December 24-31, 2024 – Barbados to St Lucia, Beautiful St Lucia Anchorages

December 24-25

We sailed overnight on Christmas Eve to the first anchorage in St. Lucia. We had good winds for a time and flew the genoa.

We were the only boat in the Vieux fort anchorage. It wasn’t super pretty, but it was peaceful.

December 26

Our second stop was in Soufriere, where Michael checked us into the country. Seahike was on a mooring ball. We spent two nights there at a cost of 50 EC each night for the mooring ball.

I drove Michael to shore in the dinghy and went right back to Seahike each time I delivered him or picked him up. Everything we’d read about St. Lucia told us not to leave the boat unattended. This meant that we would choose to stay in a marina so we could travel inland together.

This was a pretty area from the sea. And we drove through another pretty bay prior to coming here. Both bays have views of the Pitons (the two tall, steep hills).

But before we got there, we had to leave our anchorage and head “up north.”

This ship came into the first anchorage the morning we left.

On our way! St. Lucia is beautiful! (I know you are shocked to hear me say that.)

This is the first bay I mentioned. You can moor here, but the dinghy ride to the place where you check in would be too long. That’s why we stayed in the second bay. But we took a nice slow tour through this one first.

Leaving that bay behind. . .

Entering the new bay by the town.

There are boat boys that start to stalk you as soon as they see you are heading into a bay. Michael didn’t want to use them because he didn’t want to have to pay them. But it became pretty clear that they were going to hang around, so I worked with them. Besides, I hadn’t managed a mooring ball by myself, except for that time in Croatia when I ended up using the dinghy because the ball didn’t have a line on it. I was happy to have their help.

It started to rain shortly after we arrived and God or Mother Nature (or both working together) presented us with a pretty rainbow.

Views from Seahike after the rain.

One of the Pitons in the distance:

December 27

Our second day in this bay was uneventful. We had a couple of big neighbors. Compare them to the catamarans in the pictures to get a sense of their size. Although they were a bit closer to us than the cats, you can still tell that they are big. And check out their masts! followed by one of the prettiest sunsets we’d seen in some time.

And we saw one of the prettiest sunsets we’d seen in some time. Here is the progression, complete with the blue and white (as seen above) boat sailing off into the sunset – a beautiful sight!

December 28-29

Our third stop prior to entering the marina was the Rodney Bay North anchorage. We anchored in 25 feet on a nice sandy bottom.

On our way to Rodney Bay North:

Rodney Bay North – a busy place, but plenty of space.

December 30

We’d been on Seahike for about a week now so we were ready to go into the marina and visit the island. There is a fairly long channel one takes to get to the marina.