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British Mensa Travel Special Interest Group |
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Caribbean
Dream In January 2000 I spent 3 weeks sailing with some friends in the warm waters around St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines. I was invited there by my friend Shane to join his parents who were sailing in that part of the Caribbean as part of their ongoing Round the World trip and to help celebrate the double wedding of his younger brother Fintan and his fiancée Linda and also two friends of theirs, Johnny and Mary. In total there was a party of ten on two yachts. One experience not to miss if you visit St Lucia is to swim in the warm waterfall near the Pitons. It is fed by volcanic springs which warm the water to body temperature and you are allowed to wash your hair and body in the waterfall, something we all took advantage of. Washing my long blonde hair under the waterfall I definitely felt like I was having a “Timotei” moment. I was chatted up by one of the local lads while I was there, which has to go down as the most unusual place I have ever been chatted up! When we originally arrived in one of the bays near the Pitons we were greeted by a number of boat boys who helped us moor the boats. One line was attached to a buoy on the seaward side, while another line was attached to a palm tree on the shore. Once we were safely moored we were visited by boys from the beach restaurant who proffered menus for us to choose from, with everything on offer freshly caught to our order. It was a pity it rained when Maxine was in Tobago Cays, as the Cays gave me one of the highlights of my own trip - and probably one of the most memorable holiday moments I have ever had. The night we got to Tobago Cays, by happy coincidence, Shane’s father heard on the radio that there was going to be a total eclipse of the moon that night. No-one on the surrounding boats seemed to know about it as all the other yachts moored there had their lights out when the eclipse started around 1 am. So we had one of the tiny islands totally to ourselves. We were able to lie back on the soft white sand, close to some palm trees, and watch the moon slowly disappear and the stars shine so much brighter than normal without the moon's light. We were able to see the “sparkles in the sea” while we waited for the moon to reappear. These were phosphorescent phyto-plankton and when we scooped them up in our hands with some sea water they appeared all to be different shapes. The next morning some of the boat boys offered to catch us lobster and duly reappeared a while later with barbecued lobster (probably crayfish really, but very tasty). These we ate with some lovely salads prepared by the men on board and accompanied by champagne. Lobster and champagne brunch on a yacht in the Caribbean, the morning after a total eclipse of the moon - during January. That's the life! Later that day Shane and some of our group were greeted by a local man on one of the nearby beaches. “Are you Pat Murphy’s son?” was the question, to which the answer of course was yes. This was a local guy married to an Irish woman, the couple spending half their time in the Caribbean and half in Ireland. He had his speedboat with him and invited us out on it so we could snorkel further from the shore. We gladly accepted and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon, especially when he set the boat off at full throttle and we were able to “plane” along the surface of the sea, bouncing on the waves - a real treat for people used to sailing boats rather than motor boats. While we were snorkelling, Fintan saw a sea snake and his mother saw an octopus, which would have been unlikely sights closer to shore. The experience of travelling around the Caribbean on a small yacht was clearly completely different to one on a cruise ship, but one which I would not have missed for the world. First published in VISA issue 58 (December 2004) |