First let me start this entry by saying that the title refers to a saying our tour guide used continually throughout the snorkelling trip we went on. It seemed to become the catch phrase for the day.

St . Lucia is part of the Lesser Antilles and lies between the Caribbean islands of St. Vincent and Martinique. It is believed the island was first settled in 200-400 BC by Arawak Indians, then the Caribs came along between 800 and 1000 AD. There a conflicting accounts as to who and when the island was discovered by Europeans – some believe it was Columbus in 1502, some believe it was his navigator (Juan de la Cosa) in 1499.

The first European to establish a settlement was a notorious buccaneer, Francois le Clerc in the 1550s. He used St. Lucia as the base for his attacks on Spanish galleons sailing through the Caribbean. St. Lucia became an independent nation within the British Commonwealth in 1979.

The island boasts many natural wonders, from a drive in volcano where the road runs right up to and through the crater, to a waterfall that due to the minerals within the rock, has a face that appears to regularly change colours as the water cascades over the side .

The Pitons, a UNESCO World Heritage Site are also located at the southern end of the island. They seem to rise straight out of the blue waters. Made from hardened lava, each peak is over 2000 feet tall. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to see them up close, but they still looked pretty good.

The beach at Marigot Bay was also the site for the filming of the scenes in the 1967 film Dr. Doolittle where the harness for the Great Lunar moth was being made, the shipwreck and the appearance of the Giant Pink Sea Snail.

For our day’s activity, we opted to do a snorkelling tour that took us an area in the vicinity of Anse la Raye on the eat coast of the island. This involved a hour long boat ride, which due to how slowly the boat seemed to be moving, felt like it took forever.

We snorkelled in a small cove that was part of the island’s marine park. After showing the tour guide that we had our snorkelling vests on (it was mandatory to wear one, it just didn’t have to be inflated), we hopped into the water. We had about 45 minutes to have a look at the fish and what coral there was. There was quite a lot of small fish swimming around but nothing bigger than your hand.

Overall the snorkelling, while not brilliant, was not horrible. What was disappointing was that as soon as we all started getting out of the water, several men in canoes paddled out and started selling their wares to people on the boat . The guy selling the illegal looking shells, was a little aggressive and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Thankfully we didn’t hang around for too long. I’m all for people having a chance to go and buy some souvenirs and for people to make a living selling them, but doing it off the back of the boat, where you can’t walk away isn’t pleasant.

As we were getting ready to leave, I noticed some fishermen pulling in some nets that they had placed just outside the marine park zone. Not sure if they actually caught anything, who knows our snorkelling may have flush some fish into their nets.

The ride back to the mother ship was interesting. Since the snorkelling part of the trip was over, the tour guide broke out the rum punch. My main observation on the ride back was that this batch seemed to be on the strong side and yet tasted nice. This meant several people went back for multiple cups, and this in turn lead to the ride back taking on a bit of a party spirit – there was some singing along to the radio and dancing of course .

After dropping our gear off on the ship, we caught a taxi into the centre town and found a bar with a food window. It was here that we bought our lunch consisting of a meat portion (I had fried chicken, Mum had pork), a coleslaw like salad, some rice, a green banana salad and some baked plantain. While simple, it was all very tasty and filling.

After wandering through the market, the fruit stalls and some of the side streets, we found ourselves in a central square near to where the court is. We wandered around for a while longer and then caught a water taxi back to the area where the ship was docked.

As it was very warm and we still had quite a bit of time before we had to be back on board, we decided to have a drink at a nearby bar where some other passengers were also hanging out. Once again the rum punch came out and several people had a couple of cups.

As the time to board the ship grew closer, we headed back to the gangway – some of the group we were with were easier to herd back than others. With three minutes to spare, we were all back on board and we weren’t even the last ones, there were still two people behind us.

Since it had been a big day, it was dinner in the buffet and for those passengers who had drunk a little too much rum punch, an early night. Thankfully tomorrow is a sea day so they will all have enough time to recover before our next port.

Fun fact:
The Jacquot or the St. Lucia Parrot, is a bird native to only the island. It is also the national bird of St. Lucia.