A day of many firsts. Not first time in Saint Lucia though. It’s a verdant, beautiful island, well known to many as the honeymoon destination of choice, there are three Sandal’s hotels here!
Ship’s stack is like a four-storey building!
And finally, Cyril? First hair-nets!
The first first is only for me - going bareback, Hubby has done this before.
We start this Sunday with a rainstorm, whilst we’re parked up in Castries’ natural harbour, with a beautiful view from our verandah across to the end of the landing strip. Breakfast isn’t interrupted by this event obviously.
Down onto the dock-side we meet our fellow riders, three ladies from Idaho, and Irvine our guide, a mad young man who never stops talking all day!
We drive across the island to the - rather more grand in name than in reality - International Pony Club, to meet our steeds.
It’s a leisurely walk with our three guides from the stables down to Cas en Bas beach, dismount and disrobe whilst the boys unsaddle our horses.
We see harvesting of the rich seaweed here, one of three different natural ways to cure covid (according to Irvine anyway.) The others? Boiled limes or tea made from a particular mangrove.
Now I’m in new territory - mounting via our young guide Errol’s knee. Only a blanket lessens the blow of landing on the sharply ridged spine of Big Man, and no stirrups available! Hubby is on Lady, we’re ready to get wet.
We’re lead into the sea, which is not a first, but we definitely go deeper than on previous times. It’s quite magical to do this, and Lady and Big Man are clearly enjoying the experience. Errol walks them, perhaps he doesn’t trust us in the water?
Coming out, it’s time for the three ladies to have a go and they all enjoy their experience, borrowing our horses plus another so they all don’t get wet.
As the ladies come in we ask if we can have another go and, delighted to oblige, Errol gets us deep into the bay, this time he’s mounted too, now we’ve gained his trust. This is where “first” number 2 happens - riding a swimming horse - we’re deep and far out so no photos, but we, and Lady and Big Man, are properly swimming in the sea. It’s a surreal experience and one for the memory banks.
Back on the beach we chill for a while, drinking, chatting and slowly drying out. It’s soon time to dress again and return to the ranch, but not before looking at the local curio - part of a rocket stage that landed right here.
On our return we ask to be dropped a place we know so that we can walk back, but the tour company isn’t happy with this. Firstly they say we can’t possibly walk that far (obvs don’t know us!) and then they say it’s too dangerous.
Sure it’s a poor country (30% the GDP per cap of yesterday) but we are perfectly capable of looking after ourselves. It’s what we do all the time.
However knowing we can’t argue with rules and regulations we stay on the minibus back to the ship, then head off on our own back into town independently.
It’s fair to say there’s not a lot going for Castries, and what is we’ve done before, so after an hour we feel it’s time to head back home to our ship.
There’s some work to be done, and then it’s sailaway which is very agreeable leaving the natural harbour. Next we sail South down to Soufriere Bay and the Pitons. The Pitons are the jewel in the crown of Saint Lucia, two beautiful and perfectly shaped mountains that run down to the sea at the small town of Soufriere, it’s another first for us. We sail slowly into the bay, then turn “on a sixpence” to head out into the setting sun, the almost full moon doing the exactly opposing movement behind us.
It takes two rounds of mango daiquiris to keep us going that long, once we’re done we head back down to our cabin to eagerly await the delivery of canapés for this evening. We finish off a bottle from yesterday with these before dressing for dinner.
The ship’s company show is cancelled for this evening so we take a walk around deck three, then head upstairs seven floors to arrive early at Tamarind, HAL’s Asian fusion restaurant.
Dinner here is always a joy, and it’s been seven years since we were last on a HAL ship big enough to have one of them. We share a satay selection and tempura prawns then Panang red chicken curry and Mongolian barbecue lamb and finish with passion fruit cloud and deconstructed Yuzu cheesecake. Yum!
As Tamarind is ‘up top’ on deck ten, we take our post prandial promenade above the lido, which is screening NFL.
Ship’s stack is like a four-storey building!
And finally, Cyril? First hair-nets!
Comments
Post a Comment