Day 1 – Settling In

Yesterday was our orientation visit and the first chance to find out the extent of the Rabot Estate. This is where my photos simply cannot do justice to the absolutely breathtaking scenery that is Hotel Chocolat, St Lucia.

We headed up to the top of the ridge, where the main hotel is going to be built, a few years from now. These are the views that guests will have. A little bit of heaven in from their own balconies. There’s something positively spiritual about standing up there, on top of the world, looking around at ‘big nature’.

Almost everything you see here is Rabot Estate.

Phil painted the picture for us (at some length, I might add) as we stood among the cabbages!

The cabbages belong to one of the estate workers who is making the most of the land for the time being. Sadly, for him, in a few years time, his cabbage patch will be our infinity pool. Imagine floating on the edge here with that awesome background. “We aspire to take you to an escapist sanctuary in your mind…” It’s all there.

Coming back down to earth, we re-traced the footsteps of Prince Charles and looked at the factory site. Work is going to commence quite soon, and of course, the first turf has already been dug, courtesy of our Royal visitor. Phil made us chuckle with this scene, as he drily commented, “Angus says that’s flat, that bit. Flat. Huh.”

Matt was still bouncing around far too much, so we put him on the naughty step and headed back for another mighty feast of cacao cuisine. I will do a full posting on food another day, don’t worry.

En route we stopped off to get a snap of the cool dude security boys, Robbie (left) and Dandy. I told you the hats were splendid. I want one!

Angus, Peter and Phil had a business meeting in the afternoon, so us kids, under the responsible supervision of PK, were allowed to go to the beach. We headed down to Anse Chastanet, which is a lovely little spot, at the wrong end of a hideous, bumpy road.

Now, if there’s one thing that is clearly understood by everyone in the world (with the possible exception of the Italians and the Germans), it has to be the NO SPEEDOS ON THE BEACH rule, doesn’t it? So it is with some degree of shame and disappointment that I have to tell you now that one of our number wagged up in a skimpy little pair of budgie smugglers. To protect his professional reputation I won’t reveal any names, but suffice to say that none of us accepted his lame excuse, “But they’re from Marc Jacobs…” as a reasonable defence. The photos are not being published in the name of decency.

Well, bouncy boy Margereson finally ran out of energy and fell fast asleep in the hot sunshine, while Heather, Fredrik, Peter and I headed straight into the sea. That’s Peter waving in the foreground, and the blob on the left just behind him is Heather. Poor old Fredrik had just done a vertical take-off, accompanied by a yelp and some colourful expletives. I looked under the (crystal clear) water and saw the hugest crab scuttling away from the area. Fredrik was subjected to claw waving crab impressions for the rest of the evening. We are having the best ever time with our team bonding, I must say. It’s actually incredibly rare for all of us to sit down together and relax, and we’re finding out that we are pretty good friends as well as business colleagues.

OK, so what does Day 2 have in store for us? As I write this, it’s about 5 in the morning – the jetlag having woken me at 3 today. There has been a torrential thunderstorm which is still raging now. The elements are very powerful here and the rain is falling in sheets. Our agenda for the day is a catamaran trip with the government officials who are so interested in and supportive of Hotel Chocolat’s investment on the island. I have a feeling there are going be some more drowned rats to add to Phil’s growing collection! (Bet he’s never had one in Marc Jacobs speedos though!)