Wildcat Sailorgirl: St Lucia Jazz Fest

Thursday, May 15, 2014

St Lucia Jazz Fest

We have had such a terrific time these past two weeks enjoying the various St Lucia Jazz Fest shows and activities, Rodney Bay and hanging with all the fellow cruisers.

Barbara and Archie (without his dreadlocks -OMG)

We were able to connect with a fellow Salty Dawg Rally participant- Archie from s/v Janey came down on the rally with us and is now building a home here in St Lucia. New acquaintance Barbara and her hubby Mike are from Ireland. *Not to stereotype but holy cow, the Irish say wee no less than 100 times in a conversation. It's a hoot.

The four of us caught the free Skip Monday show at a local mall. We had seen local band Skip Monday twice before earlier in the week but this time they had a young jazz violinist with them and he was terrific! Sadly, I didn't catch his name.

Then we headed over to Fire Grill to catch Barbara Cadet. Archie and Barbara knew all about her and had heard her before. Tom and I had not and were blown away. She is awesome! We ended up basically standing on the stage - I was like 5ft from her. At one point I started to rest my hand on something and it turned out to be her sax stand! She is from St Lucia but of course travels the world playing her Jazz. She is listed as a jazz sax player but we witnessed her playing the sax, soprano sax, keyboard, and a little bass.

Her band was made up of a group of very talented musicians in their own right and she took several opportunities to showcase these talents and let them shine. Additionally, two different times she brought up a St Lucian youngster to perform with her. The first was a pre-teen/teen singer and the second was a young boy of approximately 8 that played jazz violin with her. WOW! We are now on a quest to get some of her music. You should check her out on the web.

We were originally anchored on the south side of the channel in Rodney Bay. After the first week we moved over to Pigeon Island so we could be close to the Jazz Fest Main Stage. We couldn't see it from our boat but we could hear it. Oh man, could we hear it. And all the parties and singing in various cockpits after the shows. *Not to stereotype....again... but if you sing Frere Jacques in the round over and over VERY LOUDLY at 1am in the morning from your cockpit with your friends, while smoking and drinking wine....we are going to stereotype you FRENCHIE and make fun of you. Ha! **If you don't want to be stereotyped, then don't do what is stereotypical...says the know it all American! Double Ha!

Tom, Clare, Paul and Gilly (hiding)

Paul on s/v Sonic Boom moved over next to us. Soon 50 + charter cats with 5,000 people on each cat joined us, anchoring all around. Okay, not 5,000 people, more like 100 on each cat. Anchor proximity and lack of any scope on these cats was a worry but we all got along fine. Heck, if we lived here or on a nearby island and didn't have a sailboat, we would do the same thing - charter a cat and bring 100 friends to the Jazz Fest! New acquaintance's Clare from s/v Ocean Rainbow and her visiting friend Gilly dinghied across Saturday night to join us in the cockpit of s/v Honey Ryder. Sadly, Clare's hubby James was back in England on business. But that didn't stop the girls from having fun. Oh no! We enjoyed the music but we really enjoyed the funny British humor of Paul, Clare and Gilly even more. *The Brits are just so bloody witty and funny in their own sort of British way! Simply brilliant.