Day 10 – Today our plans don’t involve a rental car and getting lost, so we’re already starting out in the right direction. The day started early, at about 5:30am to be precise, when we woke up to see St. Lucia’s famous Pitons off our balcony. These are two, 2,000 foot peaks that jet almost straight up from the ocean. It was pretty cloudy, but you could see on of the peaks tops. Already, St. Lucia was giving us more than Barbados did.
When we left the ship we went looking for a taxi, and found the people at the harbor to be very friendly. We also found another couple from the ship that was going to the same place we were going – Rodney Bay. The ride took about 20 minutes and the island is beautiful…. Hilly and incredibly lush. And the best news was that the day started to get sunny – mostly sunny in fact. By far and away, our best weather day of the entire vacation. Finally!!!
When we arrived at Rodney Bay, we were actually able to go to a hotel, the Rex St. Lucian, and use the beach and other facilities there. We did have to pay $20 for two lounge chairs and an umbrella, but that was well worth it. And that was about it – the rest of the day – about 5 hours or so – was spent on that beach.
We swam, took pictures, read, talked with other shipmates we saw at the beach, and like on Mexican beaches, there were plenty of vendors. But they were for the most party very friendly and sported dreadlocks.
And the beach at Rodney Bay was beautiful – truly one of the most scenic beaches I’ve ever enjoyed. To me, it was the perfect Caribbean day. For lunch, we gathered up our valuable and walked down the street looking for some local restaurants, but none of them were open at the time, which was about Noon. Fortunately, back at the hotel there was a beautiful restaurant right on the beach. It was a buffet and fairly pricey and we wanted to avoid “hotel” food, but it turned out being delicious…. Jamaican jerk chicken, St. Lucian curried fish, rice, green fig potato salad and other stuff. We asked for some hot sauce and they brought us this great Barron’s Hot Sauce, which we bought a bottle of to take home. Turned out to be almost perfect as well.
And since a person can only take so much perfection, it was time to think about heading back.
We got a ride by being offered to squeeze in with an African Family of about 10 from St. Louis and Chicago. The ride home in their shuttle bus was fun. Back at the dock we did some shopping (I bought a cap) and then spent the later part of the afternoon in the Solarium –reading and drinking another couple of Goombai Smashes.
Right before dinner, around 6:30, we went to the top deck and watched our first sunset of the entire trip. Hard to believe the clouds have prevented us from having a sunset for all these days, so it was really nice to finally get to enjoy a beautiful Caribbean sunset.
We had dinner again next to our Aussie friends – Eric and Mary – really nice down-under folks. And by the way, the food at dinner has been really good. Breakfasts and lunches have been okay – but dinners are first rate.
We then slowly made our way back to our room, watched a movie and fell asleep. Best day of the cruise so far!
