Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

The blog pages were showing errors for a few hours today all as a result of mistakes I made performing an upgrade and subsequent frustrations trying to recover lost files.  It’s done now but most of the day has gone.  In between times we have been trying to trace the source of fresh water that accumulates in the port bilge.  No luck there but our best hypothesis so far is that it is related to rain.  Now that it is sunny the hypotheses can be tested to see if the slow flow stops.  If the hypothesis is supported the next thing to do will be to running around checking things next time it is pouring with rain.

We popped in to Castries. It is a very nice town with some great bargain shopping. Anchorage wasn’t so hot so we picked up a couple of cheap tee-shirts and some groceries and are now off back to Rodney Bay. Pics from Anse La Raye have been uploaded.

We had a mixed experience in Anse La Raye. We waited until after lunch before dinghying ashore. There was no dock so this was to be a beach landing. Helen managed to jar her back while stepping off the dinghy which was not the best start. With the help of a local chap and some kids we hauled the dinghy up the beach to where we could chain it to a fence.

We had a walk around town. It was a smaller and poorer version of Soufriere but well kept. We then walked 2-3 miles out of town to a waterfall / pool. It was not entirely natural but quaint all the same. The area was partially gardened so it was quite pretty too. We both took a dip in the pool to cool down before the walk back to the boat.

Back on the boat I managed to finish Obama’s book and passed it onto Helen. I then listened to some TED Talks (look them up) which I find fascinating. We went back ashore around 6:30pm and selected our place to eat. We decided on the “All you can eat buffet” on the beach. The selection of food looked good. In this case we had to pay first which, in hindsight, was not a good sign. The service was atrocious, the servers slow and at times rude. They seemed to try their best to give you as little as possible and when it came to our coming up for more they made us wait for over ten minutes, chastising us when we helped ourselves. While we were waiting they even rubbed out the “All” from “All you can eat” on the blackboard. What made up for the atrocious service was the company. We dined with a British family who were holidaying on the island. They were from London and it was good to talk about things from the home country.

Today we’re off to Castries, the capital, on our way to Rodney Bay. Not sure if we’ll stay a few hours or a day or two. We’ll figure that out when we’re there.

We’ve moved the boat round the corner to Anse La Raye. No internet at all. So no pics today. Will update blog when we’re back on.

After our sail all of 3nm south we arrived at Anse de Cochon where we’ve stopped for the day and night. The great thing about Anse de Cochon is it’s off the beaten path and has great snorkeling and diving. The problem about Anse de Cochon is that all the tour/hotel/dive operators know this and turn up en masse both in the morning and afternoon. We even had a bit of a conflict with one of the large tour cats which had about 50 snorkelers aboard. They said the mooring ball which we were using was there’s and we had to get off for 45 mins. We thought otherwise but rather than get all het up we moved the boat, anchored, then returned when they left.

The snorkeling was really good here. We were out for about an hour. At one point there was a stone arch I could swim under and pop out the other side. Beneath were tight packs of fish hiding away from prying eyes, presumably. Now that the tourists (course we’re not tourists) have gone, we have the place to ourselves.

Just to the south of the beach is the Ti Kaye Village Resort. It looks pretty nice from the outside.  We took a walk around the grounds and it looks pretty well maintained and nice to stay.

Tomorrow our main plan is to head north one bay to Anse La Raye where there is a small fishing village where every Friday night they have a ‘fish fest’. Apparently stalls are set up along the front street and fish, lobster, etc are all available creole style. There are supposed to be some nice walks from the anchorage so we may take these. We may also scrape the barnacles off the bottom of the boat. I can imagine this’ll get postponed. Not a pleasant job.