christmas in st. lucia!!

So christmas this year was spent in St. lucia with my fam. it was my wife and i, my parents, mark and naomi, andrea and carl and their baby abigail. the 9 of us had a blast. here are the highlights.

Christmas day.  our first full day there.  there was a storm a brewing, but we got out for a bit anyway.

naomi and i on the kayak

all the tour stuff was closed, so it seemed like the perfect day to hit up the tourist areas.  rodney bay was deserted..  excellent.

mark and naomi and their xmas portrait.

we ended up on this crazy beach.  on one side was pigeon point, a place that we would explore later.

across the big bay to pigeon point

this is why you can;t have nice things.

we ended up hiking up an easy trail on the opposite side of the bay.  not long up we got a sweet view of a little hidden bay.

sweet view, hidden little bay.

near the top was a small pond.  called rockface pond.  aptly named i think..

rockface pond.

then it was back to the resort.  the next day or 2 was a crazy ass storm.  8 people on the island were killed and the roads were totally gone in some spots.  we had a blast around the resort, but were also plotting out next adventure out.

that next adventure was back to rodney bay to climb up pigeon point.  it has been a pirate base, a fort, an american military area and now it's a sweet park.  we fully checked it out.

one of the old buildings

we climbed up one peak to a sweet little cannon fort.  it was old.  and cool.

view from climbing the fort

boom stick

then we headed back down into the saddle of the mountain, and back up the other side.  it was higher and tougher, but nothing too crazy.  more excellent views.

back towards the fort

after exploring around the mountain area, we checked out more around the base.  including a geocache!  and stumbled into a random bar in one of the old ruins.

view from my bar seat.

This was a full day.  slept and ate well when we got back.  more tomorrow!!

The next day was a sweet catamaran trip.  it was supposed to be truck 1 way and boat the other, but too many roads were still out, se we took the big catamaran both ways.

hey little dood

we checked out a sweet botanical garden with awesome plants and cool waterfalls.  i'm pretty sure i learned more here from mark and naomi than anywhere else from anyone else.

mmmm. waterfalls

Then to an accessible volcano with bubbling sulfur everywhere.  and another cool waterfall.

We also hit up a chocolate plantation and had lunch there.  then back on the boat for snorkeling and awesomeness on the way back.  

The next day we had a plan to sign out the resort's sailboats.  all good.  we did.  it had been a long time since i sailed, like more than 15 years, but everyone got on the boat for a bit and we had a mega blast. 

we're sailing all right.  hoist the jolly rodger!

After sailing (and before too) lots of beach time on a really sweet beach.  reading, catching up and just having a holiday.  great times.

christy and abigail

that evening was our first really good Caribbean sunset.  sepctacular.

ahhhh. 

Next day... ZIPLINING!!!  we hopped on a minibus and headed inland.  mark and naomi went on a sweet jungle hike while andrea, carl, christy and i strapped on the harness and took 10 ziplines high above the jungle floor.  like 120 feet up high.  it was awesome.

view from the zipline

christy coming in

 

 

 

Andrea

it was my 1st time doing this, it was hella-sweet.

then back to the pool.

carl and mark.  pooling.

the proudest grandfather in the world.

and another great sunset to end the trip.  we did a bunch of stuff that was so sweet i could make this post like 20 pages long, but this was just a taste.

The most common question already has been "would you go back?".  heck ya i would.  i'd also take an opportunity to explore some other cool areas. 

The other most common question "what was your favourite part?"  for me, i loved the dinner times.  not because the food was super good (which it was) but because i got to spend lots of quality time with people i miss so much.  thanks family for being awesome!