Bequia

Bequia is the little island just south of St. Vincent. Its charm is legendary among cruisers, and we certainly weren't disappointed. It was a bit of a slog against the wind to get to Port Elizabeth and Admiralty Bay on Bequia, so it was almost sunset when we arrived. We spotted Salt Dragon immediately and anchored nearby, but no one answered our hail on the radio, so we had a quiet evening and sent Moira an e-mail to let her know we were there. That was March 10^th. I'm not sure where the days went after that, but we stayed until the 19^th.

The next morning we had coffee with Moira and Shane aboard Salt Dragon and learned that Moira had quit her job as a constable in North Ireland in favor of cruising the Caribbean. Wow! She already has a delivery gig lined up for a bit later in the season, and I'm sure she'll be able to do as much of that kind of thing as she wants. Her kids are grown, so why not? Besides the big news, we also got the scoop on where to drop trash, where to provision, where to leave the dinghy, and so on.

The town of Port Elizabeth looks like a colorful Caribbean postcard with gingerbread trim. Many of the wooden buildings have fancy woodwork trim, and one small resort is even called the Gingerbread Inn. There are flowers everywhere, the buildings are generally well-maintained, and the streets are clean. You can get most provisions in town, and what isn't available in Port Elizabeth can be found in Kingstown on the island of St. Vincent, just a one-hour ferry ride away.

A view of Bequia

Moira found this fresh chicken place, but they weren't open.

We took the ferry one day with Moira and Shane to have a look around and visit the botanical gardens, the oldest in the Caribbean. Shane and Moira hadn't been to the gardens before, and we all thought it was worth the look. Our guide, Sinclair, was quite knowledgeable and entertaining. He even got us into the enclosure where they are breeding and raising St. Vincent parrots. The idea is that they will be able to repopulate the wild parrots in case their numbers drop too low. We also took the opportunity to shop for things we hadn't been able to find on Bequia.

Ferries at the dock in Bequia

Sinclair, our garden guide

Water lily

Shane with a parrot

Shopping expedition

Mostly our days were lazy, punctuated by trips ashore to drop off trash or buy provisions. We wouldn't even have needed to do that because the water taxi guys are eager to take care of the people on the boats. Daffodil delivers fuel (both diesel and gas), water, ice, and laundry, but we got our fuel, water and last ice at the big orange boat, Kingfisher, and used Miranda's Laundry once for our sheets and towels. You can also call on Channel 68 for the bread man to have baguettes, croissants and banana bread delivered.

I went snorkeling several times with Moira, and John joined us the last day there. We saw lots of fish, but I'll have to see if I can find them on the Internet because I don't know what most of them were. Moira knew lots of the names, but I forget most of them. I know we saw a snake eel several times, as well as a scorpion fish once, along with the prettier ones.

Returning from snorkeling

We also went out to eat relatively frequently. First, John was craving pizza, so we went to Mack's, which was really good. It's on the Belmont Walkway, a paved path along the beach. Tommy's Cantina has decent Mexican food and free Wi-Fi, which we used before we bought our month pass for HotHotHotSpot. (This service is available on several islands, including Guadeloupe, Dominica and Antigua, so it was worth getting a full month.) On Sunday we went with Shane and Moira to Coco's Place for the all-you-can-eat buffet, which was good but we probably wouldn't repeat it. Tuesday night was drinks at Jack's Bar for the live music. That was an easy trip for us because we were anchored not too far off shore from there. And Friday night we went with everyone to Sabrina's place near the airport for shark. Everyone is the usual quartet plus Al from Bombay Sapphire, who was just back from Scotland.

It was easy to tell that most of the same people would be there next year. The more often you return, the more you become part of the local scene. I think the same is true with Grenada. Both are easy places to be. Why hurry off?