Tour of Bequia

Ile Jeudi
Bob and Lin Griffiths
Mon 24 Feb 2014 21:02
Monday 24 February 2014
 
We took a short, 3 hour bus tour of Bequia with Barry and Robyn from Smart Move and Marie from Mai Tai.  We have been to Bequia several times but never seen more than Admiralty Bay so it was good to see more of the island. 
 
First stop was the fort over Admiralty Bay:-
 
m_Bequia, Bus Tour-001
 
 
 
 
 
 
One of the tourists:-
 
m_Bequia, Bus Tour-006
 
 
 
 
Then on in to the valley in the centre of Bequia which was picturesque in places:-
 
m_Bequia, Bus Tour-012
 
 
 
An old, abandoned sugar plantation:-
 
m_Bequia, Bus Tour-013
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Some of these buildings had been occupied until recently.  Now taken over by bats (one flying near top right of the yellow wall):-
 
 
 
 
We were then taken to the Turtle Sanctuary.  It is legal here to kill turtles for food and the numbers have declined dramatically.  About 20 years ago a local man set up this place to breed more turtles and build up the numbers again.
 
 
 
This one is 18 years old:-
 
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m_Bequia, Bus Tour-037
 
 
 
 
These are somewhat younger:-
 
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We were taken up Mount Pleasant which is a rather nice residential area and then to Friendship Bay in the south of the island.  There used to be a lot of whaling in Bequia but apparently many of the skills have been lost.  A whaling station existed on a small island off Bequia called Semple’s Cay.
 
 
 
A view across Friendship Bay.  There are three islands one in front of the other to the left of the picture, Petit Nevis, Middle Cay and Semple’s Cay with whaling station in the front:-
 
m_Bequia, Bus Tour-045
 
 
It is said that Bequia has given up it’s annual whale quota to China in return for infrastructure investment on the island.  A small whaling museum is being built but is not yet opened.  Our driver took us to see it anyway and we could view a little through the grills.  The whaling boats carried harpoons, machetes, handsaws and other sharp instruments but we were surprised to see just how small the boats were:-
 
m_Bequia, Bus Tour-048
 
 
 
On the way back to Admiralty Bay we were taken via the airport which had been built on reclaimed land.  This apparently is fascinating but not in the slightest to the occupants of this bus but it did pad the time out a bit!
 
Return to Admiralty Bay after a very pleasant few hours:-
 
m_Bequia, Bus Tour-041