13 March 2015; Castries and Soufriere, St. Lucia.

It can rain in the whole Caribbean but it seems that Castries gets more than its fair share. The high mountain range which separates the port from the Atlantic is high enough to slow down the rain clouds a little bit and that means they are pushed together enough to saturate them. Once coming over the mountain top, they release the rain. Although the rainy season is over a regular shower is still very much on the program for this port. And today we were not disappointed. It rained while the sun happily kept shining. A very local shower, right above the ship. Although the rain was not cold, it was still wet so a few dapper shoppers were caught out while traversing the distance between the ship and the shopping terminal. Same occurred in the afternoon when the ship called at Soufriere to re-embark the overland tour. All 340 of them and of course there was a shower right at the moment the coaches arrived near the tender pier.  Who says the life of a tourist is easy.

Today we were the only cruise ship in but, quite unusual we had two Dutch ships in. At the downtown pier, which is mostly used for cargo and containers we had a Banana/ container boat in from the Geest Line. This company has quite a nice history with the unusual angle of having originally been owned by a Dutch Family.  The Van Geest brothers were originally from the Netherlands but the family ended up in England during the period that thousands of Dutch laborers came over to turn the Fens, located in the west part of Norfolk, into farmable land. As the area was almost identical to Holland being mostly under water it made sense to use Dutch engineering skills and labor to accomplish it. As the area was almost the same as Holland many of them stayed and ended up in vegetable farming, in the same way as they were used to in the mother country. The Van Geest Brothers started a horticultural business in 1935 and in 1945 expanded into shipping. In 1953 they founded an export company in St Lucia and started exporting Bananas with chartered ships. Then it bought their own ships which all commenced with the prefix Geest (Geestbay, Geeststar, etc.) Until 2001 one could buy Bananas with the Geest name in the UK in the same way as Chiquita and Fyffes. In 1986 they went on the stock market and thus reduced the family influence but the name is still there. They normally flew the English flag so I was quite amazed to see that the ship in port today was flying the Dutch one.  I always admired the ships which they had in the 70’s. Stylish design, giving the impression of being very fast and always maintained in a very good condition. Now of course they are as square as the other ships as they have to carry containers.

Ship Lovers delight. A stytlish Banana Boat of the 1970’s.

The Noordam left at 3 pm. and had to swing around on departure in about 25 knots of wind. Not pleasant as the swinging basin is not that large. No room to drift. But it is an Azipod ship and thus has lots of power at the stern.  The trick is then to come off the dock and push that stern against the wind and have the (weaker) bow follow. It worked well and we sailed happily out of the harbor.  The pilot left once we were out of the narrow entrance, under great applause from the guests hanging over the railing and the balconies above. The pilot transfer from ship to pilot boat was also carefully observed by my school class who were amazed about all the safety precautions we take for such a transfer. Most of them have a cargo ship background and there things are most of the time not so strongly regulated as with Holland America.

The Royal Clipper sailing past the Pietons. I could not take my own photo, so a stock photo. (Courtesy Star Clippers)

In Soufriere we were entertained by the departing Royal Clipper which is the largest Square rigger in the world but also a 5 star sailing- cruise ship. She made quite a magnificent impression when she left the anchorage and sailed to open waters past the Pietons.  We ran our tender service to get our guests back on board and then set sail for Bridgetown Barbados. This means sailing into the open North Atlantic as Barbados is located outside the eastern rim of Caribbean Islands.

Weather for tomorrow:  partly Cloudy 28oC / 82o F.