Two of our favorite Caribbean islands, St Lucia and Martinique.

Brenda and I have visited St Lucia and Martinique a number of times, two of our favorite islands.  While we are home in the US right now, we will soon be returning to Pandora in Antigua to begin our winter season of cruising the SE Caribbean.

As I write this we are about done with our time at home as we are traveling here and there to enjoy time with our family. We always make sure we get more information about the places we visit, through professional websites online.  So far, it’s been hectic, to say the least and cold, well at least cold compared to Antigua, and I certainly prefer warm.  It’s already snowed twice and I’ll begrudgingly admit that it was pretty to wake up to a bright white world.  Well, at least that somewhat makes up for the persistent grey that is a New England winter.

It’s been crazy during our time at home with both wrapped and unwrapped presents strewn everywhere, as we scramble to get everything done.

Timing is a challenge as we make time to spend with Rob and his family in MD where we are now, celebrating the third birthday of our oldest grandaughter Tori, who turns three this week as well as an early Christmas.  It has been a whirlwind visit as we make time to spend with them before a quick dash home on Monday to head back to CT.

The very next day (Whew!) we fly to San Francisco to see our other son Christopher and his partner Melody for Christmas.  With less than 24 hours home (way less) before we fly out on Tuesday it’s going to be quite a rush, and we won’t be back home until three days before we head back to Antigua.   That’s going to be a crazy busy few days as we put our home in “winter mode” to keep it safe from freezing while we are away.

And, when I say “everything in place” is because we have to blow out all the water pipes and put antifreeze in the toilets and appliances like the dishwasher and washing machine.  We have already delivered our house plants to a greenhouse in New Haven along with some pond fish that they will keep for the winter.   Our little pond will soon freeze solid, already has, and the plants won’t survive the cold temps in the winterized house while we are away.   As we headed here to MD a few days ago, we packed Brenda’s Mini Cooper with all the plants, fish along with birthday and Christmas presents.

On another subject, on proverbial Black Friday, I succumbed to all of the hype about good deals and the drumbeat of “shop now!” and ordered a huge, well huge for us, 65″ TV to replace our  more than a decade old TV.  WOW!, what a difference in the picture quality a decade of innovation has made.

Well, I mention all this as the TV is Internet-ready and we have enjoyed watching YouTube travel videos including some about places we have been and hope to travel to.   I happened upon the two short pieces that follow about Martinique and St Lucia that includes footage of some of the great places we have visited.  It gives a pretty good feel for what it’s like to visit some of our favorite islands.

We enjoy Martinique because it offers everything from cosmopolitan cities like Fort de France, along with rural back roads and beautiful rain forests.  Both islands are also home to wonderful botanical gardens and nature preserves along with some great rum distilleries such as Depaz and Clement, that are both featured in the piece about Martinique.

Clement, unlike most rums you are likely to encounter in the Caribbean, is distributed in the US.  Their website, for the US, is quite interesting, with ample information about the estate itself, a wonderful place to visit on the island.  Visiting these distilleries is a great thing to do when touring the island.  During our last visit to Martinique, two years ago, we visited a number of distilleries.  I wrote about that very enjoyable day in this post.  

So, check out this short video.  It will surely make you want to visit Martinique. Another of our favorite islands is St Lucia and although Rodney Bay gets a bad rap due to some petty crime, it’s a nice spot to visit too.   As with many places in the Caribbean, it’s always a good idea to lock your dink at night and pull it out of the water.   And, always lock it up when ashore, even during the day.

We particularly enjoy Marigot Bay, a spot that we will surely return to this season.  It is home to a wonderful resort, one of our favorite places to spend time and one of the few spots where we rent a mooring instead of dropping the hook.   I wrote about our visit there.  You will recognize some of the spots sin my post when you look at this short video. Another spot in St Lucia, and one of the most photographed places in the Caribbean is the Pitons, two cones of extinct volcanoes.   For the more adventurous, you can hire a guide to hike and climb up to the top.   You can’t anchor there as the bottom drops off sharply, even close to shore.   The mooring we took was in over 100′ of water.  Check out this post about our visit there as well as more about what we enjoyed about Marigot Bay.

There are actually a lot more posts about our visits to St Lucia and Martinique but it is sufficient to say that these islands are worth spending time exploring and I am looking forward to going to both this season.

For now, all we have to do is get through the holidays.  For sure, once we return to Antigua and Pandora we will be ready to chill out for a few weeks before we get underway again.