Bequia is the start of the Grenadines, a group of small islands south of St. Vincent which offer terrific cruising. It is also one of my favorite anchorges with great beaches and places to explore in the dinghy in addition to a charming town which is awfully nice for shopping and simply walking around.

There are very interesting vehicles which take small groups on tours. They are sort of like converted pick up trucks with covered, open air seating where the bed of the truck used to be. We visited several interesting places:

The Old Hegg Turtle Sanctury -- is privately run by a man named Brother King. Because most newly hatched turtles are eaten by predators, he keeps them for several years so they will have a better chance of survival in the ocean . He works mostly with Hawksbill sea turtles which do not repreduce until they are 25 years old. Since he has been operating the sanctuary for about 15 years, it will be awhile yet before any of the turtles he has released will begin reproducing. I think his work may prove very important because he told us he has been seeing fewer and fewer turtle eggs in the wild in recent years.

A lovely pottery making business operates out of an old estate house, and we picked up a nice gift. When you live on a boat, shopping is an interesting experience. I love to look, but rarely buy anything that isn't a gift because we would soon run out of places to put things.

Snorkeling is surprisingly good in Bequia. I saw an enormous variely of fish and other creatures.

The vegetable market run largely by rasta followers was a unique experience, but not very pleasant because they are such agressive salesmen. This attitude is very unusualy to what I have experienced in other places. Fortunately, there are other places to shop where the experience is much more plesant.