Soufriere and the Pitons, St Lucia

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

The Good

This is really a beautiful anchorage. You have three main spots to choose from, Bat Cave, Malgretout, and between the Pitons. Malgretout sits at the base of Petit Piton ( 2460 feet tall) and gives you an amazing view. Petit Piton bursts from the land with such power, that you can almost feel it. Petit and Gros Pitons (2619 feet) are actually volcanic plugs that were created when lava hardened within a vent of an active volcano.

It is a great place to pick up a mooring ball. The problem comes at night when you will be inundated with BIG mosquitoes. We moved the next night to Bat Cave which has an equally impressive view, and of course, bats.

Exploring inland, we all (Fine Line and Toucan) went to Ladera’s, a resort that overlooks the Pitons, and had a great lunch at the Dasheen Restaurant. Ladera’s is a pretty exclusive place, and you should have seen the look on the guards face when the public bus, filled with us and the locals, stopped outside the guarded gate. You could tell that very few, strike that, probably none of their guests ever arrive that way!! The local bus was fine and cheap. The only caveat is the driver waits until it is FULL before he leaves, which can mean a wait, in the heat (and believe me it is getting hot here!). The bus was filling up with school children when we boarded and they were very curious of us and our kids. When I would catch them looking at us, they would smile shyly. They are still in school here, although I think that might have been their last week.

Ladera had a beautiful pool, and the guide book says if you eat lunch there, you can swim. After about 10 minutes of our kids being in the pool, management told them they had to get out as it was for hotel guests only. We weren’t too happy about that, but there was a library full of books and games, and Tristan and Noah played chess, the girls lounged poolside, and the adults enjoyed the grounds and the pool.

Our other inland tour was a hike in the rainforest, a 2 ½ hour loop to Maho waterfalls. Anne and Steve arranged the tour with Glenda, at the tourist information center in town. Glenda is great and can help you with any tourist information you need. She arranged a taxi ride for us up to the rainforest and a guide to lead us on the trails. The ride to the trail was interesting, in some places very steep, and in others the road was washed out and all that was left were deep ruts. Our driver did a great job, and even though he scraped the van bottom several times, we made it.

The trails in the rainforest have been nicely done, with wide paths and steps made from natural materials found in the forest. Though well laid out and maintained, it still retains the primitive forest feel. The rainforest is very lush, with ferns growing everywhere. Our guide was very knowledgeable and led us to a waterfall and pool where we could swim. Afterwards he gave us some nutmeg from the trees.

The Bad

The mosquitoes at Margretout were BAD. I would not recommend anchoring there without repellent and screens!

The UGLY

The dinghy dock was the worse. Every time you used it, you were in for a shakedown. Someone would come up and take you line, say they would watch your dinghy. But they didn’t watch the dinghy. Instead they took off and got back just before you got there, and demanded that you pay them something. They were very aggressive about it too. One time Fine Line said they wouldn’t pay and when they came back their dinghy had air let out of it. Ava on Toucan had left here shoes on the shore, and when we went back to get them, one of the Rasta guys picked them up and wanted $50 EC for the shoes and the fact that he showed our kids a few fruit trees. Needless to say we didn’t give him 50 EC, only 10 and he was mad. We were a little worried about our boats being on the moorings there after that so we moved over to Bat Cave.