Having a Whale of a Time
17 June 2006 | Admiralty Bay, Bequia
Bequia is part of St Vincent and the Grenadines. It is a small island of sailors, boats and whaling.The old traditions continue, boats are built on the beach in the shade of the palm trees uisng only simple hand tools. The whaling season is between Feruary and April when the Humpback whales come south to mate and bear young. Few people are left in Bequia to hunt them it is quite a daring feat in small wooden open sailboats using hand thrown harpoons. Local whalers can take four whales a year and in most years they don't get any. Admiralty Bay is Bequia's main harbour, it has nice palm lined sandy beaches in the southeastern part of the anchorage and the sleepy little town is in the northern part. A great fruit and vegi market every day and some nice restaurants and small shops to visit. There are also a few model boat shops which have some great wooden boats. The Whalebone Restaurant is great, the doorway is outlined with the ribs of a whale and the barstools are the vertebrae of a whale! The Frangipani and GingerBread House are charming restaurants located along the waterfront.
We pulled into the anchorage and were greeted by Kalani and Sundance, two kid boats we know ! Great! That afternoon we had 12 adults, 11 kids and 2 dogs all playing on the beach! A real fun afternoon. This is the first time we have let Daisy in the water since her accident, she had the time of her life! Plus the fact that St Lucia does not allow dogs off of the boat, so she had to stay on Eira the whole time we were in St Lucia. Every morning and every evening we would take her ashore under the cover of darkness to let her quickly pee and poop! Needless to say she is loving Bequia and its beaches! We did go into town to have lunch and watched the first half of the Brasil-Australia soccer match. Everyone is following the World cup feverishly, it is actually pretty fun! Today we had school in the morning and then Josh(13) and Leah(12) from Triumph of Hope came over to play with the boys. We tried to go to the beach but is has been raining on and off all day, so they watched Pirates of the Caribbean instead! I took my laundry in to get washed, dried and folded and will pick it up later today. We did meet up with a boat which we first met in the marina in Jacksonville Beach, Florida! We were next to them in the marina and have not seen them since November! Cyan is the boats name, yes it is a small cruising world! We had them over for cocktails this evening and caught each other up on our travels!