Room service and boat trips in Laborie

One afternoon a local fisherman, Linca, tapped on our door asking if we'd be interested in a lobster dinner, delivered to our apartment the next night.  We settled on a price, and looked forward to the meal with interest.  If you're picturing a distinguished, older purveyor of lobster dinners, you'd be surprised.  Linca is a young guy, maybe in his mid-twenties, with a head of braids, or maybe dreadlocks, pulled back in a ponytail.  He's often seen at the sea urchin roast just down the road from us.

Linca arrived, right on time, on the appointed evening.  He had the meal all ready to serve, and emptied everything into our serving dishes or onto plates.  We set it up outside, on our little covered table, backed by the surf and surrounded by the sound of the chirping frogs.

Our covered eating area, backed by the beach

Lobster dinner, delivered by Linca.  Fresh caught spiny lobster, rice with lobster sauce and salad

It was delicious, and so fun to have it delivered to our place.

A few days later, we had an opportunity to hook up with a group from Coconut Bay to take a snorkeling trip on a catamaran.  The boat left from the dock in our town, just down the street from us. We'd gone on a sunset cruise with the same captain, Nerv, and his wife, Angel, the previous week, when we were staying at Coconut Bay.  They operate a beautiful catamaran, the Majesty, and serve delicious hors d'oeuvres, while cruising the waters around Laborie.

The catamaran "Majesty"

Both the sunset cruise and the snorkel trip took us within sight of the two most famous landmarks on St. Lucia, Petit Piton and Gros Piton.  They are climbable, but the climb looks pretty daunting.

The Pitons, Gros and Petit

On board the boat, our safety lecture by Shay included pointing out the emergency exit, which was, of course, the entire boat.

Shay was a good tour guide, but did admit that if he didn't know the answer to one of our questions, he could fall back on the time-honored tour guides' tradition, and just make something up.  As far as I know, he didn't have to use that trick!

We had a pleasant cruise over to Sugar Beach, where the snorkeling is very good, and had a great time in the water there.

Sugar Beach, with a protected area for snorkeling

Walking backward with flippers on, over the rocky bottom, was a challenge

We saw lots of colorful fish, as well as sea urchins and some coral.  One person saw an octopus.  No one saw any dangerous sea life, well, except the sea urchins, which we were cautioned not to step on, sit on or pick up. The water was warm and calm.

This beach is down the hill from the Sugar Beach resort, famous for hosting high profile guests.  But since it's a public beach, I guess riff-raff such as ourselves are still able to stop there.

We stopped at one other place, where we jumped off the boat to snorkel, which was much easier than backing in to the water with our flippers on.  The water was a little murky though, and the fish weren't as plentiful as at Sugar Beach.

The other guests on the boat got off in the town of Soufriere, to have lunch and see some other sights. We had the boat to ourselves all the way back to Laborie, and enjoyed visiting with the owners and the crew.  We're really beginning to feel like locals!