The first European settler was Francois Le Clerc, a French Buccaneer. In 1746, for it's sugar, the town of Soufriere was established. St. Lucia then became part of the Caribbean's 18th century trade triangle of sugar, slavery and rum.
It is a beautiful island, with crystalline waters and colorful marine life.
We took a independent shared ride to the Rodney Bay beach area and as you can see the beach and water was beautiful. Our van driver dropped us off at The St. Lucian Hotel, part of Rex Resorts. They offered a beach chair for $20 a person, but we thought that was quite expensive for a beach chair with an umbrella in the hot sun. We walked the beach instead, took photos and finally found a place, half in the shade, to sit and then take a swim.
On our very first cruise back in 1995, St. Lucia was on our itinerary and I remembered how beautiful it was. We arrived in the early morning passing the Pitons on the way in. It really was beautiful and I always remembered it. However, in all our travels, we never got to go back. I was really looking forward to seeing St. Lucia again.
Now it's 14 years later and we feel it is a different place. The pictures reveal how pretty the beach and water is, but they don't let you hear all the noise of the banana boats, and the para sailing boats. With all the boat engine noise, it is certainly not as peaceful as it looks in these photos. All the boat action is OK for some people, but for us, being avid boaters in our past, some of these boats just seems to get to close for comfort. In our opinion, this bay was too small to support all the boats running around in it.
Beautiful as it was, for us, at this time in our life now, we'd have to find a more quiet and laid back remote resort on another beach to enjoy St. Lucia.
