Detour: seriously, don't even consider driving this road...

I started my morning with fresh squeezed grapefruit juice from the grapefruits Diane gave us yesterday - really tasty! We ate our breakfast on the deck, then went back to the police station to take care of the local license so we could "legally" drive in St. Lucia. The officer told us to go to the next building down and they would take care of it. So we parked in front of a large shopping mall and went to the Transport Board on the second floor. They took a quick glance at Gavin's driver's license, then gave us a form to take to yet ANOTHER building to pay the fee, then we had to come BACK to the Transport Board to get the actual license! What a pain!

After all the messing with the license we headed to the north side of the island. We aimed for Castries, which is "cruise ship central" on the island. On the way, we noticed a sign diverting us from the road; it looked like part of the road was a little washed out.

A little cement missing. Doesn't look too bad...

A little washed out: understatement of the year:

The detour took us around beside the washed out portion - not only the cement, but the dirt a good 20 feet below it got washed out!!!

 

Castries was packed with people, both tourists and locals. Driving through the city, it didn't really look all that interesting - lots of cruise ship-oriented stores, a casino, malls, etc. The central market looked like it could be fun, but there was literally no place we could find to park, so we continued through the city north to Rodney Bay, the main tourist beachy area of St. Lucia.

We had lunch at a Spinnakers, a decent beach restaurant with some of the slowest service we have ever had! (any time we get slow service in the Caribbean we say they are on "island time." :) ) Gavin had a Caribbean "pepper pot" which was good, but not peppery at all (they probably tone it down a lot for the tourists) and I had some pretty good mahi mahi.

Rodney Bay.

 

Gavin enjoys a Piton at Spinnakers.

Tourist lazing-around grounds.

Rodney Bay was your typical tourist beach - umbrellas and chairs for rent, locals wandering through the chairs selling everything from fruit to drinks to crafts, lots of pasty white tourists lounging around. :) The sand was lovely and soft. We didn't swim, as I had forgotten my swimwear - shame on me! The most exciting thing we saw on the beach was a motorboat pulling a family along in what looked like a giant inflatable sofa.

After Rodney Bay, we continued north to Pigeon Island National Park. Pigeon Island isn't actually an island anymore, it is a penninsula jutting out from the north end of Rodney Bay. It has the ruins of an old fort, cannons, army barracks, etc. I tricked Gavin into climbing Signal Hill (after he insisted he wasn't going to climb it. :) ), and we got an amazing view of the bay and the ocean!

Panorama of the view from Signal Hill.

 

Ruins of army barracks on Pigeon Island.

An interesting tree on Pigeon Island.

Rodney Bay viewed from above.

Gavin at the top of Signal Hill.

View of St. Lucia from the top of Signal Hill.

 

On the way down from Signal Hill.

After climbing back down Signal Hill, we headed back through Castries and headed back to Vieux Fort for the night. I got my first chance to drive in St. Lucia - driving is on the left here, and the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. Gavin was hanging tightly to the "Oh shit!" bar and giving a lot of "advice" for the first several minutes, but once we got comfortably on the highway, he fell asleep. :)

Back in Vieux Fort we returned to the Island Breeze restaurant on Sandy Beach for dinner. They were STILL out of shrimp, but I got to have fish tonight. Our kitty friend from last night curled up on the chair next to Gavin and snoozed there for probably a half hour. After dinner we headed back to the villa, exhausted from all the driving, and slept with the island breezes drifting in through our window.

 

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