And HOT doesn’t refer to the weather, which yes, is lovely and hot, but…

Based upon a delicious dinner of “Colombo” on Baidarka, while on Guadaloupe at Deshaies Harbor, and Bill introducing us to the “cooking peppers” commonly used in most E Caribbean dishes, Roberta purchased a bag of little round-ish red and green cooking peppers about the size of a ping pong ball. And then used a red one to spice up dinner that night. She got more than she bargained for! Dinner was delicious, if a bit hotter than we thought it might be, but we both like spicy food. However…

… shortly into the meal, her fingers and hands started stinging. She had already washed them once, but ran them in cold water again. After dry, still stinging. More washing. Still stinging. Trying to “just put up with it” she let it go until she unconsciously put one finger in her mouth to try to relieve the sting. It did – on her finger – but then her tongue got hot! SO back to the sink and this time, for about 5 minutes with the scrub brush. Got most of it and aloe lotion followed by cortisone cream did the rest. WHEW!

She is still using the cooking peppers in just about everything, but is now holding them with either a thrice-folded paper towel, or a fork to cut them, and only using about 1/3 of the pepper. And rinsing off the knife and cutting board immediately before any juice gets on her or anything else! OUCH!

We have thoroughly enjoyed Bequia, and ended up staying over a week. It was just nice to be there, to be stopped awhile, to rest, see some of the island and do some chores (Roberta made an awning for the forward hatch so we could leave it open in the rain, Michael made a new flag pole as we lost ours in the spicy crossing to Rodney Bay, and we made a calabash lampshade and 2 bowls!). We hope to come back in the fall and get scuba certified.

Bequia is a beautiful, friendly island, with a safe, easy harbor, and a small town that has lots of amenities – bank, chandlery, gourmet groceries, great fruit/veg market, good snorkeling, and of course, the bars, restaurants and tourist shops. The waterfront has a walkway along it, in front of the businesses and is a pleasant place to walk and then sit in the garden of “Gingerbread” (a bakery, restaurant, hotel) or at the Fig Tree restaurant, or at Tommy’s (Mexican food!) to do internet and have a cold soda or beer.

We walked north over the mountain to go see the Turtle Sanctuary and Mr King, who has spent his retirement building it and rescuing Hawksbill Sea Turtles. We stopped on the way back for a delicious lunch on a lovely, cool terrace at Firefly. Roberta walked straight over the mountain to Friendship Bay and then up over another head to see the blow hole with friends on Troubador and Amoray, and then we had Troubador, Amoray, andnew friends Miclo III over for an evening on Celilo. We have made friends with Doris at her gourmet grocery, Allick at his sail/canvas shop, proprietress Cheryl at the Fig Tree, who runs the cruisers net and with Joseph the sweet man who comes by in his little blue and yellow boat P-Nut and who is the chef for an awesome fish fry at Fig Tree on Fridays. We’ll be back in the fall…

Then we headed for Union Island with many other boats, as we have a nice break in the hot, sultry, and squally weather we have been having, and the trades are down a bit. At Union we went beach-bar-hopping (3 bars), walking from one to the next at the edge of the water, and had a great dinner at the last one. At the second one, one new friend Chris from Troubadour, knew the proprietor from a previous visit. His name is Pleasure. Anyway, he and Chris played guitar together, and then Pleasure's stepson joined in with a drum. It was very cool to sit there at a little ramshackle beach shack bar and listen.

Today we had a lovely, long sail - well until the last couple of hours - to Grenada... to the south end, and are now below 12 degrees lat. WOW! Can hardly believe we are this far south… a lot of miles since Nova Scotia!!!!

We had the engine on to charge the batteries and run the water-maker when we first started out, then turned it off so we could hear the weather forecast on SSB and sail, then when we went to turn it back on, it wouldn't! AAACCKKK! First time EVER that the engine didn't start right up with the first turn of the key. M took a deep breath, after swearing for a few minutes, and remembered his Idiots Guide to Volkswagen advice to whack the starter with a hammer. So he did, and it did. Started. WHEW! A new starter may be in our future...

We are in Prickly Bay. Right now we are sitting in a marina bar with great wifi, listening to the band set up (which will play at 9pm). They are really good with a fabulous singer (pretty young woman)... and I am sure we will hear them from the boat at anchor several 100 yards away! And now, here come the steel drums to start the evening off... Steel drums playing "I will always love you,"... stars, sea, sailboats, sitting here with my sweetie - pinch me.

Tomorrow, maybe, we will head around the corner to a less roly bay where we may spend several weeks at anchor (unless we get antsy and head off to another island!) while we tour Grenada and do some boat chores (the stainless, snaps and zippers are calling, no shrieking, at me), before heading down to Trinidad with Miclo III at the end of June - or maybe later.

We'll be in touch - hope you will be too!