Segs on the Beach

Day Four

I had read about the Segway tour online before we left for vacation so I made sure to ask the concierge about it.  I had taken a Segway tour in Minneapolis with my sister a few years ago and felt like I was a pro on the Mall Cop scooter.  The resort arranged transportation.  As we waited for the shuttle, we struck up the usual conversation with the two couples waiting with us.  “Where are you from?” Turns out one couple was from Winchester, Virginia where my parents used to live and the other from Hendersonville, North Carolina, where I lived before moving to Connecticut.  Jay and one of the husbands knew some of the same people from General Dynamics; we were practically related. 

 

 

Our Segway tour was led by Sammy and the boys on trails near Rodney Bay in Gros Islet.  During our initial orientation session, I volunteered to demonstrate.  As instructed, I leaned forward to make my Segway go, then I stopped it short and spun around.  It's like riding a horse; just use your weight to control the speed.  Sammy looked at me, "You done this before?"  I smiled, "Nope. First time."

On the trail, a highlight was a stop at the US bunkers that were built during WWII, now inhabited by bats.  Who knew we occupied St. Lucia?  The guides were fun-loving guys who enjoyed playing jokes on each other, doing tricks on their Segways, and smoking weed when they thought we couldn’t see them. 

Our guides embellished the women's helmets with flowers.

 

I gave up on Segwaying beside my husband as he got caught up in the legal woes of one of our guides.  So I flirted and joked with the guides who had given up on scoring with the newlywed blonde in our group.  We stopped several times for a history and home-remedies with plantlife lesson, and once for a fresh coconut water and fruit snack, cut by machete-wielding Sammy. 

Demonstrating one of the uses of a Cutlass machete

That evening, we ran into our fellow North Carolina Segway tourists when we decided to walk up the hill to a different restaurant at Windjammer, Papa Don’s.  Of course, here is where I noticed that the Papa Don’s cat population had the classic tabby pattern instead of the mackerel pattern sported by the cats at the other restaurants.   Judging by the eye roll, I'm not sure Jay was as interested in my discovery. 

 

 

 

Next: Ah! The Spa!