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17.01 12:37.90N
61:21.37W
So. Robert and Caroline my cousins arrived last
Wednesday, and after a day out seeing the sights of Soufriere we left for a nice
little sail down to Bequia. I'd almost forgotten what it's like sailing
into wind! Bequia is a little island, one of the Grenadines, with a big
bay full of boats. it appears to be THE place everybody goes to when
they leave St Lucia - I think about half of the ARC boats
seem to have spent New Year here. Port Elisabeth, the main town, is a
bustling little collection of colourful restaurants, boutique shops and other
tourist trappings. The Veg market seems to be a particular treat.
Generally these places are the best for buying vegetables, but this
one is populated by about 12 stoned Rastafarians, who each have their
own stall, each selling pretty much the same thing, but for a variety of
different (unmarked) prices. There is a sign on the wall which reads
something along the lines of 'We the stall holders respect the right
of the customers to chose what they want to buy, and who they want to buy
it from, and we won't hassle or harass them for example by trying to push food
into their mouths'. The problem is that none of the stall holders seem to
have read this sign, especially the ones just outside the market
building, who freely admit that they will hassle you as much as they like,
cos the sign only applies to those inside. Caroline and I nearly caused a
riot by only going there to buy tomatoes - we got these from one stall and all
the other stall holders demanded to know what we were going to buy
from THEIR stall. I was wondering why there were no
customers in there...
We also bumped into Chris and Carol from
Phillipides III who had decided to go for a taxi tour of the island. The
problem with travelling by boat is that you get to see a lot of coast, and not
much else of the island. So we jumped in with them. Our tour took us
up to one of the many forts which populate the Caribbean. I get the
feeling that the eternal squabbles of the last 300 years between England and
France must have got a bit wearing for the locals. But you do get a
fantastic view from the top of the hills. Then we visited a pottery run by
an English couple who have managed to organise their lives to live half the year
in France, and half the year here. I can't say I was that interested in
any of their stuff, but what a way to live! Then we went to a turtle
'sanctuary' on the Atlantic side. I'm afraid to say that none of us were
very impressed by this place. It is run by a guy who appeared to be white,
but who was pulling off some serious Rasta accent. Up to him I
guess. The turtles were housed in concrete tanks of various sizes, some
quite generous and some distinctly not. There was also a section at the
end with tortoises - similarly square and boring with not much for them to
do. He explained that he collected turtle eggs from the beach and hatched
them out here. He then kept them till they were about 6 years old (about
15 inches in diameter, and hopefully big enough to get away from potential
locals intent on making them into soup) and released them back into the Atlantic
ocean. That's it - from concrete tank straight into wild ocean, no
rehabilitation that we could see. If that
weren't bad enough, some of them were clearly bigger than
this, one of which he described as 'a pet which the kids take for a swim on
a lead'. Hmmmmmmm. As far as I know, all turtle species are
protected, which makes collecting their eggs an offense. So someone in
authority must know that he does this, (unless they don't know at all which
would be difficult cos he's in all the guide books) but why don't they do
something about the fact that his facilities are clearly inadequate? I'm
going to stop there before I get cross.
  our excellent day trip taxi, purpose built for
taking tourists on day Tobago Cays.
Basically it would be heaven if only all these other
trips round the island. Complete with
driver-cum-tour
guide. boats
would just buzz off!
After Bequia, we called in briefly to Canouan, A
small island with some good snorkelling in the bay. It was a quiet relief
after the throng of Port Elisabeth. We went for a bit of a
walk and low and behold nearly tripped over a wild tortoise, who seemed to
be much happier than them in the 'sanctuary', on account of having a bush to
vanish under once I had stopped trying to say hello to him. There's not
much on Canouan to visit, largely because some Italian bunch have bought the
North half of the island to stick a whacking great resort on. Usual story:
gated community, private beaches, golf courses which require so much watering
that the locals don't have enough water to drink in the dry season (yes,
really). It's difficult to see how they benefit from this kind of tourism,
but I must admit I didn't actually ask any of them.
So now here we are anchored in the Tobago
Cays. Robert has described this place as 'the most beautiful place he has
ever been'. Slight over enthusiasm there, but only slight really.
It's basically a collection of half a dozen small, low lying, uninhabited
islands, with a series of coral reefs on the east side so the sea is
really well protected and quite calm, even when the wind is blowing 20kts which
it is. The approach is somewhat hairy through a very narrow
channel in the under water and therefore invisible reefs - yet again
technology rules as it would be completely ulcer inducing territory
without a chart plotter. We made our way into the crowded anchorage, and
immediately noticed that there were people snorkelling everywhere, and we
weren't even on the reef. Suddenly Caroline started squeaking 'turtle!
turtle!' as one popped it's head lazily out of the water, just for a second, and
dived again. it wasn't long before we were all in the water, in turtle
heaven. Every where you look there's a turtle. or two. And
they are magic. Life is conducted at a slow pace, with eyes only
as far open is as strictly necessary to see the grass that you are eating, or
the group of adoring fans who are desperate to follow you
around. It's just as well these guys are so laid back, or I'm sure
they'd get completely sick of tourists. Mind you, a leisurely flap of the
fins and they are gone, and you have to swim quite hard to keep up.
 
Total and unashamed
turtle indulgence. when we work out how to display our videos of them, you
can see them too. watch this space.
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