I don’t sleep well but am up early anyway. Can’t depart until we go through customs so I do my regular boat prep activities then go into the marina alone to check out while Christy takes care of her chores.

I am at the Customs office at 8 am on the dot and the first person there as I had hoped. The officer asks me to give him a minute – I think he had to go for a shit – and then he takes on my case. Seems to take longer than necessary since I have everything done and I am the only guy here but that’s island life. Next is Immigration which is in the next room. “Then you just need to see the Port Authority – but he’s not here yet”. Grreeeeaaaat. OK, I’ll go over to Island Water World next door and see if I can get that nav light bulb I’ve been searching for.

I get there at 8:25 am, they don’t open until 8:30 am. They shop guy is just opening up as I get there and he asks me to come back in 10. I go for a coffee.

This is where Island Time really kicks in. I go to Cafe Ole which I seem to remember has good coffee. I am served pretty quickly and ask for a black Americano. 15 minutes later I get my coffee after asking twice about it. I would have cancelled the order if I thought that would have been faster. How long does it take to make a coffee? This place should be called Cafe O Late.

But at least the Port Authority guy is there there now and I get done quickly. Quick trip to IWW to pick up some things and I’m back at Milu at 9:30 am, almost an hour longer than I expected.

But we pull up anchor in a pretty stiff breeze after setting the main first and bingo bango bongo we’re off and sailing south.

It’s a pretty glorious reach all the way to the Pitons and we make 6+ kts most of the way although the wind comes and goes. It is very pleasant sailing.

By 2:30 pm we’ve rounded the bottom of St. Lucia and have the sails down and motoring towards Laborie. The wind is strong, 20+ kts but directly into our face so no point in bothering with sails – they are only adding friction.

We realize as we’re motoring that last 90 minutes or so we would have been better off just to anchor between the Pitons again (no one there as we ride by) and leave for St. Vincent from there. Still a good angle to SVG and would have saved us probably 90 minutes. But we did want to see Laborie so something new to add to our adventure list.

Laborie Bay is fraught with reefs and the nav system even has a written warning on it – “When entering Laborie Bay be aware that a number of groundings and two total losses have been attributed to reliance on chart plotters while inshore in shallow water. Eyeball navigation is essential.” Our guide book says as much. Interesting my Navionics app on my phone does NOT show the middle reef though our boat nav does. It matches the guide book.

Our boat nav has a purple line showing the route into the bay and there are no other boats there othered than a couple of charter cats at the dock so we’re very sure we’re on the right line. I go up front and “eyeball nav” while Christy drives in slowly. No problems. There are a couple of moorings but we don’t know the deal with them and the website in the guide book no longer exists. No problem, it’s only about 4 m deep and we’re the only ones anchored.

I dive on the anchor to be sure. It’s pure sand bottom (good) but the water is so turbulent I have to actually dive to the chain to follow it, even though it is only 4 m deep. Clean, but turbulent. The anchor is fine.

We both hose off a bit, get the dinghy down and go into town for a walk. Solid pier with a dedicated dinghy area so that is good, I throw out the rear anchor as there is a bit of swell.

We walk through town, there is a ton of bars and small restaurants, seems quiet though. We walk to the west end of town on the roads, then follow the beach back to the pier. There actually are quite a few tourists around, given it’s pretty quiet and there are no yachts here. We learn that tons of charter tours come here every day and actually the town is full of Canadian and American tourists at Air BnBs. Interesting.

I feel we should spend some money here and so we stop at the last beach-side restaurant run by Darryl. He’s friendly and the only non-alcoholic drink he has is a local fruit juice mixture. It is very good and we sip on the beach and watch the sunset.

Back on Milu I bring up the dinghy while Christy makes spaghetti. I write the last two days in this blog and now am going to do the engine checks and go to bed. It is very roly here.