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Date: 10 Dec 2008 15:00:00
Title: Carriacou to Bequia (Admiralty Bay) - Tuna and Sundowners
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Weds 10th Dec 08 & 11th Dec 08

Up early after a really good night's sleep.  Time for a quick cuppa and we're off at 7am.  Forecast for ENE winds of 14 knots.  We had the main and headsail up and the donk off by 7.30am, no messing!  And the fishing rod out too - still hoping.  We started off with a good brisk sail just off the wind and doing 6 knots boat speed over the ground.  Heading for Admiralty Bay in Bequia, just 39 miles away.  The sea is a bit lumpy but you can't have it all.  Nice one. 

And wait for it.....we finally caught that illusive fish.  Whoopee!  Just before 10am the line went whizzing through the reel.  Music to our ears!  We slowed the boat down and Jon slowly reeled it in.  We landed a 2Kg (about 4.5 lbs) Yellow Fin Tuna.  Small by usual standards but it'll feed us for a few of days.  Can it get any better than this?!?  Even the seas have calmed down now. 

 
           Easy does it?  Now how do we get it over the dinghy?                                                                Success at last

As we sailed past Union Island and Mayreau we could see Bequia and even St Vincent in the distance.  The winds eased a little later in the day but we still made excellent time.  As we came round West Cay just outside Admiralty Bay we had to tack, the first one all day, and continued to tack our way into the bay before slowing down to drop the sails and motor the last mile into the anchorage.  We even had our photo taken by the local photographer as we came belting in.

                                                           
                                                                                                 Imagine in her element

We anchored on the North side of the bay which was no easy task.  The holding is terrible, sand on rock.  It took 4 attempts and even then we weren't totally happy so we put out the fortress anchor out too.  Had a quick snorkel to check the anchor set and then nipped ashore to clear in.  The prices have gone up since last season.  Used to be 5EC$ per person today up to a max of 35 EC$ even if you stayed for longer than a week.  Now it's 35 EC$ per person regardless.  Plus we had to pay overtime as after 4.30pm which took it up to 105 EC$. Not that much in the scheme of things really, about £26 but we're only staying for a couple of nights so we were a little put out!  It's our most expensive anchorage yet.

Anyway, back to the boat and a quick hi to our neighbours Marian & Elliot on Ostrika and George, Michael & Alex on Blue Sky - we've spotted Cheetah II (Dick & Jane) and Keesje II (Peter & Wendy) as well - before Jon filleted our catch of the day on the back door step (that's the sugar scoop to all you sailors!).  After a quick freshen up we dinghied over to Blue Sky for sundowners.  Turned into a bit of a party in the end with us and Tiger Frightener and later joined by Keesje II, meeting Wendy properly for the first time.  We ended up staying for dinner too and finally wobbled back to Imagine well after dark a little worse for wear!!!

                                                           
                                                                   Messy job but someone has to do it... the Skipper, obviously!

We didn't get up so early the following morning.  Hangovers were in full swing!  Recovered enough later to do a bit a provisioning in town and had a very relaxing time back on the boat for the rest of the day.  We were later invited over to Ostrika for sundowners.  We'd just about recovered to start all over again so no problem.  Not such a late one this time but we had a great time with Elliot and Marian.  They were the couple who gave us a much needed lift in Trinidad.  Great hosts and they gave us a tour of their boat, a beautiful Oyster although they told us it's up for sale at the moment.  Not in our price range me thinks and Imagine would never forgive us!  And so back to the boat and a quick prep ready for leaving tomorrow with Blue Sky for the next island, St Vincent.
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