Thursday, February 17, 2022

St Lucia, we have been here before

The day started out with us having an early  breakfast on the balcony of the  La Terraza restaurant  before Jennifer left on her 5 hour tour, nori of that later.

For Noel his knee was playing up and he did  not fancy five hours touring although previously booked and so it was a long morning to himself. So most of the time was spent on the suite balcony listening to music  and generally passing the time of day. After a relaxing morning Noel went for lunch at the buffet which at that time was remarkable quiet. St Lucia like many other Islands have very strict policies about leaving the ship and walking around the town, in fact it was not possible. Within the port area are a number of tourist shops which we saw when we visited those years ago whilst on a Holland America Cruise I think. So it was not worth going thro the hassle of getting of the ship and so hence a quiet morning.

Jennifer's tour was in a eight seater minibus and the first stop was ‘Look Out’ over  the sea and port and there were a number of shops where Jennifer bought some really excellent Banana bread . Of course the drive to this look out took in the main town where there were rather nasty traffic jams and so it was taking some time to get anywhere. Anyway after the look out they moved on to a small fishing town with lots of colourful fishing boats and the school kids were all out waving flags for an event that was taking place. All of the houses were also very brightly painted in all sorts of colours and from a distance they looked really lovely except when you get closer that a lick of paint is required. Then back up in to the hills surrounding for a further view of the Pitons ( two large mammary shaped mountains) which are quite famous. In fact this is an area where some of the nicer Hotels are located.

For lunch they stopped in a small small village restaurant where they were served finger food consisting of fried chicken, local dumpling and banana crisps. where were Ok and finally to finish with Coconut cake. Following lunch the tour continued to visit the Botanical Garden where they spent almost 45 minutes looking at all the different trees and shrubs many of which are house plants in UK. And then on to a large waterfall which changes colour based on the the minerals being exposed and was about 50 feet high, nothing like the waterfalls in New Zealand…



After the last visit they departed to return to the ship over the bumpy potholed roads and down thro the rain forest and finally reaching the port and boarding the ship and needing a nice rest.

After a quiet afternoon we showered and then got ready to have dinner in the Japanese Fusion restaurant, so it was sort of Japanese food but not entirely so hence the introduction of the word fusion which covers all ills. However the food was very nice and we both had the spider crab wrapped in small pancakes, Jennifer then had the Yakitori chicken and Noel the crab balls and both finishing off with the ‘surf and turf’ of Wagyu beef and small lobster tail. The dinner was nice and light and accompanied by the odd glass of Californian Chardonnay. I forgot to mention that were were offered a very interesting pre-dinner drink based aroid Japanese Saki , Noel would  not try his just in case and so Jennifer helped out.

Following dinner at at around nine fifteen we decided to go back to the cabin and watch some Tv for a while before testing out the bed