St. Lucia: a taste of everything.

If I had to pick only one Caribbean island to go to, it would be St. Lucia simply because it has characteristics of every other island scattered all over itself.  One one hand it has the nice resorts and beaches like St. Maarten and St. Barth's, and on the other hand it has the wild rain forest feel of Dominica.  It even has snorkeling like Bonaire.  I went to St. Lucia on several occasions, and here's a quick compilation of what I did.

Friday, November 9, 2012
St. Lucia

Our first time in St. Lucia, Marcy and I were invited to a resort by the guest jeweler to meet some friends of hers.

Oxtail Burger

 It was a good day of sitting in the restaurant and downloading all the latest episodes of my favorite shows.

But I also managed to put in a little time at a pool.

 And Marcy made a friend.

By the time we left, we ended up being hungry again.  Luckily we found this:

I think it's a little ridiculous how at home nobody I know eats at Dominos.  But when you travel, all of a sudden the Dominos looks like this, and then you go inside and it tastes like the best pizza you've ever had.  I asked Marcy about this, and she says it's just that the people on the ship don't know how to make good pizza, so by this late in the contract, anything that comes close to actual pizza tastes amazing.  She may be right.

Oh, and we saw these birds fighting outside while we were eating the pizza.  It was pretty funny.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

This time around, we took a more active role in planning our day, and we chartered a boat from a guy named Solomon to take us around the coast of the Island.  This is probably one of the best decisions we made our entire contract.  There are just so many things you can only see by boat.  And, well...here they are.

For example, this area right here was used in the filming of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  I'll let you try and figure out which scenes (and when you do, could you write back and tell me please?)

 After driving us up the coast, Solomon put us into a van and drove us up to the world's one and only "drive thru volcano."  I think this just meant that there wasn't any hiking to do.  The cars can go right up to the mouth.  Here are some cool things that are around the top of the volcano.

We're kind of standing right in front of the mouth of an active volcano.  Yeah.

Bubbly

You can't walk anywhere on this ground.  The mud is so hot, it would burn your leg right off, and any step you take could be a sink hole.  So, we're content to zoom in with out cameras.

 The most prominent landmarks of St. Lucia are the Pitons.

One Piton

The other Piton

 They're a pair of mountains that stand right next to each other.  They're kind of a big deal.  They're so big of a deal that their local beer is called Piton Beer.  After the van ride up to the volcano, Solomon took us by boat right between the two mountains where we found a cove with the best snorkeling on the Island.

We saw lots of amazing fish, and sadly, I can't share any of what I saw.   But I will tell you that it was this trip that made me decide to buy a waterproof submersible camera. 

With our incredible adventure coming to a close, we board Solomon's speedboat, take one last look at the Pitons, and ride back to our ship.

St. Lucia.  Probably the best.