St Lucia

Overnight we sailed on mainly northerly courses past the Grenadine islands and later St Vincent.  St Lucia is approx 620 sq kilometres with a population of 160,000.  The island is famous for its dramatic mountains of the 'Pitons' (see here) but also for its volcanic beaches, superb reef-diving, luxury resorts and fishing villages.

Today we had breakfast in our cabin as we needed to be up and out for our visit to Diamond Botanical gardens on the other side of the island.  We had a good trip by coach with a funny and informative guide.  The road from Castries to Soufriere was very steep in places and narrow - rather like parts of Cumbria in some places!

We stopped en-route for photo opportunities and saw bananas growing along the roadside.  The gardens were a tropical paradise and reminded me of New Zealand.

Safely returned to the ship after a great trip.