New Orleans/FL Trip (Day 30) - Castries, St. Lucia

We docked in the harbor of Castries, St Lucia around 7:00 am, passing near the end of the runway of the small airport. A smaller cruise ship was moored there already; the captain, or one of his assistants, used the extended bridge out to the starboard side to ease our ship into its assigned area. We were very close to the port area with the many small shops filled with souvenirs, jewelry and other trinkets for sale.

We left the ship around 9:00 am to catch our touring van which was to give us an overview of this very hilly and rugged island. One of our first stops was this view of the Equinox, dwarfing the port buildings behind it.

Along the way, we had excellent views of Castries and the tropical foliage of the island's interior.

We stopped at a small village, Anse La Raye, to view an old church and to use the restrooms. The island has very little fresh water; most of the restrooms we used had no water in them at all – very difficult to get accustomed to. The woman in this picture is washing clothes by hand in the tubs near the restrooms, with water coming from large storage tanks on the roof. The island is very poor, with a constant 18% unemployment rate. At all of the stops our van made, vendors were waiting to sell us souvenirs and trinkets.

This is Marigot Bay, a beautiful inlet which we later visited by catamaran near the end of our tour.

We drove through the small town of Soufriere (French for ‘smoking volcano’) and then up to the world’s only walk-in active volcano.

It is a moonscape of ash pits, open craters, steam vents, boiling mud ponds and sulphur springs – very interesting. The volcano has never erupted in recorded history, but it has two beautiful sister mountains nearby, Petit Piton and Gros Piton which are volcanic in origin.

We then drove to the nearby Diamond Botanical Garden, full of tropical trees and plants, many of which are already growing in pots in our house in California – in much smaller sizes.

We then drove back into the town of Soufriere to catch the catamaran for the next leg of our tour. This part of the trip gave us the chance to view St. Lucia from the water.

We stopped at a small cove to swim and snorkel and the ubiquitous vendors appeared – someone must have called them on a cell phone.

We then cruised through Marigot Bay, viewing this beautiful area from a different perspective.

Then back to Castries harbor and our ship.

We sail tonight at 5:00p.m. for Barbados, B.W.I.