With the alternator up and running again, and ready for some family time after the frantic socialising of Rodney Bay, the Ty Dewi crew go exploring and find some true gems on St Lucia.

So here we are still moored between the Pitons, St Lucia. It’s so nice here that we found it hard to leave and we stayed another day. Next to us is a smart, sixty foot yacht. This morning, a ninety-ish foot yacht left the bay after spending the night here, and just up from us is Tenacious, the Jubilee Sailing Trust‘s three-masted tall ship.

To prove that there’s always someone with a bigger yacht, this morning a motor yacht arrived. It’s bigger than most warships; I guess 250 feet long, and is just sitting there, not anchored or moored. Ashore, I got chatting with one of the crew. Yes, she’s a private motor yacht, and yes, in calm weather they just hold her in position with computer controlled thrusters. There’s a crew of 40-50 people. A door opens in the side to slide out and lower their dinghy – a forty foot motor boat. It’s a different, and crazy world. As we came past this afternoon, someone on the aft deck was shooting baskets – had a basketball, hoop, and space to play without losing the ball overboard.

Meanwhile we enjoy sitting here on our somewhat more modest craft. Issie even asked to stay the extra day because she likes it here, and is loving her new-found mermaid ability with the snorkel. The two Pitons tower over us like ancient sentinels and even the presence of a smart and expensive resort in the bay does little to detract from the splendor of this place.

Six year old Issie finds her inner mermaid

We read through the St Lucia sections of a couple of guidebooks, visited tourist information and made a short list of things we wanted to see. As usual, there are plenty of taxi drivers wanting to tell you that everything is a long way away and asking a lot of money for the trip there. We looked at the map and realized that the Diamond Botanical Gardens were well within walking distance, so we set off out of town. As soon as you get away from the waterfront, where too many people are used to too many tourists with too much money, the town becomes quiet and interesting, and you can drop your guard a little and enjoy the scenery more. After a short while, the road forks and we climb steadily upwards beside a plantation filled with coconut, cacao, banana and other trees. The route becomes wooded and cool, even the kids let up on their complaints about walking, and enjoy themselves.

Shortly we reach the entrance to the gardens. I’d seen, somewhere in a local sailing newspaper, reference to this place, with not just the gardens but a beautiful waterfall and hot baths. The article mentioned that there was a private bath you could use for a few extra dollars, so I chatted to the lady at the gate and yes, that’s no problem. She charged us entry to the gardens just for the adults, and for the baths, the kids go half price. Total cost $70EC, about £14.

At the botanical gardens in St Lucia

We began to walk through the gardens, beautifully laid out some twenty five years ago, around the partially restored 18th Century baths. These had been senselessly destroyed during the French Revolution, but a couple of the baths were rebuilt in the 20th Century. The gardens were just lovely, and at that point fairly empty. We realized that we could walk to the waterfall, take a bath and then be ready for lunch and the rest of the gardens after that, so we tore ourselves away and discovered the Diamond Falls themselves. The river flows from the volcanic sulphur springs higher up, and is black with mud and minerals from there. We chatted to a gardener, who told us that the water is holy, because it supports no life at all – which doesn’t seem particularly divine until he elaborates that that means no mosquitoes. The minerals have coloured the rock a beautiful yellow and orange, which contrasts with the dark water.

We are soon at the baths, where a set of three outdoor pools look tantalizing; dipping a finger in the warm water even more so, and the pools look over the rain forest valley. I begin to wonder if we’ve made a mistake paying extra to be inside a hut! Asking the attendant, she gives us a key and directs us up some steps, where a small wooden gate leads into a little courtyard, ringed with flowers and woodland. Unlocking the door in a small building, we find ourselves in a delightful changing room with steps down to two tiled baths, each with a big valve at one end. We are about to put on swimming costumes when we realize that there’s no point – no-one can see us and we don’t want to carry wet stuff back down the hill, so it’s a skinny dip for us all. Opening the valve in the baths gives a gush of hot, crystal clear water filtered straight from the springs. A little tap above offers some cold water if it’s too hot, but we found it just perfect.

The hot mineral baths at the Diamond Falls Botanical Gardens

Even the presence of two excited and playful children didn’t spoil the beauty and romance of these baths, and the pleasure of just sitting and soaking in hot mineral water is made all the more delightful by the fact that none of us has been near a bathtub in three or four months. (don’t worry, we do take regular showers)

Once we have soaked to a suitable level of wrinkliness, we dried off and were ready to leave, when the rain began to pour down outside. This was a blessing, in fact, as we opened the windows to the changing room and let the cooler air blow through, looking out at the gorgeous view of the gardens. When it finally eased a bit, we left to find other visitors huddled in the gift shop or under other shelters and figured we’d got the better deal.

We try to have lunch but find that the ‘snack bar’ has a very limited selection and a queue, so we opt for ice creams now and a late lunch in town. We slowly tour the rest of the gardens then stroll back down the hill, pick up some fresh fruit in town and go to a little local bar we’ve found quite near our anchorage. The woman who runs it opens at 9am, closes whenever in the evening, and sits all day in her nearly empty bar, serving the few who stop by and chatting to friends who pass the door. There’s a pool table, where $1 releases the balls, apart from the two missing ones, and the kids play their version of pool (push the white ball around without cues!) It takes an agreeably long time for them to finish a game, so they require minimal parental refereeing in the meantime. We drink a few beers and have a good lunch before returning to the boat and relaxing before the usual bedtime ups and downs getting the kids into pyjamas, brushing teeth, reading stories and ‘will you just please go to bed and leave us alone…’ We’re all asleep by 9pm.

The Pitons at sunset, St Lucia