Tuesday night and Morphie is looking sparkling and clean – at least on the outside!!! We go out for sundowners expecting to come back on board for dinner, but the heavens opened and we had no jackets or brollies. So we ran to the nearest restaurant – a Thai – and had dinner out instead. By bed time it was still raining so we got soaked making our way back on board.
Wednesday….heavens opened again…..and we carry on doing boat jobs down below like the internal stainless steel and scrubbing the heads….. So now Morphie is sparkling clean inside as well…. During the afternoon the weather cleared up – hurrah – and we went ashore for happy hour. We’ve found a waterside bar doing a promotion of a bucket of five beers for £5, happy days…. But again, we end up being stranded in the rain but this time we just legged it, got back soaked, and had a quiet night aboard. But whilst sitting it out we were entertained by the lady carrying her little dog in a bag looking like Dougall from Magic Roundabout!
Thursday and it was raining again. Oh dear, mum flies in today for 10 days holiday, so hope the sun comes out before she lands…. After a morning of boat jobs, getting some laundry done, we head off round to her hotel and await her arrival. Feel quite choked up and emotional. Stupid girl! Anyway, she finally arrives around 4pm, I get her checked in and quickly unpacked and settled – lovely huge room with a great view over the pool and the sea beyond. Quite jealous of the air conditioning and a king-size bed that doesn’t move! Down to the beach bar to meet up with Richard and we have a really nice happy hour reunion sipping champagne before we leave her to catch up on her sleep….
Friday morning we head over to her hotel and it’s still a bit miserable – so have coffee in the lounge debating what to do. Then, luckily, the sun came out so we had a lazy pool day. Mum and I particularly enjoyed the very hot Jacuzzi…. We left her to it around 4pm and went back to Morphie to get washed and brushed up for a night out. We all decided that we didn’t want dinner as we had had a very late lunch in her hotel earlier around the pool – so went on a bit of a pub crawl down the Rodney Bay strip behind the Reduit Beach hotels. We ended the evening in a bar called Rehab which was local and rustic. Mum thought the sight of people using Segways as their transport pretty funny! After a really chilled evening, we made sure Mum was tucked up safely back at her hotel and returned back to the marina and Morphie.
During the night the heavens opened again….and our idea of a beach day on Saturday really wasn’t going to work. We know that we will just end up sitting around playing cards or something so we decided to hire a car for a couple of days rather than the original plan of taking tours with guides. So went and picked mum up from her hotel in our little car. As well as rain it is very humid and not quite what we had in mind when we planned for mum to visit in the DRY season! Oh well, what can you do, apart from have a good time? We were surprised at the industrial side of Castries, amazed at the lush rainforest interior, and many many banana plantations. During the day we went to Marigot Bay for lunch – a pretty anchorage with a swanky resort and a mangrove swamp making it a good hurricane hole.
Driving down the west Caribbean coast we navigated through Soufriere and had our first views of the Pitons. In the poor weather conditions hanging over the mountains they looked real sinister! And the wind and rain was coming down virtually horizontal so we could see the palm trees bending and hanging onto the side of mountains for dear life! 
Driving around these crazy roads – not all of them in good condition – up and down and around and through small villages with loads of dogs barking at us, cows tethered and the occasional goat. Loads of Seventh Day Adventist churches too with very loud sermons being heard along the way…. Along with the strange sight of a naked man just standing there with his arms open to the heavens and enjoying the rain… Not quite what I expected to see but hey, everyone to their own!
Going round the bottom of the island we reached the Atlantic sea on the east coast and it was rough, with loads of reefs and rollers coming in….. This was a very different landscape and almost scrubland – but faster roads, so made it back to the marina at a reasonable hour. Introduced Morphie to mum for the very first time…with mum really amused by the visiting fruit and veg man! Anyway, we had sundowners on board before heading off into the marina for dinner and some live jazz music. Nice evening had by all….
Sunday morning we have the car for another day and this time are planning to hit some of the tourist hot spots. The day started encouragingly with even a bit of blue in the sky – hurrah! However, it was short lived, and by the time we got to our first stop at the botanical gardens we were getting wet again – although this time we were prepared with an umbrella and jackets! Had a great walk through the gardens marvelling at some of the beautiful flowers and enjoyed the trail. At the end of the trail was the Diamond waterfall which does not allow bathing as it has large mineral / metal deposits within the water. Not hugely impressive but worth seeing. After this we went to the public baths which are fed by the naturally hot spring water – and are supposed to have youthful properties. Well we bathed for a while in this beautiful hot natural water and we are all 10 years younger now!
Leaving the botanical gardens behind we drove through Soufriere towards the drive-in volcano and went up to the information centre and watched a short film about how the sulphur springs and hot geysers were formed. Really interesting…then we walked around the crater and took in the amazing sight. Hard to believe you are in the middle of a volcanic crater. Then it was onto the high light of the trip – playing around in the hot mud pools. As you can see we had a bit of a laugh here and, yes, Richard did eventually wash his face! Oh yes, and you might want to know, that the temperature in this pool was really really hot….like a bath. We haven’t felt this clean since we left home in November!!!
We then went to the swanky Ladeera resort and had lunch with an amazing backdrop of the most spectacular view of the Pitons and the anchorage below. Amazing buffet and even better deserts and we all left here completely full… Back to mum’s hotel and we had sundowners – in the rain – at the beach bar before leaving her to an early night and back on board ourselves for an early night pretty shattered.
Monday morning we woke up and – hurrah, at last!!!! – the sun is out… So we quickly dinked round to mum’s beach having a quick look at the fishing boats in Gros Islet in the channel and then spent the day by the pool and bobbing on the beach. Last night we went out for a curry. Perfect end to a perfect day. Fingers crossed that this weather continues for the rest of her trip.
Bye for now.