The sun rose this morning a tad before 6 a.m. We had good wind all evening and a long fetching sea swell of six feet. Things got a bit bouncy at about 4 a.m. as we left the lee of Martinique and entered the open sea separating Martinique and St. Lucia. We anchored in the very deep bay just off the village of of Soufriere in the southwest of St. Lucia at 7:40 a.m. After breakfast we boarded our tenders for the short motor into the harbor of Soufriere. The physical setting is very dramatic as the town of Soufriere (population 12,000) 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. The classic pitons–volcanic plugs–“Gros Piton and Petit Piton” rose magically out of the sea thousands of feet into the sky. The name of the town means “sulphur air” which would be become very clearly evident when we drove inside the great ancient caldera.
Once inside the caldera, we saw the sulphur filled fumes from the boiling cauldron, bubbling with molten rock, sulphuric gases (hydrogen-sulfide), and a mud water mixture. Our guide for the day is a lifelong native of the area and knows the island lore. Our first stop was the visitor center where we saw a five-minute presentation on the volcanology of the island and Soufriere in particular. We visited at the crater’s edge and had a specialized guide explain the volcanology to us. The smell of sulfur was pungent, especially when the wind shifted. Actually there are families who live and farm within the caldera.
After leaving the caldera we drove to the Diamond Botanical Garden, a gift to the island by the owners, the Du Boulay family. The Du Boulays received the land from the French “Sun King,” King Louis the XIV in 1713. The present female owner is a lineal descendant of the brothers. The garden is a cornucopia of tropical plants of every variety from the spectacular heloconias with their blinding vivid yellows and reds to the wonderfully stately nutmeg trees. The bamboo–the national plant of St. Lucia–can grow 8 inches a day and reach 50 feet tall and 6 inches in diameter. Christmas is celebrated by using the bamboo as a kind of fireworks canon. After our visit to this magical garden, we returned to our vans for the very short drive to the center of Soufriere. This small island of 130,000 has produced two Nobel laureates, Derek Walcott (literature) and Michael Lewis (economics). Both men attended the same primary school in Castries, surely an indication of a good educational system.
Our next stop was the wonderfully secluded “Hummingbird Beach.” A massive cliff face, abuts this beach and it provides some of the best snorkeling. Fan corals and sponges are in abundance. Many of us took advantage of this secluded place. The owner of the “Still Bar” is a young Canadian who has just moved to the island and is a descendent of the original French du Boulay family. There is a large bat colony in a cleft in the cliff face and the water beneath their cave is particularly rich in a variety of species of fish.
After lunch Tom Heffernan gave an interesting talk on the Rastafarian religion followed by afternoon tea. Dinner tonight was a traditional Caribbean barbecue, roast pig and sashimi grade tuna and all served on the Lido Bar with of course the local Piton beer. I always find that the most festive of occasions. After dinner the inimitable Sea Cloud Chanty gang treated us to a repertoire of traditional sea chanties. We all joined in with full voice. At the end of a spectacular day and we all went off to bed thoroughly pleased with our visit to St. Lucia, “Helen of the Caribbean.”
