ADVENTURE UNEXPLORED ST LUCIA

Amid a cold and wet winter, a last-minute Caribbean getaway proved the perfect tonic for Theo Stocker and family

- Theo stocker

Rain had fallen constantly for weeks, the wettest January since records began.

Winter ticked on interminably... deadlines, school, hospital shifts; my wife Georgie and I craved a break. Then up popped a last-minute opportunity for a week’s sailing in Caribbean sunshine with Sunsail. Frantic searching online followed. Just how realistic would navigating airports, long-haul flights, and a week afloat with three children aged five and under be? Ah, stuff it. It’s St Lucia. We're going.

The children had finished their first film and all of their snacks before a pilot could be found to fly us and our embarrassingly over-packed 17 items of luggage. Miraculously, 11 hours on the plane passed with no major meltdowns, before the children finally fell asleep for the first time in 20 hours on the taxi ride to Rodney Bay marina. Stepping out of the sultry night into the cool air aboard our palatial Sunsail Dufour 44 that awaited us, we finally relaxed. Maybe this might just work out after all.

CARIBBEAN BLISS

A word to the wise. When bribing a child not to create complete havoc in a supermarket, choc ices are a bad choice in the tropics, melting quickly to create a bigger mess than the one they solve. Nevertheless, we were soon stocked up, Aldo had briefed us on how everything worked on the boat, base manager Lene had talked us through a plan of where to go for the week, and before the crew could get any more fractious or impatient, we cast off.