Basking in Bequia
18 December 2017 | Bequia, St Vincent and the Grenadines
This episode of the blog comes to you from Admiralty Bay in Bequia, two islands down from St Lucia and part of St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Last night was spent on a mooring at Marigot Bay; not a terribly peaceful night, as there were party boats steaming in and out ("Sweet Car-o-line - oh oh oh..."), water taxis ducking and diving around at great speed, and frequent but brief torrential rain. This didn't stop us having a pleasant supper on deck and an early night, with the prospect of an early start in the morning. Oh, and a note for some of our readers: we've now tried rum and local ginger, and what a combination that is!
So, it was up with the frigate bird, and off for the south. An extremely energetic sail, with winds ranging from 6kts to 26kts, and we were reefing and double reefing and unreefing constantly as the gusts and squalls came in. It was also a very fast sail (most of the time) with boat speeds up to 8.5 kts on the reach. We sailed down the coast of St Lucia, across the St Vincent Channel with its big winds and cross-current, down the coast of St Vincent and then roared down to Bequia. We were greeted by a local photographer in his dinghy, who comes out to photograph every arriving boat - very enterprising. Next challenge - where to park? We were guided by a motherly lady called Didi Patricia to a good solid looking buoy, and having taken our lines she then took Graham ashore to deal with immigration and customs. On his return, several EC$ lighter, G dived to check the buoy - we've been warned that they are of very variable quality.
We had a fair bit of pestering by boat boys in Marigot, and now have huge supplies of very good fruit as we seem to buy from them all in the interests of fairness. No pestering here - just a couple of lads coming by with leaflets offering laundry, diesel, water and fresh baked bread.
Well, the sun has set, so that's us signing off for now.
Today's Picture is of the famous Pitons at the south end of St Lucia.