Cap Moule-à-Chique, St Lucia

It was nice to sleep in after our early start for birdwatching yesterday.

We had a leisurely breakfast. It looked to be another sunny day on the island. There was less haze than previous days - we could see St Vincent, about 45km to the south.

We planned out a little day trip to Cap Moule-à-Chique, the southernmost tip of St Lucia, just south of the airport in Vieux Fort.

Vieux Fort has been anglicized into ‘View Fort’ by both locals and tourists, which confused me at first. I thought there was a fort somewhere with a nice view, which sounded like a cool thing to see.

Anyways headed down to Vieux Fort, the same route we took to meet our bird guide. We turned south at the airport, and wound our way up to the lighthouse. Sitting at an elevation of 225m, it's supposedly the 2nd highest lighthouse in the world. ^{[citation needed]}

St Lucia (and most of the Caribbean countries) have only officially adopted the metric system since the 2000s. The latest push in St Lucia came in 2010 from a EU deadline to secure funding and trading. The Brussels effect in action :) Currently this means a mix of both imperial and metric signage. Speed limits are posted in km/h and mph, although some are mph only. Directions from locals are in miles and yards, like the restaurant is about 300 yards down the street.

We had read reviews of the lighthouse that said the road was in bad condition on the last stretch, so we parked before we got to the top and walked the rest. Looks like the road was recently paved as it was in great shape. We wanted to walk anyways so it didn’t matter.

There’s a good view from the top. The pitons aren’t as recognizable from this angle but they are visible. Took some pics, trying to avoid all the communication towers also at the top.

The lighthouse is in need of restoration, with boarded up windows and doors. The weather vane was sitting on the ground, I’m not sure if removed to restore it or if it was knocked off by a hurricane. Most pics show it sitting on top of the lighthouse, so it’s a recent decapitation. The weather vane is pretty photogenic, with varying shades of yellow, orange, and red.

Walked back down to our car, and drove down to the fishing pier. Took some pics of the boats. The fishing folk were wrapping up their day, washing out the fish market.

We were hoping for a nice seafood restaurant nearby, but didn’t see anything. We asked a shopkeeper and they directed us to a Chinese restaurant. It wasn’t what we were looking for, so looked up places on Google maps.

Ended up at Tones Front Yard, a very local place just outside the centre of Vieux Fort. We had to ask directions to find the entrance - the former sign is no more, and it’s down an alley between houses. The person we asked for help first thought about trying to give us directions, and then ended up just walking us there.

It was exactly the kind of local place we were looking for. The food was delicious, as was their local juice.

That was it for our day. Drove back to our hotel (about 45 minutes) and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.

It was a beautiful sunset, with a clear horizon. It's the first time in years that I've seen the sun disappear into the ocean. We were still somewhat full from lunch, so ordered a lighter meal for dinner. Heather went off-menu and had the tuna ceviche as a main; I had the tuna catch-of-the-day.