FamBam Cruise 5: Catamaran on St. Lucia

On June 26, 2025, our cruise ship pulled up to the island of St. Lucia. It was beautiful and green, accented by bright orange flowers on the "Flamboyant" trees.

St. Lucia was first settled by the French, before the British took over in 1663. It changed hands 14 times but by 1814 was finally in the hands of the British. It became independent in 1979, but remains a member of the British Commonwealth. It was named after Saint Lucia of Syracruse (aka Saint Lucy), who lived 283-304 A.D. and died as a Catholic Martyr. Because her eyes were put out before she was executed, she is the patron saint of the blind (as well as of ophthalmologists, authors, cutlers, glaziers, laborers, martyrs, peasants, saddlers, salesmen, stained glass workers, photogrammetry, and of Perugia, Italy).

We were scheduled to arrive at the island at 10am, but due to a medical emergency with one of the staff members, they booked it and arrived by 8am.

Kelsi had arranged for a catamaran to pick us up that morning, and they, too, were arriving earlier than expected. So we scrambled to eat breakfast, and "got off the ship as fast-as-we can and hopped aboard a catamaran."

Kelsi had done a bunch of research and scored us an awesome catamaran for the day.

The catamaran took us 2 hours around the island, and we had a wonderful time just hanging out on the boat for the day.

There was a net at the front that people could hang out on.

It was fun standing at the front, where you could hold the railing and feel the wind in your face.

Three of the crew members hung out on the upper level as we cruised along.

I had fun chatting with a couple of them about what it was like to grow up on the island.

Kelsi blocked the opening where Eva was playing so she wouldn't crawl overboard.

The island was so green! It reminded me of Kauai, Hawaii.

And these cute colorful buildings reminded me of Cinque Terre in Italy.

Eventually we started to catch a glimpse of the Pitons, two impressive mountains caused by volcanic forces.

As we continued around the island, we got a better view of the Pitons.

Then it was time to take pictures in front of them.

We asked the crew to take a group picture for us, but first they did some funny selfies.

Here's the whole Fam Bamily. (Eva's hat unfortunately covered her whole face).

Da Boyz all decided to get matching pink leopard swim suits to go with Eva's outfit.

Eventually we landed at the town of Sufrière.

A guy picked us up in a big van and drove us to the Tet Paul Nature Trail.

There we paid a small entrance fee, and followed our guide up the steep hill.

He led us up a trail through a dense jungle.

Our guide told us a little about what we were seeing, and was mostly pretty chill.

We saw pretty things along the way, like this. (And also the red Heliconia plant in the background, aka "Lobster Claws." ;)

This plant is a "Red Hot Cat Tail" (or Acalypha Hispida, aka "the Chinille Plant"). It's pretty, but its sap can cause skin irritation.

We stopped for a moment at an overlook, where we could see the jungle for miles.

We also saw some pineapples growing in the wild.

There was a very fuzzy caterpillar on one tree.

Someone had tied up a goat and its kid to graze without wandering off.

As we neared the top of our hike, we walked up the Stairway to Heaven.

From there, we were rewarded with some nice views of the two Pitons. The shorter is Petit Peton (French for "small peak"; 2438 feet tall), and the larger is Gros Piton ("large peak"; 2618 feet tall).

Petit Peton is shown below.

This panorama distorted us a bit, but it shows Gros Piton on the left, and Petit Piton on the right.

We bought a deck of St. Lucia playing cards at the little shop overlooking Petit Peton.

As we started back down, there was one more overlook.

The boats way down there looked so tiny!

We got another picture of Da Boyz with the fancy swim trunks and Eva.

Eva seemed to be enjoying the hike (or "free ride", in her case).

I took a selfie with a couple people, and more kept jumping in until half our group was in there.

I'm so glad we did this fun hike.

Then it was time to head back down.

I'm not quite sure what kind of fruit this tree was providing.

This flower is known as "Ashanti Blood", "Red Flag Bush" or "Tropical Dogwood" (officially, Mussaenda Erythrophylla).

Jared and I saw a hermit crab crawling along. When I got close for a picture, it withdrew into this shell.

Finally, we approached our starting point.

The van was waiting for us and took us back to the ship, and we all pooled our cash to pay him.

We got another view of Gros Piton as we drove back to town.

It was interesting to see what the town was like as we drove through.

By the time we got out of the van, Eva had conked out.

We paid the catamaran operators at their office, and then got back on board. They had to come two hours to get us, four hours round trip to take us there and back, and would go two more hours to get back home, so they had a long day!

We got more pretty views as we pulled away.

The catamaran had a nice spot inside to hang out.

The crew also served us a nice lunch of local fare.

I loved the views all along the way.

We stopped at one spot and snorkeled for a bit, but it wasn't as good as at other places, so I won't bother with any video footage of that one. Here's one picture that shows that there were lots of black sea urchins and some sponge and coral.

Most of us also kept feeling little stings. To me, it felt like static electricity. We had little red spots afterwards, and the crew said that it was "sea ants." Apparently this is a nickname given to jellyfish larvae, which ride along on the current and tend to be worse there from May to July. (I recently learned that if this is a problem, you can avoid the bites by spreading a very thin layer of petroleum jelly (like Vaseline) on your skin; and after getting stings, you can treat the toxins by putting vinegar or squeezing lime on the welts).

Soon we got back on the catamaran and we were headed back towards the cruise port.

We enjoyed each other's goofy company as we went.

At one point, Kyle, Katelyn and Chase decided they should get an in-laws picture. They started chanting "In-laws! In-laws! In-laws!", as shown in this 6-second video. (It was funny that the fist pumps were making Katelyn bounce).

Here they are!

Just lots of hanging out and enjoying each others' company.

Linette hung out on top with the crew for a bit.

As we pulled into the harbor where our cruise ship was, we saw some pelicans perched on a tower.

For some reason, this was our favorite day of the cruise for most of us. This crew took good care of us, and we just had a delightful time.

We got a group picture at the Saint Lucia sign as we headed back towards the ship.

Soon we were all back on board.

Shaylee and Mikayla got specialty drinks for winning one of the Survivor challenges.

I decided to get one that evening, too. I invented the Virgin Peach Daiquiri, "Randy Style" (meaning use ice cream instead of alcohol). It was heavenly.

Dinner was over in time to finally go up top and watch as the ship pulled away, which I hadn't really been able to on previous nights.

The sun was also just setting, which was pretty.

There were a bunch of people along the railings watching the sun go down.

The dinner attire theme that night was "white", so Linette and I went for it.

When we went back inside, we came upon a dance competition that had gotten down to just 3 couples. After a couple more dances, the cheers of the crowd narrowed it down to two. The one on the right was a couple from Puerto Rico, and they were getting a lot of crowd support. But the one on the left was the couple we had met in the San Juan Temple! He went on a Spanish speaking mission (and maybe she did, too?) so they were connecting well with the Latino crowd as well. Both couples danced really well, and it was hilarious to watch.

Here's a clip of them dancing to the Korean hit, "Gangnam Style" (which was written to make a bit of fun of how the recently ultra-rich lived). I thought the couple was really cute together.

In the end, the host had to declare it a tie. The prize was a bottle of champagne, and the announcer said that one couple would have to drink half and then hand it over to the other. Here you can see the one couple letting them know that they don't drink and that the other couple can just have it.

After the competition, we went up and talked to the couple and the gal laughed and said, "You met us in the temple making covenants, and here you see us on the cruise ship breaking them!" (The last dance was the reggaeton, and it was pretty suggestive, but they hammed it up and got a good response from the audience).

Whenever we went back to our room, it was easy to find our door, because we had all decorated our doors with Survivor stuff that Erika & Kyle supplied.

As I may have mentioned before, we had to come up with a tribe name. Since Linette and I were team Red, we named our tribe "TIRED", since we're older and that's how we feel a lot. :)

We put our anchor decoration way at the bottom of the door, where an anchor would tend to go.

Kelsi, Chase and Eva were in the room across the hall.

And the "Super Cool Party People" (Adam, Sienna, Shaylee and Mikayla) were next door to Kelsi & Chase. (Jared & Katelyn and Erika & Kyle had rooms down the hallway).

In the next episode, we visit Barbados and have a day at sea.