Laborie

This morning we decided to have a little look around the Jalousie Hilton Hotel before we set sail. The location, set between the two Pitons, is utterly sublime. The hotel is exceptionally nice and probably very expensive.

We had managed a VHF chat with Bees Knees and altered our plans to go straight to Marie Islands. They were going into Soufriere to pick up a ‘ton of limes’ as they were running low and couldn’t imagine existence without them. We would make our separate ways and meet up later.

Leaving the Pitons we experienced winds from all directions which kept us amused for a while. Once we rounded the corner and started heading east we soon discovered the winds were staying around the mid 20s (apparent) with a ½ to 1 knot current from the east. This meant slow progress to our destination. We radioed Bees Knees to say we were altering our destination back to Laborie, the original intention as we didn’t think we’d make Marie Islands let alone Vieux Fort in good time. Later, when they rounded they found the winds beyond where they liked to sail and headed back to where we had been moored to wait out the weather.

After beating away for another three hours we made it to Laborie where were met by some more boat helpers who guided us in through the reef to a mooring ball. They wanted to charge us US$40 for the privilege but we bargained them down to US$10 – the same price as Soufriere.

We then took our dinghy to the jetty and took a walk through the town. In many ways Laborie is much like some of the other towns we’ve seen in St Lucia and Dominica. We walked the length of the ‘high’ street and came to a terraced bar looking over the beach where they sole cold Piton beers for next to nothing. We soon were chatting to Muline who was running the bar on behalf of her friend who was in Canada having a baby.

Leaving the bar we walked back along the beach which was simply beautiful. Locals were playing on the sand as it is still the Easter break. The shoreline had many local fishing boats anchored up. We are very glad the conditions kept us to our original plan.