honeymoon in st. lucia
here was the view coming in……in the far left of the frame are the two pitons (which are a Unesco World Heritage Site). our villa was around the north end of the second (petit) piton.
oh, and i’m assuming everybody knows, you can click on a picture and it will enlarge to full screen
here we are on the drive in. our driver alba had just finished dropping off some food for his roosters with his son. apparently there was a big cock fight coming up that weekend and he wanted to make sure “little jerry seinfeld” had his strenght up.
we got in not too long before sunset, so lillis just settled in and made herself comfortable in the hammock until we headed over to dinner
this was the view from our bed
dinners at the restaurant were beautiful, peaceful and romantic. one amazing quality of the st lucians that is certainly worth noting is how amazingly courteous and punctual they were. drivers were on time. at the restaurant, the kept your glasses filled, dinner came right after the appetizer and they brought the check promptly. and the front desk took care of anythig we needed and even billed us centrally, so we never had to pay for a cab or a cruise or anything until checkout. it was wonderful….anyway, this was the restaurant.
we ate most of our meals as an almost all inclusive there at the resort. they had a beautiful little restaurant that served fabulous food. lillis liked that the birds would come and visit her. she called them “friendly birds” where friendly is used as a name and not as an adjective….so, more like “bengal tiger” than “scarey tiger”. it was cute. mostly, they were friendly b/c they liked to eat the sugar off your table. if you didn’t have sugar sitting out, they were barely even courteous birds.
that night we went on a sunset cruise. it was pretty awesome. we sailed along for a couple of hours, had some champagne and watched dolphins who took a break from their feeding to chase us.
a full sail of wind heading northward.
nothing like watching the sunset as your boat slides through the water.
the dolphin were literally swimming on all sides of the boat and on several instance leaping 3 or 4 feet into the air. i shot this guy as he was landing from a leap about 15 feet off the bow of our boat (shot with a camera, not a gun).
my feet were the first thing to make it back to land
the next day we got up and i took a few pictures from our balcony while lillis lazed around.
then we headed off to climb the piton. normally, it’s a reasonably difficult hike, but when your guide is in a hurry and you do a 2+ hour hike in 1 1/2 hours, it’s a freakin killer. luckily it rained on us the entire second half of the climb up, so we could see almost nothing at the top. i suppose that’s the worst thing that happened to us the entire trip though, so all in all, i’d say we did pretty well. here was the view from the top. lillis was chilly so we swaddled her with a beach towel. martinique is not seen, hidden by the clouds behind us.
on the way down it had started to clear up though…this is halfway back down gros piton.
as we were walking back to the base i shot this scarey looking black and white shot of the mountain we’d just climbed.
i also took a picture of this not so scarey flower we walked past.
i had the driver pull over (at what turned out to be his on place) to take picture of this several hundred year old remnant from a sugar mill.
on the way back, we got the driver to just drop us back off at jalousie. we chilled on our platform for a little bit (after the pretenders to lillis’ throne had vacated) and then i went for a little more snorkeling after getting a shot of the beach for posterity.
it didn’t take this guy long to tire of me following him.
and then sun set on lillis’ platform and we headed back home,
where we had our romantic in-room dinner (part of our package with stonefield). it was a phenomenal meal and we also drank our complimentary champagne.
the next day we were up and off to see the volcano, the sulphur springs and the diamond waterfall (which sparkles and is multi-colored from all of the minerals – many volcanic – that flow over the walls).
here is the volcano. churning out a pretty good bit of sulfur, it had quite the smell, but it DID work WONDERS on our sinuses.
then we walked over to the sulfur springs (which were hot as all get out) and took a little mudbath. i always wondered what lillis would look like in “white face.”
and then on to the diamond waterfall.
we smelled pretty ripe from the sulfur so we went back to jalousie for a swim. and for diving practice.
lillis had the opportunity to do her headstand (which she insists is going to be a tradition that will persist).
then we got a group portrait
before going for some more snorkeling. the water was 81 degrees, so i stayed in for about an hour or more…..lillis got cold after about 30 or 40 minutes and headed back up to sun herself on a rock.
we attempted 5 shots of the two of us in front of that giant spongey looking thing. this is the only one where it didn’t look like i was about to kill her, and even still i think my hand looks menacing.
as i mentioned, in general, lillis did not take too kindly to people on her platform, but she did like josh and emily (honeymooners from columbus) who we met on said platform. they were a great couple who had met at their 5 year college reunion. this is a picture of them playing chess in front of the sunset as seen from ladera (a resort in between the two pitons) overlooking jalousie beach.
the next morning we got up and headed over to anse chastenet which we were told had fabulous scuba diving. it didn’t dissapoint. what DID dissapoint is that i got INSANELY claustrophobic when we went for my check out dive (i’m certifiable, but not certified). we were in 5 feet of water and i was STUGGLING!!! i had to pop my head out of the water twice and felt short of breath. had i not known how important it was to lil, i totally would have bailed, but that, plus the fact that i knew i had been able to go under in costa rica pushed me on.
ultimately, lil was right and once we got moving i was fine. i will say that on the first dive i used 50% more oxygen than she did, but by the later dive i was only 20% less efficient than her, so that’s a victory.
right after we got going we ran across this moose that someone had buried at the bottom of the ocean. poor moose.
this was a moray eel that i got a little too close too (i wasn’t the best at maintaing neutral bouyancy).
for part of the dive we were cruising along a wall that dropped to well in excess of 120 feet. i stayed at 45 feet or so, not wanting to have my lungs explode if i freaked out.
some of the colorful coral
here’s the diving video from the weekend. it really was pretty neat to see the reef and all the sea life around it…..why two copies? b/c some people can’t see the youtube one.
then it was back to the villa. here lil demonstrates terrible cannonball technique. when one is as skinny as lillis’ is, you MUST have proper cannonball technique if you want to get a good splash….i was dissapointed : )
the view from the plunge pool.
that night (our last in st lucia – or “the lu” as i’d like everyone to call it) we decided to go to the fish fry at anse la raye. the sun was setting as we waited to depart soufriere.
lillis is pretty in any country
even when she’s not looking at me.
the fish fry was pretty cool. we had a great meal of lobster, crab cakes, vegetables, and a couple of different fishes. they had music in the street, kids shooting basketball at what appeared to be an old toilet seat attached to a phone pole, and some really sketchy looking guys playing dominoes and leering at me. well, it was awesome except for that last part.
the next morning we went to breakfast (where i shot a pic of this bouganvilla in front of the piton)
then we went and got manicures and pedicures (my first). oh, and i figured i’d put in a picture of lillis’ lovely little outdoor shower.
we had an absolutely great time and are so blessed to have had the opportunity (and to have everything work out given how late we waited to plan it).
here’s some video from the week…..nothing too exciting, just some views of st lucia and what we saw and did there.
it was definitely great to have one restful week before heading back to the din that has surrounded our lives for the last few months. coming back, we knew we had a few short weeks to get lillis ready for her series 65 exam and get things sorted out for christmas and new year’s plans. no problem! oh, and if you’re just itchin’ to see more photos…they’re here.
