Maggie has been spending a lot of energy in making Beesmej “homely”! Herewith attached, please see various transfers, metal gekhos and tree frogs, which are attached to many cupboard doors, on the ceiling and on the walls!

The next weather window looks look being on Sunday. We will leave St Lucia around 2 pm and will sail, overnight, to Georgetown in Barbados.

We are in Rodney Bay Marina, for the night; the rigging became quite loose, during the trip from Virgin Gorda. This is not unexpected as the steel cables tend to stretch, by about an inch, during the first few months of sailing. The rigger was educating me as to how to “tune” the rigging; this had to be done in the marina.

One of the things, which has surprised and disappointed me, during our stay in the Caribbean, is the cost of living. I suppose, when we used to charter in these waters, provisioning the yacht for a three week charter was an expense, which we took on board, so to speak! Living here, though, we are more aware of the relative costs of things. Eating out is a luxury we can ill afford! Supermarket prices are high; but, then, almost all the produce is imported. Wines are especially  expensive; particularly red. Red wine has appeared on supermarket shelves at US$109!  Even within the islands, there is a huge discrepancy in prices. For instance: Bacardi 1L in Virgin Gorda cost US$10; in St Lucia it is US$16. And, of course, we are hit by currency games. The currency, here, is in Eastern Caribbean Dollars . The exchange rate is 2.67EC$ to 1 US$. When you pay in US$, you don’t get US$ as change; you get EC$ …and at a different exchange rate to the official one!

Posted from St. Lucia:

posted Wednesday February 2009