The sun rose this morning at 6:20 a.m. We had a mature wind speed of 30mph and a long fetching sea swell of 2 meters. The morning air was crisp with a salty tang. After breakfast I gave a talk on the languages of the Caribbean. We reached our destination of Soufriere in the south, west of St. Lucia, by 11:00 a.m. After lunch we boarded our tenders for the short motor into the harbor of Soufriere, Pitons. The physical setting is very dramatic as the town of Soufriere (population 11,500) is actually situated at the west end of an ancient caldera, where a volcano blew the western ridge of the mountain chain away about 39,000 years ago. It is picture book perfect. The name of the town means “sulphur air” which would be become very clearly evident when we drove inside the great ancient caldera.
One we reached the caldera we could see the witch’s brew of a boiling cauldron bubbling with molten rock, sulphric gases (hydrogen-sulfide), and a mud water mixture. Our guide for the day was the wonderfully voluble Gillian. She is a fountain of local lore and knows each plant on the island and its medicinal uses intimately. We visited at the crater’s edge and had a specialized guide explain the volcanology to us. A small hummingbird was nesting very near us and sitting on two tiny eggs. It became a photo op for everyone. After leaving the caldera we drove to the Diamond Botanical Garden, a gift to the island by the owners, the Du Boulay family. The fabulously beautiful heloconias are my favorites with their blinding vivid yellows and reds. I also love the bamboo, which is the national plant of St. Lucia – it can grow 8 inches a day and reach 30 feet tall and 6 inches in diameter. We were in these wonderful gardens for about 1½ hours and after our visit we returned to our vans for the very short drive to the center of Soufriere. On arrival from the town we had a brief rain shower but some hardy souls braved the rain and came with me as I provided an overview of Soufriere’s public square. We discussed the main Roman Catholic Church and their presence here in the mid-1790s, the reach of the French Revolution and their use of the guillotine to rid the island of some of the more retrograde aristocracy.
Shortly after we arrived back on Sea Cloud we had the most wonderful opportunity to motor tantalizing close to the Pitons. I have never been so close. As we bobbed beneath them the galley presented us with refreshingly cold local “Piton” beer and “pigs in the blanket” that disappeared rapidly! Tonight we had a special barbecue on the Lido Deck, which featured sashimi tuna and a wonderfully grilled “Mahi Mahi” and a delectable steak roast.
After dinner we watched Captain Irwin Johnson in his autobiographical documentary of 1929 called “Around Cape Horn. ” I have seen this film many times but never ceased to be amazed at the rigors of that trip completely under sail. Those sailors were both brave and hardy. After the film our redoubtable crew presented their traditional sea shanty evening where we all got to sing along. I cannot imagine a more full day and we all went off to bed utterly satisfied.
