Just by chance, our visit coincided with some fun events in Laborie. The first Sunday of our visit, an island soccer final match was held, just down the block from us. It looked like the whole town turned out for it. There were a few trucks selling food and drink, in addition to makeshift barbecues and coolers set up around the field also selling refreshments. The local team won, which meant the celebration party went on for hours after the game was over. While we sat at Mama Tilly's having dinner, a parade of cars full of revelers drove through town, honking and hollering.
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| Final soccer match between two island teams |
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| Spectators at the match, and even more at the food vendors |
The next day, Monday, was the opening of White Sea Urchin season. Because of the declining population of this particular sea urchin, harvesting of these sea creatures hasn't been allowed here since 2001, and would be allowed for one week only.
The beach was abuzz with activity from morning until night for the entire week. The first day's take was immense, as the urchins could be found near the beach, in shallow water. As the week progressed, the fishermen, both adults and kids, had to swim out further, and dive deeper, to find their prey. Every day, someone would stop by to borrow snorkel gear from our hosts,Tony and Jan, so they could dive deeper for the urchins.
We watched small motor boats, claptrap rafts, kayaks and rowboats hauling the mound of the day's catch to the beach just down from our place.
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| A fisherman swimming by, pushing his raft of sea urchins |
We were able to see the process used to harvest the eggs too. The prickly shell would be broken open and rinsed out. Then the tiny eggs would be spooned out. The eggs were more like grains of sand, and made a criss-cross along the curve of the inside of the shell. The eggs could be eaten raw, but were mostly saved up until there were enough to fill a small sea urchin shell and roast over, under or next to wood burning fires on the beach. The roasting process took an hour or two, and then the resulting delicacy could be eaten, or sold. The price of EC$10-14 ($4-6 U.S.) was a deal. It took the eggs of about 15 or 20 big sea urchins to fill a small shell. Lots of work for the money!
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| Harvest of White Sea Urchin on the first day |
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Processing the sea urchin to harvest the eggs
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| The eggs are the gold-colored stuff he's scooping out. |
Once the eggs were scooped out, the urchin would be tossed into a pit in the sand. The rest of the creature wasn't worth anything.
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| A small urchin filled with eggs from about 15-20 larger ones and roasted for 1 or 2 hours |
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| We tried it, tentatively, and liked it a lot! |
We had an opportunity to taste the roasted sea eggs, and tentatively tried them. Rick thought the flavor was similar to smoked oysters, and the texture wasn't unpleasant. We finished our portion and deemed it really good!
The last special event we were able to witness here was the Jounen Kweyol celebration. It's a yearly celebration of the traditions of cooking, crafts and music on the island. Different towns on the island take turns hosting the festival, and this year it was held in Laborie. The restaurant folks we'd talked to throughout the week would be working double- or triple-time to prepare enough food for the crowd. As we interacted with the locals throughout the week, they would ask us if we'd be here for the Jounen Kweyol celebration. It's a big deal!
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Madras plaid is the traditional design of St. Lucia fabrics
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We saw madras everywhere during Jounen Kweyol
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| An enterprising young man selling roasted corn during the celebration. He's using a clay barbecue, just as islanders have for centuries. |
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| A local woodworker demonstrating a foot-pedal operated lathe |
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| The main street of Laborie was crowded with people enjoying Jounen Kweyol |
We were close enough to town that we checked out the crowd in the morning, afternoon and evening, just to see what was going on. People came from all over to be there for the celebration. And two of us came from Camano Island, Washington! It was great fun.
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