Family fun in the Caribbean sun,
WHEN you’re in a helicopter, it only takes a heartbeat for your mood to change from awe to dread. Lifting off from the southern tip of St Lucia had been electrifying, with the Atlantic rollers crashing in on the coast to the right, and the azure Caribbean caressing the shore to the left.
The knotted green expanse of the rainforest came up fast ahead, and we were on the hunt for the Jacquot parrot, our eyes raking the trees for a flash of green that would identify a bird found nowhere else on earth.
Suddenly, clouds rolled over us as the highest peak loomed ever larger. First there were breaks in the gloom, and then . . . nothing. We could see perhaps 20ft in any direction. Where on earth was that mountain?
But just as panic was creeping over us, the cloud broke and there was the rainforest below. Minutes later we were touching down at a seaside airport on the west coast, buoyed by a sheer rush of adrenaline.
We’d saved an hour in a minibus, and experienced a ride that would make Alton Towers weep with jealousy.
Ten minutes later, we were swinging through the gates of Windjammer Landing, a 60-acre estate with about 160 apartments and villas that cascade up and down vertiginous hillsides dotted with calabash and almond trees, with views across an unbroken expanse of ocean to the western horizon.
We could feel ourselves starting to slough off the cares of the world the minute we arrived. But then how many hotels come with their own resident humming birds?
On a verdant wall next to the reception, we watched rapt as these miniature miracles darted from flower to flower, the exquisite greens and blues of their feathers a blur of motion.
When I told our ten-year-old son that we could go on a speedboat ride and then snorkel, he took a deep breath and said: ‘OK, let’s do it.’ Which is how we found ourselves skimming across Labrelotte Bay with the impossibly laid-back Romanus at the tiller.
When we arrived at the dive site, after a few words of guidance — ‘ Don’t tread on de fire coral cos it’s really gonna st i ng’ — we plunged into what felt like a warm bath, and discovered a world of wonders. On the seabed, we spotted a moray eel, i ts bulbous head poking out of the sand, floating lazily with the current for all the world like a piece of seaweed, but with death lurking in its shadow. In the deeper water of next-door Rodney Bay, down to a depth of 20 ft or so, we found the conch shell graveyard, an eerie wasteland of hundreds of giant shells, tossed overboard by the fishermen who bring in their catch from deeper waters.
If morning dives were boys’ time, afternoons were all about the lunatic that passes for my seven-yearold daughter going just a little crazy at the watersports beach.
YOu can waterski or potter about on a pedalo. But we just wanted a ride on the Big Momma, a huge inflatable that seats eight and rockets along behind a speed boat, bobbing and crashing like a deranged cork across the wake.
After that, it was usually time for a bowl of all-inclusive ice cream and a cocktail (nonalcoholic for her, restorative for me) at the Jammers beachside restaurant, the most relaxed of the five eateries in the resort, where you’ll find a thumping reggae beat and a ready smile any day of the week.
It’s about £120 a day for allinclusive (and £70 each for the children), which covers breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and soft drinks.
This isn’t a cheap holiday by any means, but sitting at Jammers watching the sun set over the Caribbean Sea with a 14 x 61 cocktail at your elbow (named after St Lucia’s latitude and longitude) is almost beyond price.
We could have spent the week on the beach, playing giant chess and beach cricket. But that elusive Jaquot parrot was nagging at us, so one morning we took a drive up to the rainforest that spreads thickly across the centre of the island.
Stretching up far into the trees is a network of cable cars that carried us through the huge tree ferns and vast buttress root systems of the Oceanic forest.
I nearly gave into temptation and let out a Tarzan roar, but had to satisfy myself with watching the chicken hawks swooping above, the bright orange Flambeau butterflies darting among the trees and keeping a narrowed eye out for the slither of a boa constrictor below. But still no sign of that pesky parrot.
St Lucia’s motto is ‘the land, the people, the light’, and this is the place where the Nobelprize-winning poet Derek Walcott has spent a lifetime capturing its unique beauty. You can have a slice of it, too. Just don’t expect to see any of those parrots.