ADVENTURE WILD CARIBBEAN

An Australian family revisit beloved small Caribbean islands and learn the joy of swimming with turtles

- Dr Karen Eriksen

The first night on an unfamiliar boat can be a bit restless. You listen to the creaks and groans of the boat, the waves lapping onto the hull, the temperature seems not quite right, you drift in and out. Sleep should have come easily on our first night aboard Skyelark 2 in Marigot Bay, St Lucia, after a memorable fish dinner with a few glasses of good Rioja. But disturbed by frequent squeaking, I eventually sat up around 0300 to drink a glass of water when something alive got entangled in my hair. Drowsily I started hitting at it, and whatever it was flew out of the open cabin door, which I slammed shut and went back to sleep.

Walking into the saloon the next morning I asked skippers Dan and Emily Bower: ‘What was that last night, a moth or a bat?’ Looking away from their stunned faces, I saw the stains on the saloon cushions. A small bat had flown into the cabin, eaten some fruit, tried an escape via my hair and then disappeared. The mess was phenomenal. This was very rare, apparently, and I was just glad the bat hadn’t bitten me.

We had joined Dan and Emily aboard Skyelark 2 for a family charter over the new year in 2023-4. We were happily retracing our steps from over a decade earlier when we had spent two seasons in the Caribbean, after crossing the Atlantic with the ARC rally, with the kids still small. It was one of the highlights of our sailing life, and we wanted to revisit our favourite spots with the young adults. I also was super keen to snorkel with turtles again.