Grown Ups Gap Year

Bequia, pronounced Becway, is the second largest island in the St Vincent Grenadines but it still only 7 square miles (18 km2). Bequia means "island of the clouds" in the ancient Arawak language of the original Caribs. Bequia has two major busy periods, the Easter sailing Regatta and the Bequia music festival and we were fortunate to be here during the 5-day music festival. Bequia is yet another one of the islands in the area that has been under the control of the French and British at different times and the buildings again showed a French feel to their architecture especially through the use of gingerbread style wood work on the fascias around Port Elizabeth tourist areas.

The anchorage we were in was in Admiralty Bay by Port Elizabeth and is a large secure anchorage on the leeward side of the island served by plenty of bars, market stalls, hotels and the many dinghy docks that are often outside a bar to encourage you to use them. We, of course, made use of the one by the ice cream shop! With the music festival on there was a large number of yachts anchored in the bay but also the occasional cruise liner that comes in for a day and we had two visit during our stay. The cruise liners fortunately do not discharge all their passengers in one go as the island would not cope, but appear to unload a set of passengers every 20 minutes and give them 2 hours before picking them up again when dropping a later lot of passengers off.

We arrived early afternoon and after, of course, diving to check the holding of the anchor, we headed ashore with the main sail to find the local sail repair shop, Grenadines Sails. Google maps helped us to get almost there but we required local knowledge to get us the final 50m. Dropping the sail off we were surprisingly told that it would be ready the following afternoon after discussing how the repair would be done. A new 3" piece of sail was sewn on to the rear of the sail but inside the luff rope pocket for strength. This required the luff rope pocket to be unpicked on one side completely, the new strip inserted, and it all sewn back together using a three step zig-zag stitch. There are a couple of photos to show the repair and sail back in place.

Whilst on the island we have done the usual exploring and visiting the places the normal tourist will not visit. The first day of exploring we initially walked past the sail makers and onto the fort that overlooked Admiralty Bay and Mirage. Again it was an obvious reason why the fort was here with the panoramic views. Fort Hamilton was a British fort, a seemingly modest stronghold constructed in the 1700s atop a 300 foot-high hill that rests at the extreme northwestern arc of Admiralty Bay. There are literally just a handful of old cannons here, propped up against a short stone wall - probably three feet in height - with a stone patio not more than a few feet wide itself. A small wooden gazebo gives shelter from the sun but also provides space for a tourist trinket seller to lodge. No towering walls or parapets; no ancient dungeons or other old artefacts, besides the aforementioned artillery. Really it's just a few cannons by a patio on a hilltop... but what a hilltop! Ironically Fort Hamilton is named after Alexander Hamilton, an American, though he never actually set foot in Bequia! According to local tradition, during the late 1700s, a misfired cannon aimed at an enemy ship split the island's south western tip in two smaller cays but I can't see a cannon from that period doing that level of damage!

Port Elizabeth is the main port on the Island with at least 2 ferries coming in each day as nearly everything has to be imported into the island from St Vincent. This makes the island an expensive provisioning experience, but we are convinced, more so on this island than on others, that there two tariffs for food from the market stalls. Trying to support the locals we try to buy fresh produce from them and not the supermarket chains. However after being charged almost a £1 per tomato on a stall we weren't too impressed, whilst we don't mind paying slightly more we dislike being blatently ripped off!

"Front Street," as the main road along the Port Elizabeth waterfront is known, is the centre of activity: from the island's administration building, that we used to clear out of customs and immigration, and post office to the vegetable market which is also known as the Rasta Market. We walked along the "front Street" passing the historic St Mary's Anglican church which was rebuilt after a hurricane in 1829 and the usual Caribbean mixture of food, bars, hardware and tourist shops. The walk from Port Elizabeth to the beach, Princess Margaret Beach, is along a mixture of concrete paths and wooden bridges built over the water as the rock face prevents a single continuous path. Princess Margaret Beach is the island's most famous swimming spot and had good snorkelling on one side along rocks. When you walk along the footpath you pass many different street vendors definitely aimed at the tourist trade and visiting cruise liners, selling the typical Caribbean Island tourist fare such as shell necklaces, wooden turtles, tee-shirts etc., but often with a slight Whale bias of the island. Princess Margaret Beach was renamed after the Queens sister, Princess Margaret, who was a regular visitor during the 50's and 60's as she often stayed on the adjacent island of Mustique.

Bequia is one of the few places in the world where limited whaling is still allowed. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) classifies the island's hunt under the regulations concerning aboriginal whaling and Bequia fishermen are allowed to catch up to four humpback whales per year using only traditional hunting methods of hand-thrown harpoons in small, open sailboats. These are big island events and when we walked to Paget Farm, which has the airport and the fishing port nearby, there were signs of whaling with a museum dedicated to the history of whaling, as well as small wooden box trailers with Japanese writing where the whales are probably exported to. One of the bars on "Front Street" called "Whale Boner" uses very old vertebrate from whales as stools and other whale bones as decor. The Bequia flag has a whale character on it. Further on our walk we spotted an island with what could only be described as a pair of garages with a slip way to the sea and after talking to a local fisherman were told this is where the whales are processed after catching.

Unfortunately because we had stopped for lunch when we returned past the fishing port we had missed the opportunity of getting some fresh fish directly from the fishermen as they sensibly had gone home after no doubt being out before dawn. My fishing attempts have not proved overly successful. The boats the fishermen and the boat boys use are made from sheets of plywood that are cut to size, nailed, glued together and then painted in the brightest colour possible complete with motifs and boat names and are pretty much universal across the Caribbean. The final 'piece de resistance' is the biggest outboard motor they can fit! These boats are often no more than 8m long and when talking to the fishermen go 40 miles offshore to fish in some places.

One of our walks we walked to the turtle sanctuary, unfortunately closed, but again it allowed us to find a completely empty Caribbean beach all to ourselves for a swim but the big bonus was the coconut palms complete with freshly fallen coconuts. With only a small penknife with us, and not the machete the locals carry, it took a while to get at the fresh coconut water and then onto the flesh within the nut and Des I hope you recognise the knife! The photos show my efforts!

We ended up staying in Bequia for a week and during this time we were very fortunate to meet both new and old friends. This included an impromptu BBQ on the beach arranged by a South African chap originally born in Dorset (so the complete reverse of me who was born in South Africa and now lives in Dorset!) where around 25 people turn up each bringing a dish to spare along with their meat.

We also met up with a couple we had originally met in Barbados who came for Christmas dinner, as well as the great couple from Australia/New Zealand on Quokka2, the cameraman. Julian and Debs not only invited us on board for yet another fabulous meal cooked by Julian but also informed us they had been making fresh water on the way over so were could use their washing machine and have a shower on board!

Whilst in the anchorage we were introduced to fellow Moody owners, Tracy and Richard from Barrow-in-Furness, who were very similar in age to Sally and I and are doing a very similar type year away as us who were great company as they have a very similar outlook to us.

As mentioned previously the Bequia music fest 2020 was on with a complete mixture of music and the majority of venues within a short dingy distance of Mirage. The festival started on the 28th Jan and went through until 2nd Feb, our final full day. Although we didn't go to all the events, as many were ticket only, we were able to listen from the anchorage quite easily. After the impromptu BBQ Sally and I went to watch "The Elite Steel Orchestra" a 14 piece band at the Frangipani Hotel over looking the anchorage. The Orchestra are from St Vincent and is a band that teaches the local kids steel band music, they have to practice every day throughout the year and to get into the actual orchestra they audition via feeder schools. The youngest member was 14 and the oldest was 22. They played a 2 1/2 hour set with almost no break in between renditions which included dancing whilst playing. They played a complete mixture of music some that was recognisable such as Ed Sheeran and Adele to others that may have been there own speciality tunes to show their ability to the full. You can't help but dance to the music and we spent a lot of time on the sandy dance floor and Sally was a popular partner to the local dancers as the photos show, all her inhibitions left on Mirage!

We used Bequia to clear out of customs and immigration for the St Vincent group of islands as it was an easier place than anywhere in St Vincent, however we did anchor in St Vinscent on our way through to St Lucia to pick up Becs. The anchorage we chose was around two-thirds up the island at Chateaubelair, a large fishing village flanked by the tropical forest of the island and just south of the volcano of Soufrière. St Vincent is the "Garden of Eden" island and produces much of the fruit and vegetables for the local islands as due to the height and size of the island it is able to produce it's own weather system with plenty of rain. Soufrière can produce strong winds in the anchorage but we were fortunate on the night we stayed unlike our friends, Tim and Julie, who had 50 knot gusts. Unfortunately St Vincent has a bad reputation for yacht crime over the last decade so puts cruisers off visiting the Island.