Our Quick Trip to St. Lucia!

We usually spend a month or two every Fall and Spring at our house in Florida. So we arrived there back in late October, just in time for my 13th birthday.

(I had a great party by the way).

I really enjoy Florida as I'm getting older, but I especially did this time...

Ever since my surgery back in May, I've been very limited on my freedoms, and back at home where we have wood floors, I'm not allowed to be "free" and just run around like I used to, because I could slip and hurt myself again. So I'm limited to certain rooms at a time, or a leash, etc..

However, our house in Florida is virtually all carpet. So this was a very welcomed reprieve for Mum and Dad, where I could finally be let off leash in the house, and have some semblance of normalcy again.

 

In fact, it was so nice, it has Mum and Dad thinking about just carpeting the whole house back home.

As a quick side note, you may have seen that I've tried these paw-grip stickers. They do actually work great, and definitely help a lot.

Mum and Dad still aren't quite comfortable/confident enough to let me have free reign relying only on those, though. But hopefully one day I'll get there again. You can find those stickers on Amazon under the brand called Aqupaw by the way.

Anyway, back to St. Lucia...

As you can see, we pack pretty "light".

Kidding, obviously. We already traveled with a lot of stuff, but even more so now that I travel with my stroller!

So off we went on the short flight from Miami to St. Lucia, Caribbean. Our travel carriers fit nicely atop Mum and Dad's wheeled suitcases for a smooth ride through the airport!

Technically, us dogs are supposed to stay zipped up in our carrier, but who are we kidding, Mum and Dad are unzipping me as soon as the flight attendant is not around.

 

Now, as you may know, I've been to St. Lucia twice before; this now being my third time. But of course, it would be Daphne's first time down south in general! I've been to St. Lucia, Bahamas, and Mexico. Now that I think about it, Daphne has some catching up to do!

I was happy to be back, though.

Upon arrival in Marigot Bay, we met one of the local dogs who - get this, was named Friday!

Why is that interesting, you wonder? Well, in the book of Robinson Crusoe, whom I was named after, Crusoe meets and befriends a native man on the island, who is named Friday...

And here we are at the house.

Our place had quite the view!

In fact, Daphne couldn't even be bothered to look at the camera with so much interesting and beautiful things to look at!

We quickly made ourselves at home, too.

As a senior, I now spend the majority of my time waiting around the kitchen. Actually, it's a very reliable place to find me if I ever happen to be seemingly missing around the house.

Meanwhile, Daphne found a fresh, warm stack of folded towels to sleep on..

And when not hanging around the kitchen or sleeping on clean laundry, I made sure to take advantage of that hot Caribbean sun...

 

While Daphne spent some time sniffing all the new sniffs that she'd never sniffed before.

Now, I should say, this trip was meant to be a leisurely vacation. Usually when I travel, we try to be very active and do a lot of things. But given I'm still sort of recovering, and also adjusting to a new, slower routine, we didn't have anything too crazy planned...

But we did manage to get out on a few outings!

Such as... the beach!

Which is always Daphne's favorite. Turns out she's a real beach girl. She loves to race up and down the shoreline until she's way out of earshot and barely in sight, race in and out of the surf, then bark at a few people... then come running back.

I personally found it a bit too hot to go running along the beach myself (and I'm also scared of waves 🤫)

But I sat with Mum and posed for her Instagram pics.

As a nice refreshment, we bought a fresh coconut from one of the locals, which is again, something I've had before and love... But was a first for Daphne.

And yes, she loved it. In fact, she would have drank (and probably eaten) the whole thing if we let her.

But who's really surprised that Daphne loves "cocornuts"? She's always dreamt of them!

Speaking of coconuts.. I spend some time on the dock watching all the cruise ship passengers disembark... Keeping an eye out for an babes, of course.

And fun story - while Mum took Daphne for a little dip in the water, a couple walking by along the beach from a cruise ship kept looking at them, whispering to each other - but loud enough that Mum could still make out what they were saying...

The woman said to her husband, "that looks like Daphne and her mom!".

The husband replied, "no way, of course not.."

The woman kept looking, and caught a better look at Mum. "That's Daphne's mom! For sure!", she said.

So at this point, Mum fessed up that it was us. And we had a quick little one-on-one meet & greet with a fan on the beach. How cool is that?!

Later that day, back at the house, I was dismayed to find a THIEF in the house - and no, it wasn't Daphne...

This little birdie swooped in through an open door. And what was the first thing he went for? He glided right over to my food bowl and snatched one of my KIBBLES!

I filed a report with the local police authorities. They told me they'd "look into it", but I get the feeling I'm not going to get much closure...

The next day, we went on a cool outing to a cacao plantation - that is of course, where they make chocolate.

Hence the name, Hotel Chocolat!

Now, these days, I usually don't walk that far before I switch to stroller ride or get carried. But, it's funny - when exploring any new place, I seemingly have all the energy in the world to walk and keep exploring...

Even when Dad forced me to stop and be carried so I could get a break, I absolutely insisted on continuing to walk... I do this by struggling and wriggling so much in his harms that he's made to think I'd be more likely to hurt myself in his arms than just walking.

And so, I get my way.

Daphne was pretty perplexed at the odd-looking coconuts... Until I explained to her that those are cacao pods, not coconuts.

"Those aren't the shape of cocornuts I want one day", Daphne said.

Here's me with our awesome tour guide! Big thanks to the Hotel Chocolate for being so dog friendly and letting us come on the tour!

So aside from that little adventure and some outings to the beach, the rest of the time we just spent around the house; enjoying the view, the sunshine, and the pool.

Mum got me this neat beach tent with UV protection for me to hang out in.

Nothing like that warm Caribbean sun to warm you up after taking a refreshing dip!

So that was about it for our quick trip to St. Lucia!

On our way back home, we stopped over in Toronto to visit Oakley and the family, and to attend the extended family's Christmas party!

I'm posting this picture of us with Jack & Charlie here, because Jack (left) keeps telling his friends at school that he's cousins with me, but his friends don't believe him!

So here's some proof for those suckers!

Anyway, thanks for reading guys!

Keep travelin',

~ Crusoe