Logged 22 Nautical Miles

Sailed 3.75 Hours

Martinique to St Lucia

It was great fun sailing with Exocet Strike to St Lucia with 18 to 20 knots of wind on our beam we sailed 7.5 to 8 knots the whole way. Rodney Bay Marina put us on their mega yacht concrete dock so we could have power as all their 110V slips were taken. WARC (World ARC) provides three nights dockage at each marina as we go around. Dan was worried we would be charged the $4 per foot mega yacht rate verses the 70 cents per foot regular rate, but we were not and we believe WARC arranged it.

Upon arrival we cleared customs, immigrations and port, also checked in with the marina and WARC. We are very excited to be here. The WARC welcome kit included a bag with, communications instructions, an event schedule, T shirts, and stickers name badges to get s into this week’s welcome and appreciation parties as well as a WARC flag and banner with our race number 49. First on the schedule was the World Cruising Club Welcome Drinks tonight at Zaika Restaurant. It was awesome to meet some of our fellow cruisers.

Our WARC safety inspection was at 12:30 on New Year’s Eve day. Dan was greatly relieved to pass this on the first time as there was an extensive list of equipment required that took months to procure. A fun NYE dinner was shared with John, Stella, Bones and Anna at the Bread Basket Restaurant. Later on Smoke and Roses we all had some drinks, watched a few fireworks and enjoyed good conversation.

In addition to being organized, professional and knowledgeable the entire WARC staff, which refer to themselves as the yellow shirts, were very friendly and helpful with a good sense of humor. They are from the UK, USA and Italy. The rest of the week was very busy attending briefings and seminars regarding Rally Route, Weather, Downwind Sailing, Navigating, Emergencies at Sea, the Skippers Briefing and another welcome party. In addition to the meetings we were preparing for the first leg of the Rally to Santa Marta, Columbia, buying provisions, fuel and supplies.

After a delayed flight and long taxi ride we were happy to see Scott Endicott arrive Thursday evening, he will be our crew/tactician for the first leg. Scott has won a hundred plus local and national regattas, as well as earning seven National Offshore One Design bullets. He also sailed an 11.5 foot plastic boat from Florida to Cuba. Right after dinner we put him to work helping to dress the boat with code flags as per WARC’s request. There was a specific order for the numeric and alphabetical flags so as to not spell anything offensive in any language.

On our last night in St Lucia there was an amazing St Lucia Tourism Authority Farewell Party at the Hi-Tide Restaurant Bay Garden Beach Resort. There was an open bar and plenty of delicious food including Mahi and steak kabobs, quiche, a taco bar and chocolate bars. The festivities included some short speeches and dance music but the best part was conversing with our fellow cruisers who we are getting to know. The dynamics of this group of people is incredible. They are very knowledgeable, somewhat competitive yet very open, friendly and fun. In spite of the differences in backgrounds and experience there is no arrogance about them as well as no doubt we will be there to help each other along the way. We talked about how few people in the world ever complete a circumnavigation…more people actually reach the summit of Mount Everest than those who complete a circumnavigation. We all feel very privileged to have this opportunity.