How to go caching Caribbean style!

When choosing where to go on holiday these days (since we discovered geocaching) it’s always a bit of a toss up between going somewhere with lots of geocaches and somewhere with lots of interesting things to see. And by that I usually mean volcanoes - my other passion in life aside from geocaching.

This year I went with the volcano and a location we hadn’t been to before, the Caribbean isle of St Lucia.

With almost every square inch of its volcanic landscape covered in lush vegetation and rainforests, it’s the greenest place I’ve ever been that consistently has temperatures soaring well above 30 degrees.

Where many other volcanic island’s have black sandy beaches, St Lucia doesn’t. It’s beaches are covered in soft white sand, turning the shallow sea water around them a stunning turquoise blue. It really is an amazing place and the people are fantastic. 

          

However, caching wise, there are very few on the island...just 14! And five of them are earthcaches, so no actual physical container at GZ. They are also pretty well spread out, with few in the main resorts, so the only way to visit them and get those smilies is by paying for the various tours and hoping they stop nearby, or by getting a taxi or hiring a car! We did the later, as it seemed the cheapest and most reliable way of visiting all of them.

  

However, doing just that wasn’t as straightforward as it might have been. A tropical storm and an earthquake hit two days into our visit, bringing down trees and debris onto the roads, which left us holed up in the beachfront resort a little longer than planned. When we finally got out, a couple of days later, we were eager to find our first cache!  

Seeing five traditional caches located to the North West, around the infamous Reduit Bay, just a 15 minute drive away, we decided to head there first.   

The drive was fairly easy going as they drive on the left, like the UK, and all the road traffic signs are British. We had worried that we might not be able to keep up with the locals with the small engine in the hire car, that had as much go as sausage dog, but we needn’t have worried. Most of the speed limits were no more than 30mph and you rarely got up to that as the cars ahead were constantly stopping to politely let one another onto and off the road.   

Arriving in Reduit Bay, we were surprised at how quiet it was, despite a large number of hotels being located there. The beautiful sandy beach was almost deserted and the beach front bars empty except for the odd tourist supping a cool drink. 

It was perfect for grabbing the nearby ‘Going Sailing’ cache behind the sailing club building on the beach front. As we approached GZ I spotted a huge, rotting wooden mast laying in the grass and dived in to start the hunt. Meanwhile, the other half had focused his efforts on a much newer looking metal mast laying next to it. Seconds later he asked, “is this what you’re looking for?” ‘Grrr, typical he should find the first cache on the island!’, I jokingly grumbled to myself.   

The log book was soon signed and the little Tupperware box returned to its neat hiding place under one end of the metal mast.   

After a refreshment stop at a bar on the beach, we jumped back into the white, battered wagon and drove the short distance to Pigeon Island. Driving along the road on the ‘bar’, which joins the island to the mainland, was interesting. Huge waves were crashing against the rock defences and had clearly breached them during the recent tropical storm as debris, stones and sand were scattered across the road in various places. After zig zagging our way through the carnage we arrived in the beachfront car park.

Upon paying the small entrance fee to enter the nature reserve, we were soon admiring its beauty and snapping pictures of our personal TB Gizmo & Panda on the rocky beach with the large waves crashing behind. 

  

After picking up a couple of bottles of cold water, we headed to the old British fort on the far end of the island and our second geocache. This time I wasn’t letting the other half get there first, so I set a plucky pace through the shaded forest trail.

I headed straight to the ‘inclined ramp’, whilst the other half caught his breath at one of the fort buildings. I very quickly found the little Tupperware box, neatly hidden behind some stones and wood in an alcove of an old rotting tree. It was a nice secluded spot so I decided to drop off the two TBs I’d brought from home.  

After admiring the nearby fort, and posing for more photos, we began the ascent to ‘Signal Peak’. The climb had started fairly gently, but as we got higher up, the path became steeper with rock and dirt steps and eventually just rocks to climb over, but nothing too challenging, aside from the sweltering heat. 

The 360 degree view from the top, made the hot climb worthwhile, it really was stunning. Rodney Bay, the long bar, green mountains and the Atlantic swept before us and after more snaps were taken I grabbed the cache hidden at the base of the only tree on top of the peak.  

Upon returning to the car and getting accosted by a local keen to sell us some bamboo leaves he’d woven into the shape of a grasshopper, we decided three smilies out of 14 was a good haul for the day, so headed back to the hotel. 

Up bright and early the next day, we headed North again, further up the coast this time, to admire some of the amazing views from the hills and clifftops and some of the more well off parts of the Island.   

Eventually, we arrived at ‘Smugglers Cove’ the location of another traditional cache and began our descent down the steep wooden steps to a tiny deserted beach. The waves were coming high up the sandy beach, which explained the lack of sunbathers - there was no one about - which was great for caching.    

At the foot of the steps we were still a good 25m from the cache. There was nothing else for it...time for a paddle!  

Shoes and socks whipped off I waited for a big wave to crash before making a run for it. I made it to the well placed wooden platform half way across, and after the next wave had come crashing in, it was another quick dash to GZ. 

The long tube cache was quickly located at the base of a tree, under some rocks much to my relief, as another wave ebbed at my toes. 

Log signed and cache returned to its little hide, we headed off to explore more of the north.  

The following day was an opportunity to visit the capital city Casteries. Once, the busiest trading port in the Eastern Caribbean, these days it mainly seems to be frequented by huge cruise liners and smaller vessels filled with day trippers. 

We had arrived at rather a busy time, a huge cruise liner called, ‘Celebrity Equinox’ had just docked and the quayside was a hub of activity, packed with taxi cabs all looking to benefit from the hundreds of tourists coming off the ship. 

We must have been asked 20 times if we’d like a ride somewhere. We politely declined each offer to ‘show us the sights’, and had a laugh with a few of the more eager drivers, who couldn’t quite comprehend why we were passing up such a great opportunity.   

Once through the quay’s giant iron gates, we left the throng of locals behind, but were soon greeted by a throng of a different kind - cruise ship tourists! Dozens of them were buzzing about snapping photos of themselves in front of their big boat and contemplating sightseeing trips on some nearby smaller vessels. Most seemed to be elderly American couples, and whilst I left the other half chatting to one, I headed for a very rusty metal post in search of the ‘Point Seraphine’ cache. 

Resting my rucksack on top of the post and fumbling about in its pockets, so as not to look too suspicious, I quickly reached under the top plate and felt for the magnetic cache. It was exactly where I expected it to be, so the retrieval was swift. After a quick sign of the log and another fumble around in my bag, the cache was returned, without anyone noticing.  

The final cache for this week was a slightly tougher one. I’d noticed there was an earthcache called ‘coastline being changed by erosion’ showing on the map in the middle of the watery port, but until reading the cache page I hadn’t quite realised I needed to be on the water to do it. 

  

I would like to say we commandeered the luxurious cruise ship and set off to find the answers with a bird’s eye view of the port, but that would be a lie. Instead we had to settle on a small tourist boat, which was offering short trips along the coast. 

It was packed full of some of the elderly cruisers, but we managed to get seats on one side of the boat, which fortunately gave us the best view of the ‘eroding coastline’ around the port. 

I do enjoy an earthcache and this one, by boat, was particularly fun. We definitely wouldn’t have taken a boat trip if it hadn’t of been for this cache.

The day brought one further caching surprise...another souvenir! Hard to believe, but barely three days into Geocaching HQ’s monthly souvenir challenge for October and we’ve already got it! We are now officially ‘Caching Connoisseur’s’ after finding just three caches in St Lucia in October, which together had more than 60 favourite points. I think our rapid achievement was rather helped by the fact that Point Seraphine had a whopping 53 favourite points, but great to get it so quickly. 

Right I’m off to dip my toes in the sea, more on our St Lucia adventures next week, when we will be visiting volcano!