Admiralty Bay in Bequia is a great spot - we've been here for nearly a week. The water is incredibly clear, and we have 3 beaches and 2 good snorkeling spots we can reach with a short dinghy ride. There is a small town with decent markets, including a few specialty shops targeted at cruisers that offer fresh baguettes, fritos, Heinekens and other essentials. We've become friends with several different boats in the bay, and just about every sunset we are on the beach with a dozen kids and adults having a great time.
Bequia is part of the St. Vincent Grenadines, a chain of mostly quiet islands offering not much more than sand, clear water, snorkeling and friendly people. Oh, and no snowstorms or 80 knot winds. We plan to spend more time here!
According to the calendar, we are more than halfway through our trip. So pretty soon we'll be turning around and heading back north, probably after a visit to Grenada, which we hear is great.
Thanks for checking out our blog - more soon!
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02/13/2010, Le Marin, Martinique
No, we haven't seen any real pirates, however, we have visited many of the sites on Dominica where the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were filmed. Since we hadn't seen the 2nd and 3rd movies in a long time, we had to brush up on our movie knowledge to understand what we were seeing. We have a few photos from the black sand beach where the Black Pearl washed up - and it was by vote of everyone on board our favorite beach yet! We actually felt it was more like Gilligan's island - along with other boat families: Bojangles and Free Spirit. The kids built rafts in the beautiful river leading to the crashing beach, and collected bamboo, palm fronds and vines to build a hut. The men couldn't help themselves and joined in the building of the lean-to, while the women made sure that everyone shampooed and got clean in the delicious fresh water (a real treat for us sailors!!).
On the south side of the island, we connected with a couple on the catamaran Hands Across the Sea who we had originally met in Bermuda oh so long ago. Their mission is to help out schools down here with supplies as well as providing their skills and time for projects. Our friends on Stolen Hour had already managed to do some volunteer work with a few schools in the area of Roseau, and Jen was able to help one day with painting a lunch room at one of the local primary schools. They will be collecting more books for schools to pick up in Newport this summer - so if anyone has some books to donate, please let us know - we will try and collect them and make sure they get to the kids who can really use them! Check out their website too at: www.handsacrossthesea.net
We spent the remainder of our time in Dominica on ADVENTURE. Along with Stolen Hour, we finally did an afternoon ropes/zip-lining course in the jungle for Peter's birthday. The 8 of us had the place to ourselves, and really enjoyed seeing the forest from a different perspective! Zipping over the river on a long zip-line at the end was the best, and everyone received a certificate stating that we had completed the course. The next day was a full-day adventure and tour with our guide - SeaCat. We hiked up to several impressive waterfalls, and had a proper Rastafarian pumpkin soup prepared for us for lunch after our exertions. Scott and Peter climbed up part of the waterfall at Victoria Falls and jumped into the water - and I'm happy to report, they both survived. The water is so fresh and clean coming from these waterfalls, that as we crossed the rivers many times, Matthew would just bend over and drink the cool liquid. Again, the fresh water was such a treat!!
We came home from those several day outings with a plethora of grapefruit, coconuts, starfruit, oranges, and many other fruits that I have no names for. All just dropping from the trees into our hands. This island truly could be the garden of Eden!
Then, it was time to move on to Martinique, although we hope to go back to Dominica to explore even more when we turn back north. We were sad to leave all the fresh produce, but happy to be back in the french islands where they provide us with croissants and baguettes! This is truly a french speaking island - our junior high french classes are coming in handy - although we realize how much we cannot say! We spent a few days in the lovely village of St. Pierre, in the shadow of the Mt. Pelee volcano which wiped out the town in 1902, killing all but 3 of the 30,000 inhabitants! It was interesting to see the town rebuilt on top of the ruins from the eruption (it was mostly the poisonous gasses which killed the masses), and we explored the old theater and prison whose thick walls managed to protect a prisoner who survived the eruption. We also toured a local rum factory, and were able to see the entire process by which rum was made. The popular local drink is called ti-punch, a mix of cane syrup, rum and ice - which has become a new favorite on board Safari Tu!
Now we have made our way to the southern part of the island where we just were hauled out to have our original refurbished max prop put back on the boat (you might recall the trouble we had getting to Bermuda...) and are dealing with many other boat maintenance projects. Our timing here is perfect, as it is Carnival time. Carnival activities have been warming up since we arrived here, but the real deal is this coming week - stay tuned for the photos of those festivities in our next blog update.
We plan to continue south to St. Lucia, and then on to the Grenadines - so we send many warm thoughts your way! We'd love to hear from you - feel free to leave comments on the blog!
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Still want to hear Anna's song from a few weeks ago. Maybe over skype :-).
02/13/2010, En route
C atch a Mahi-Mahi
A lways warm
R eally steep roads
I see lots of tourists
B oats everywhere
B ig volcanoes and mountains
E ating different kinds of food all the time
A lways something to do
N ice snorkeling and diving
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Dominica is all that we had heard it was going to be. This is truly a land of riches! It started when we arrived and were met by the friendly Martin, our designated boat "boy". (hardly a boy... he is our age!) He greeted us with a bunch of local flowers and made us feel very welcome indeed. Next on the scene was Junior - our fruit boy. He arrived and sold us heaps of passion fruit and fresh mangoes - YUM!! Martin then helped us with our clearing in, and we felt incredibly settled and relaxed after a wild ride and crazy anchorage in Isles des Saintes, Guadeloupe. Just a quick post to let you know that the photo gallery has been updated with photos from all our recent outings. Most of our story is told there. We have really enjoyed this part of our trip - lots of hiking and swimming and hanging out with friends. We've managed a few kids sleepovers, are trying to get school done and are keeping ourselves healthy. We avoided any problems associated with the Haitian disaster, and our hearts go out to that country during this crisis. We are more immediately concerned with the volcanic activity on Montserrat - but plan to be moving out of this area and on to Guadeloupe tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for all the latest updates! We had a perfect weather window to go to Saba island last week - a very small island with a very big heart! The photo is of the kids approaching the island. We had a great hike up to the summit with our guide: Crocodile James. We went with our friends from Stolen Hour and Chasseur - and a good time was had by all. Then we all had a great sail over to St. Kitts - and have been enjoying this lovely island for a few days. Debating going to the sister island of Nevis over the next few days and then moving on to Antigua. Just a brief update as our internet connections are few and far between. We'll update more from Antigua in about a week!
We have been traveling in tandem for a short while with Bojangles IV (of Caribbean 1500 fame if you follow these things...), and Shining Time - both kid boats. We arranged to do a tour on the Indian River with these families for our first day on the island. Martin was our guide up river - and being a botanist, and local knowledge expert, it was an extremely informative journey - one that kept everyone entertained! Dominica was the site where several bits of the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie was filmed, so this is extremely cool for the kids. Now we just have to see that movie again so we can imagine them filming it here!
The produce here is amazing - market day was field day for us - 10 star fruit for a dollar - it just doesn't get any better than this!! Grapefruit are dropping off the trees, and the kids have been eating cocoa fruit, among many other new things!! The island is incredibly lush, and the highlight so far was a day long tour of the northern tip of the island yesterday, at Hampstead Beach. This was a huge black sand beach littered with bamboo, driftwood, coconuts, and palm fronds, directly adjacent to a lovely fresh water river. Kids and adults shampooed in the river, then proceeded to build a raft and hut out of the available products on the beach. Gilligan's Island was recreated here.
Lots of new photos in the photo gallery - and more to come!! And in case you were wondering - we are NOT missing winter.
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Comments [5]
Comments [1]
2. We miss you all.
3. We especially miss sticker girl.
4. I love your blog and pictures.
5. Thank you for sharing this with all of us.
6. Chester says "meow"
