Our Grand Adventure

4th November 2025 | Odometer: 268nm | Saint Lucia

We left Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and headed up to Saint Lucia – to a place called Soufriere. The winds were nice and low, a straightforward cruise up the coast and over the passage. It was a lovely day for it and we left Cumberland Bay in a convoy of about eight boats all leaving around the same time. Many sailboats were heading on a North East tack towards Martinique (skipping over Saint Lucia) and others like us were heading directly to Saint Lucia.

We were heading to the Pitons in Saint Lucia; when leaving Saint Vincent you can see them in the distance, two distinct spires rising high above the ocean. The crossing was not long but felt like forever as the two spires felt like they were really close, but were actually very large and much further away so it felt like you were never getting any closer! It was a nice marker to to put your eyes toward throughout the passage and to use as a navigation reference. This was one of our nicest passages so far – even though we went through our first two squalls and we hit one super choppy bit and smashed a glass 🙄

After undertaking our first passage since the Battle of the Bilge – we checked how it had gone…

WOOOHOOOO!!!! A DRY BILGE !!!!

It was Ryan’s birthday so I sang him happy birthday as I confirmed the bilge was dry haha.

Soufriere Town

On arriving at the Pitons, we spent some time gawking at the incredible view, and after a much needed nap took a water taxi into town. Customs and immigration was a little bit of a process – go to building one, immigration, then building two, complete the health check paperwork, then visit the port authority (in the same building) and the customs (also next door). After all four pieces of paperwork is done, drop one copy of the four copies of the third form back to the immigration – which is now closed, so just slide it under the door… haha ok! 

The town itself is quite nice – colourful, well maintained buildings line the main bay and dock area; and the waterfront is filled with bars and restaurants. We wandered through some touristy shops and bought ourselves a Saint Lucia flag as our courtesy flag for the boat. We stopped by for a beer at a bay front restaurant, then summoned the energy to do some groceries at the local supermarket. 

Once we were all sorted – we headed back to the boat with the same water taxi. So this is where it got kinda awkward. I had at multiple points attempted to pay the taxi driver as we would have any other mooring lines / water taxi elsewhere (after he tied us off, after the water taxi to town, etc). Each time I tried he waved us off saying ah later, later, when I drop you back. Ok… then in town, we didn’t really need any help getting around customs and immigration (the signage is pretty clear and we had already read up on the process) but he was very magnanimously showing us around and ushering us along between the offices. We were a bit bemused but not sure how to get him to leave us alone without resorting to being fairly rude… so we had carried on.

On returning to the boat, I again tried to pay him for his efforts over the day, but he started to put the hard sell on, were we going to see the botanic gardens? the drive in volcano? the naturally hot springs / waterfalls? We were both really tired from the passage, and I had wanted to do a few of these things and neither of us had really thought through what we were doing. Without even meaning to, we were suddenly agreeing to being picked up the next day and doing a tour etc and all for one price…. of way too much. 

I’m a little embarrassed writing this haha. I mean no one likes to admit they fell for being totally ripped off right? But it happens to a loooot of people and a lot of tourists. The trap of not being able to just pay for the services rendered… forcing us to have “guide” services without really listening when I tried to fend him off, refusing payment til he could package it all up, preventing us from having an option to take a different water taxi back… etc. So many little tricks. He was a sharky salesman alright. And we got suckered.

Prior to coming to the area, we had been advised by quite a few folks to not go to Soufriere as the area has gained a reputation for boat boardings, thefts and general chicanery. We never know how much stock to put in some of these reputations as the stories we hear from other cruisers seem to proliferate – it happened to a friend of a friend of mine… But never “it happened to me”. The Facebook pages seem to be full of folks but it happened to them a few years ago… Even the cruiser guide is a little different for this area – it’s fine! It declares, immediately followed by – and here is the phone number for the police if you have any problems. Hmm. They don’t give the phone number for the police anywhere else… 

Given this, I think we were both feeling quite nervous about the anchorage; we had been worried about leaving the boat alone and generally were a bit on edge when the various boat vendors approached us. That night we both barely slept. We were both individually stressing about this stupid tour we had agreed to, wondering whether the area as safe and whether leaving the boat all day the next day was a good idea or not…

I woke up super early the next morning only to find Ryan was already awake after having also slept badly. We realised we were both feeling the same level of irritation, regret and quite foolish about the whole thing. I decided, that’s it – we aren’t doing this tour, and we are getting outta here! So I called the water taxi, pulled a sicky, and told him we were leaving in an hour. We would pay him for the water taxi service but had to leave as the anchorage was too rolly and I wasn’t feeling well (a 90% lie haha). To his credit, he showed up, we paid him for the taxi service and he left with a minimum of fuss. 

We motored north to Rodney Bay which has a very long beachfront and a massive lagoon in behind it. The trip was absolutely gorgeous and calm in the lee of the island. We had a bit of a hard time anchoring here – took us three goes, as the bottom looks like sand but has lots of smooth rocky surfaces which the anchor just drags over. Eventually it set in and we were settled. 

The weather forecast looked like we had one more day to make the crossing to Martinique before some big wind and waves would set in. It was either go tomorrow or go in ten days time. We were both tired of worrying about the boat constantly and feeling nervous about leaving it, so we decided to make the passage to Martinique the next day and enjoy some French baguettes there instead of hanging around for another ten days. 

With the decision made, we checked out at immigration at the marina in the lagoon, found a well stocked chandlery and enjoyed pizza and icecreams at sunset. 

Saint Lucia has confused us both a lot in our reflections of it… nothing untoward actually happened so was it really that bad or was it just that we were incepted that it would be bad before we got there? How much of our lack of enjoyment was the result of our preconceived ideas of how bad it would be? Was it actually that dangerous or was it all just exaggeration? Or did we have a healthy awareness of the dangers and risks involved? I genuinely don’t know. Either way, we were off to Martinique in the morning.