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:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the tourists:-

 

 

 

 

 

Then on in to the valley in the centre of Bequia which was picturesque in places:-

 

 

 

 

An old, abandoned sugar plantation:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are somewhat younger:-

 

 

 

 

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:-

 

 

 

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:-

 

 

 

 

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:-