St. Lucia 2021 - Day 6: Micoud, Hewanorra

As had become customary, we started our morning with knockoff Rice Krispies, scrambled eggs, fruit, and yogurt. We also called the owner/manager/contact to ask them if they wanted to get paid before we left. The owner of the place showed up with a laptop and a credit card terminal, so we settled up before checking out.

It turned out that he was friends with the boat captain we spent half the day with, yesterday; it's a small town, after all. We gave him some money to give to his boat-friend (it's a long story... we realized afterwards that we had barely tipped the crew, due to the chaos of visiting two different ATMs, some confusion about currency exchange rate, possible mis-hearing on my part, etc.)

JetBlue informed us that our flight would be delayed an hour, meaning that the incoming flight was already delayed (probably due to weather?), so we were in no real rush as we had no specific plans.

I had initially thought about going the long way around from Soufrière back to the airport, stopping along the way wherever was suitable, but that would have involved an hour-long drive back north, first, on crazy mountain roads. Instead, we opted to just head towards Vieux Fort along the southern route, and then continue northwards along the east coast, as time permitted.

It was around 11:15 by the time we packed up, cleaned up, checked out, etc. Downtown Soufrière was crowded on our way out, but luckily it's only about 3 or 4 blocks across.

It was a beautiful day for a scenic drive along the meandering road, and we had time to enjoy it in this direction (that we didn't have, going the other way, last week).

I couldn't help stopping to see this lonely cow, presumably tied up on the side of the road in a fresh grazing spot. Suddenly the "no grazing of animals" signs that we had seen elsewhere made more sense.

This was somewhere between Ladera/Chocolat and Fond Doux. Sabrina was fine with the visit until I rolled down the window.

Half a mile or so down the road, there was some more livestock grazing on the shoulder. This donkey didn't seem thrilled with his predicament.

A few of the switchbacks had lovely views up the coastline, but there weren't any good spots to stop and admire the sights.

A few times, I actually got annoyed at the traffic. We were so used to having basically nobody else on the roads that it seemed ridiculous to have to wait at a narrow bridge.

It took about an hour to get back to the airport area, giving us at least another hour to wander around,  before returning the rental car and such.

As we passed the airport and turned towards the Micoud Highway, there was what appeared to be an olympic stadium on the left. I pulled in to check it out, but that just yielded more questions than answers. It appeared to be in rough shape, but had also been partially repurposed as a medical facility, judging from the ambulance and people in scrubs.

The story of George Odlum Stadium is an odd one, it turns out.

The Micoud Highway felt new and luxurious, compared with the roads on the west and southern coasts. I understand now why most people go up to Castries via this route, instead of the way we went.

We drove about 7 or 8 miles up the east coast, looking for a place to stop for a snack with a view. Sabrina was trying to navigate based on my vague suggestion to "find a scenic point we can drive out to"; we originally aimed for Vierge Point in the Miccoud (town) area, but couldn't quite find it (compare the map and satellite views on Google Maps) and it looked a little sketchy as we drove around for a bit.

Instead, we aimed for the next point in the (unnamed, as far as I can tell) bay on the north side of Vierge Point, drove out to the end of the road and hoped there would be a place to stop.

The road ended, and turned into a dirt track for a few hundred yards, which led to this perfect little spot on a cliff.

The wind was strong and consistent, as suggested by the non-vertical grown patterns of the trees out there.

We had a fantastic view of the peninsulas to the north and south, and spent about half an hour enjoying the beautiful day.

I sort of felt like I was shooting an ad for the Suzuki Jimny, which I would absolutely endorse if anyone is offering, btw.

Even with the ocean breeze straight off the open Atlantic, the sun was brutally hot. Luckily, there was a rock in the only bit of shade on the outcropping, where I could sit and enjoy the last of our cheese and crackers.

I would seriously consider buying one of these, if they were available in the US. I just checked eBay, and there's only one listed. 1988 model year, in Houston.

In the distance, the village of Micoud was visible, perched on the edge of the bay. I don't know anything about it; the entirety of the wikipedia article is only three sentences.

The wind was constant and strong enough that the birds in the distance were just hovering, completely stationary, like organic drones.  (Zoom in, they're there.)

After maybe half an hour, we ended the snack-picnic and slowly coaxed the Suzuki back up the dirt track.

Apart from this one section of the highway that needed some maintenance, it was a smooth ride back to the airport.

We returned the rental car about two hours before our (delayed) flight was scheduled to board, figuring it might be crowded since it seems like they inexplicably schedule all of the day's departing flights at the same time.

Because our flight was delayed and the other three of four nearly-simultaneous departures were not, the cramped airport cleared out suddenly, and we had time (and space) for a light lunch.

Hewanorra Airport is about the size of a car dealership, with the second floor looking out upon the single runway and all 8 gates.

As with other tiny airports in places that don't have winter, boarding is done outside on the tarmac.

The best part about this is that they can load the plane from both the front and rear doors, simultaneously.

Our flight home was wonderfully uneventful. By the time we cleared immigration and customs, made it to the car, and drove home from Newark, it was after 11 PM.

This was maybe the second or third time I'd gone from driving on the left to driving on the right, in the same day, and it has required a fair bit of concentration each time. Normally, we try to switch drivers to avoid that, but it's not so bad once you make it to the highway.

St. Lucia 2021 - Day 5: Ocean Day

We slept in today, as it was raining again this morning, and then had breakfast at the condo. After breakfast, we starting to flesh out the plan for today.

As I mentioned yesterday, the paperwork at the condo (wifi password, contact info for problems, etc.) also included a phone number for some local doctor, regarding COVID testing (and the phone number for the Soufrière Hospital).

This morning, Sabrina called the doctor's number. From the half of the conversation that I heard, he sounded confused about why we were calling him. The only answer we got was "okay, I'll call you back at some point today." (Spoiler: he did not, as far as we're aware.)

Not wanting to pin our chances of flying home on that promise, we opted for the more pedestrian route of trying our luck at the local the hospital, which was just at the bottom of the hill and over the bridge into town.

We docked the rental in the car park just after 11 AM, and joined a small crowd of people waiting under a tent outside of the "Respiratory Clinic" door. I made a vague "Is this for COVID testing? How does this work?" inquiry to anyone who would listen, and got an affirmative from someone, followed by a "no, you need to go to the front entrance and register" from someone else. Someone else told us to go upstairs, but it turned out he thought we were looking for the Pfizer vaccine. Eventually, a helpful resident pointed us in the right direction, after we had been standing around for a few minutes, looking confused.

Over at the front entrance, we passed a non-contact temperature check, gave our information (offering our PA driver's licenses instead of passports, which was somehow fine...), got some paperwork about the rapid/antigen test, and moved along to the next step: the cashier.

When we had called the hospital, this morning, they quoted us $95 each for the rapid test. This seemed steep, but we were prepared to pay it as a necessary part of pandemic travel expenses. We were happy to learn, from The Cashier, that this was $95 EC, not US dollars, meaning it was about $36 each. We were less happy to learn that they only took cash; thankfully we had (barely) enough to cover it, and they accepted US currency.

With receipts in hand, we went back around the side of the building to the waiting tent for the testing clinic. There were now about 5 people ahead of us, and only one nurse working. By the time we both got our sinuses swabbed, and waited for the rapid test results, it was about 1:10 PM. The only remaining step was to take our results back to the cashier for an official stamp of authenticity.

The cashier is closed for lunch, from 12:30 to 1:30 PM. We retreated to the car, had some snacks, applied copious amounts of sunscreen, and called back a charter boat company to confirm a 2 PM appointment. 

Thankfully, lunch ended early today and we were able to get our stamps of approval. 

The charter boat dock was literally two blocks from the hospital (it's not a big town), so we had no problem finding it. Parking the rental car was tricky, but just about any flat spot that doesn't obstruct the road too much is a valid option here.

It was slightly overcast as we left Soufrière, and we expected rain at some point.

The first stop on the tour was this giant rift in the cliff face, which is known as "the bat cave"... because it's full of bats. We couldn't quite see them, but we could definitely hear them.

One of my hobbies it taking pictures of people taking pictures, so I got this picture (2nd) of Sabrina taking this picture (1st).

The bat cave was just a brief diversion, really. The first part of the tour was a brisk drive around Petit Piton, over to Sugar Beach.

Once we reached Sugar Beach (or Pitons Bay, I guess), the captain brought us over to the roped-off Anse Piton Marine Reserve for some snorkeling.

Snorkeling in the US, in my experience: Sign this waiver, here's your life jacket, make sure your fins are the right size, let's tighen that mask a bit, now watch this demo, etc.

Snorkeling today: "Do you want to go snorkeling? Okay, here's a mask and snorkel. Jump off the boat on that side. We'll pick you up when you get to the end of the reef."

The coral wasn't looking very healthy, same as everywhere else on the planet. But there were plenty of fish.

As we've seen in a few other places, it seems that people probably feed the fish, because we attracted quite a following shortly after jumping in.

It was a bit deep where they dropped us off. Or, as Sabrina put it, "luckily we've done this before".

The most unusual thing we saw was a school of Caribbean reef squid. I thought they were cuttlefish, at first, and apparently this is a common case of mistaken identity.

I followed them around for awhile; they didn't seem to mind, once they determined we were not predators.

Once we reached the end of the protected area, we got back on the boat and sped off, to the north.

We passed Anse Chastanet Beach, where he had dinner last night. Just north of that, we saw Anse Mamin Beach, which was the secluded beach past the pier with the helicopter pad (that we didn't get to see last night).

Similarly, we saw the village of Canaries from the water; we had driven through it on Saturday.

Next, we stopped at Anse Cochon Beach ("Bay of Pigs beach"); here, the captain points out Ti Kaye, which is another exorbitantly-priced resort perched on the cliffs.

This time, we jumped into the water out near the deep part of the reef, and were told to go towards the beach, where we'd get picked up eventually.

Once again, there were several schools of reef squid.

I was determined to get some closer pictures, this time.

There were also several very large schools of smaller fish. They parted like a curtain as I swam through them.

The only corals that appeared healthy to my untrained eye were these yellow specimens, which were plentiful.

As we got nearer to the beach, there were swarms of smaller fish.

Despite the forecast (which is remarkably useless) suggesting rain all day, it had so far been quite lovely weather. As we floated around near the beach at Anse Cochon, though, the wind picked up a few clouds rolled into view, mostly to the south.

Where we were, however, the sun was still shining brightly. I swam out to the boat and exchanged our snorkel gear for sunglasses, helpfully fetched from my bag by the crew.

Sabrina got to use my spare glasses. I told her they looked great.

Once we were out of the water, the clouds thickened and the wind made us cold, despite it being somewhere around 80 degrees out. Seeing that we had established a beachhead, our chartered vessel came and retrieved us.

A few more minutes of speedboat-racing up the coast, and we entered Marigot Bay. This was the last place we stopped on our road trip, Saturday. It was much nicer to see it from the water, since there aren't really any roads around it due to the steep terrain.

We docked where the ferry lands, on the north side of the bay, and relaxed at the small beach just around the corner.

The entire bay and surrounding docks, restaurants, etc., appeared mostly deserted, as we had seen previously. It was simultaneously quite peaceful and somewhat strange to be the only tourists in sight.

The wind whipped at our backs as we watched the sun dive towards the ocean.

Out of curiosity, I decided to look for the rain that had missed us all day. Suddenly, it didn't seem like such a great idea to be about 10 miles from temporary-home, via boat.

Nobody else seemed concerned, though, so we lounged the rest of our time away, until the sun was just above the horizon.

The sun sets early, here, around 6:15 PM.

Around 5:30 PM, we re-embarked on the Sugar Bambino and raced the weather to Soufrière.

The closer we got, the more ominous the sky looked. Just as we pulled into Soufrière Bay, it started to drizzle.

We docked and returned to shore, then completed the surprisingly difficult process of paying the crew; they hadn't brought the credit card payment terminal, but thankfully there were two ATMs within a block of the dock (the first one had too low of a limit, in ECD).

It was around 6 PM when we got back to the car, which gave us just enough time to drive back to the house, shower, change, and make it to our 7 PM dinner reservation at the Bamboo Restaurant. (We decided to give them another chance, as the curfew is much later today.)

I had pork chops, while Sabrina got the fish. Her meal had a head and tail still attached. But they were both quite good.

As was becoming customary, we drove home in the rain and dark, after dinner.

Tomorrow. we'll have a leisurely breakfast before checking out and slowly making our way back to the airport.  If we have time, I'd like to drive part of the way up the east coast, to see what it looks like on that side of the island.

Our flight leaves just before 3 PM. If all goes to plan, we should be home home by 10 PM.