Adventures in St. Lucia

Since I worked insane hours M-Th and will travel on Sat and prep for the Bahamas work on Sunday, I decided it was time for a little R&R on Friday (my kind of R&R anyway). Here's some thoughts on my adventures over the last 24 hours.

First, I went to Smugglers Cove to snorkel Thursday evening. Andria had the great sense to suggest that I purchase a snorkel set in the states and bring it with me. This place is on the northern end of the island, which is the most developed. I imagine it is not actually a great representation of what St. Lucia has to offer since the coast near the far less developed town of Soufriere has a reputation for great scuba and snorkeling. Nevertheless, it was pretty cool.

First, I noticed that there was a lot of green stuff growing. This is a sure sign of an area with too many nutrients - otherwise known as poop - in the water. Kinda gross, yes, but pretty normal for humans to use the ocean as a dumping ground. So I swam out skeptical that I would see anything at all. Luckily, I was very wrong on that front. First I noticed these huge sea urchins - black with long spines and as big as a foot or 16" across. They seemed to gather in large groups, which I found interesting. Then I noticed big white sea urchins that were really fat with small spines and small reddish sea urchins also. 

I saw lots of fish - colorful little fish, strange looking big fish, schools of 100-200 fish. The further from shore I got, the more I saw some living corals - mostly brain corals. And also sea sponges and sea fans. But by far the coolest thing I saw was an eel slipping in and out of the rocks. But I also saw a big rock crab - at least a foot wide - walking across the sea floor. I saw a really big puffer fish - way bigger than the puffer fish I saw in Costa Rica. And I barely saw a fish that looked exactly like a rock. I watched him for awhile and as he moved to a sandy spot he looked exactly like the sand. He was a camouflage fish of some sort. As a school of fish came by he turned the color of that school of fish - it was really convincing - I had a hard time picking him out of the lineup. Neither could they apparently because they spent a lot of time checking him out and trying to make sense of this new addition to their family. I could only tell because he did not have a blue stripe on his tail. But he made his tail really small so that absence of the stripe did not stand out. Really cool.

Anyway, eventually enough was enough and I decided to go back to the hotel, shower, and go see some jazz. After a short bout of work I went out and ended up at the same bar where I had listened to three songs from  Michele Henderson. We (Francois and I) had walked the whole length of Rodney Bay and heard a couple of good acts, but nothing really held a candle to her. So we stopped in after dinner for a couple of hours to listen and drink Piton beer and Chairman's Reserve Rum. I drank too much Rum probably, because Francois and I had a plan to summit one of the Pitons the next day before Francois had to leave on a jet plane back to France.

Here's a picture of the Pitons - Petit Piton on the left and Gros Piton on the right. Note that I stole this picture from someone on the interweb. I never got a good shot of both pitons because I was riding public transport to get there, which does not cater to tourists. In fact, I think a lot of people were pretty stunned that Francois and I preferred to get the local experience by riding the bus rather than spending a lot of money and chartering a taxi.

And here is a lesson - always review your travel guide before setting out on an adventure. It was not until we reached the summit of Petit Piton that our guide told me that this was the difficult piton, the one that you are supposed to get a permit to climb, and the one that actually requires some skill at climbing! We had aimed for the easier piton (Gros Piton), but misunderstood which one was easy and which one was hard.

This was the easy section of the trail. I stopped taking pictures once it got hard so I could focus on survival. About 1/2 of the trek was hiking - like using your hands and your feet kind of hiking. A lot like Fern Canyon or some of the other trails in the Flatirons behind Boulder - only more roots, fallen leaves, and slippery rainforest. According to Fodor's, Petit Piton is 2,619 feet tall, and I did start at the sea. You can see our guide "Trash Man," who was just the brother of some guy on the bus from Castries. But he was fit, fifty, and feisty. He outclimbed both Francois and I, and from what I could tell, he was just living life, rasta-style.

This is a picture I took of Gros Piton from the top of Petit Piton. Getting to the top was crazy. The second half of the ascent was actual climbing, not a "hike." My climbing friends would be appalled I think at the concept of doing this trek without your own climbing equipment. Sections were impossible without a rope. And there were ropes aplenty - "permanent" ropes tied to roots and trees that had been baking in the Caribbean sun for god knows how long. Some were frayed where they rested on the edge of a rock, others were clearly torn or questionable tied. Needless to say, I never put my full weight on any of these ropes except where the consequences of rope failure were manageable.

This pic is just proof that I didn't scab pictures from the internet and I actually went to the top. Francois didn't make it because he is 54 and smarter than me. As he put it, "I am a coward." But I think he's just reasonable and I am not. If there is a rock to stand on top of - I must stand on top of it. This is part of being a Vogel, and I like it!

Anyway, just a sampling from the last 24 hours, but very cool. Tomorrow I leave for work in the Bahamas - which have no mountains and no rain forests. I look forward to the next chapter of this trip, but for now, I must admit, I am completely exhausted. I'm hoping to skype with Andria in an hour and a half and then basically go straight to sleep. Saturday will be work and travel. Maybe something interesting will happen Sunday, but I've got to catch up on work this weekend from taking my day off.