up and around him. I will never eat chocolate again without thinking of the coco dance.

There was a scheduled stop on the way home at a popular snorkelling beach. Gisele and Allen convinced me to give it a try and I am now a convert. I will never go far or go deep but in 15 minutes I saw at least a dozen different species of fish, all I water up to my neck. I felt like I was swimming in an aquarium. It was very cool.

The only unfortunately thing about a wonderful day of sailing is that Norm couldn’t be there because he was working. But it was so much fun that we’ll do it again when he can come along.
Sorry you had to wait so long for this latest blog entry. I’ll try to keep writing weekly but it’s going to be more difficult as we get more company over the next couple of months.