St. Lucia-2nd time around

Last week we were heading out to the bay to anchor for a couple of nights until we had a good weather window to head to Martinique.  But while out there Wes noticed that the solar wasn't charging our batteries.  Not good.  So we ended up heading back into the marina.  They have an electrical business in the marina and we asked them if they could come out and look at our solar system.  Wes was pretty sure it was the controller after getting zapped a few times but he wanted them to confirm it.  The gentleman said he would come out as long as it wasn't raining because he really couldn't check it if the sun wasn't shining.  But of course it rained and was cloudy the next day, which was Friday.  He finally came out on Saturday morning and confirmed it was the controller, which was only about 15 months old.  Wes talked to Alex who installed our solar and he also talked to another guy on the dock who had the same unit and they both said to call Outback (the company we purchased the unit from)  first thing Monday because they are really good to work with.   Wes was on the phone as soon as they were open and sure enough the guy said it was under warranty and he would get a new unit sent out right away.  Yay, finally something worked in our favor. 

While we were waiting for the new controller we decided to rent a car and tour the island. The island is fairly big at a little over 238 square miles and a population of a little over 173 thousand.  There is one main road that the majority of the way around the island and it gets really congested with each town you get to.  We were actually stopped for a while in Castries which is the capital and a very busy city.  It's different from the other islands where the road doesn't follow along the coast so if you want to get to the water or a beach, you had to know which side road to take.  We went through the rainforest, to the piton's, and the sulphur springs where the volcano is which is like a miniature Yellowstone park without old faithful.  We were going to go to the waterfalls but they wouldn't let the dogs go so we skipped that but we took them on a nice long hike which they seemed to enjoy.

We received the controller late Friday, which was a lot quicker than we expected and Wes got it installed today.  We will probably head to Martinique on Monday, depending on the wind and weather. 

The town of Castries with the Pitons in the back

Oh the smell of sulfur

 

The lighthouse on the South end of the island

There are a lot of cliffs on the island and only a few beaches