Soufriere and the Pitons  08/07/2021

Sailed down to Soufriere on Monday 5th. The area is famous for its two mountains rising out of the sea: the Gros Piton, 798 metres (2,619 feet) high, and the Petit Piton, not that much smaller at 743 metres (2,438 feet). Quite a sight as you approach by sea.

We are moored about 100 metres off the base of Petit Piton and opposite Malgretout beach. The sea around here is national park; anchoring is not permitted in order to protect the coral reefs. Instead, you tie up to a mooring buoy. In practice it would be difficult to anchor anyway because after brief shallows the sea bed slopes down dramatically. One hundred metres off, the depth is 42 metres. 

The terrain here is mountainous tropical rain forest. Very lush. We are about a mile from the town of Soufriere. The town represents a large gap, open to the sea, in what is the caldera of a volcano that formed over 30,000 years ago. The two Pitons are large lava domes that formed more than 200,000 years ago. The last time the volcano erupted was in 1766. Apparently it has tended to erupt every couple of hundred years, so is overdue, although it seems pretty quiet at the moment (hope these are not famous last words!).

A couple of miles inland are sulphur springs. I visited on Tuesday – it was an extreme uphill walk in the heat, but well worth the effort. Heat from the volcano’s magma chamber deep underground seeps up to the surface and with a temperature of 200 degrees centigrade creates pools of bubbling mud. There is a strong sulphur smell – like rotten eggs – everywhere in the vicinity. 

There are warm pools where you can bathe. First, cover yourself in volcanic mud, both sulphurous grey mud and iron-rich black mud, then basically more or less wash it off in the grey water. You feel very clean afterwards (even if you do smell a bit rotten). Was a great place to visit – genuinely memorable.

St Lucia has amazingly mountainous terrain, of which I saw more from inland today, travelling up north by minibus taxi to get a PCR test. It is certainly a beautiful island and the people are friendly and engaging. Even the rougher ones… the walk from the beach here into Soufriere town is about 20 minutes along an old track running around a headland, and passes through the rough part of town, which locals seem to refer to as “the ghetto”. One gets numerous offers, most of them dubious – especially various dudes wanting to sell you “ganja”. Quite honestly one hardly needs to buy it: the air is already heavy with the smell of marijuana. Generally it’s fine, although there is the odd really sinister looking guy… I wouldn’t walk through the ghetto at night, but by day it seems rather jolly.

Lots of chance encounters with people from all over. Just after 4pm today I headed over to the beach for a swim. A man in the water said where’re you from? I said London; he said Miami, but originally Cape Town… So another of these ‘it’s a small world” conversations… Talked to him and his wife for an hour in the water. When I say I’m sailing it always becomes a long conversation – I find that people are always interested. Had a long chat earlier with a young honeymoon couple from Washington DC who I guided to the beach – he was so delighted with my story that he shook me twice by the hand when we parted! (Nice to be shaking hands again – although most people here are still fist-bumping…).

We are here until Saturday morning. Then it’s off to Grenada, more specifically the island of Carriacou 20 miles north of Grenada. That is just over 100 miles away, which I will do in 2 days, anchoring off the west coast of St Vincent overnight. Both Carriacou and Grenada are said to be stunning, so it will be interesting to see them first hand.