POSITION: 12:58.4N 061:14.9W

GOODBYE CARRIACOU - AND ON TO BEAUTIFUL BEQUIA

Saturday 7 April 2018 SAIL CARRIACOU FOR BEQUIA with Abes.

0700 Let go the buoy on Sandy Island, single reef main, 1.5 reef genoa.
Squalls coming through midday. 30kts.
1300: Engine for a bit.
1500: tea self-empties in the sink due to excessive heel! ABES's fault of course..
A confused sea, not a pleasant motion once again, right up to the inner harbour in Bequia before relenting.
1600:  on arrival we are led right through the pack of moored boats to a mooring right smack bang outside Frangipani the restaurant, well almost IN the restaurant,  by Tony in his pirogue.
Once again this was not a particularly pleasant sail, but did a good lunch anyway so not bad...

Cockpit solar showers each to amuse the onlookers inches away, then paddle the 10m ashore in Barbara, no engine required here, to the place on the corner for a meal - the only lively-ish looking place. Looking very quiet here in Bequia, even though there are plenty of boats, but quite a few moorings free. Feels like most boats are empty. 
Excellent meal, chicken pots veg.

Monday, 9 April 2018 BEQUIA

Quiet day on board. After lunch (tortilla) we walk to the Customs building to see about getting local driving licences, so we can hire scooters again and be hooligans, but are ridiculously expensive at $100, each! No thanks. 
Milk shakes in Marias.
Back to PW, Abes goes off in Barbara for a swim but forgets to take the small anchor.
Swim around the boat, shower on deck, then Abes is back.
Re- stringing the guitar when two pegs break, then 3 strings come back out, so ends up worse than it was to start with. Dinner in Maria’s - supposedly swordfish. Not convinced. Not bad. Family of four on the next table, the mother fiddling on iPhone ALL night, never looks up not even once, same with the teenagers. Only the father isn’t. No one speaks. Compare this to any French family, or Italian! 

Tuesday 10 April 2018 Move off the mooring, to anchor

Go to Maria’s cafe - favourite breakfast place - where Abes charms Andy the rakish owner sufficiently for him to lend us his beat up 4x4 for the day.
Set off in the truck to the small airport to have a nose, very dead, then back through the town to go to FIREFLY PLANTATION for lunch, a delightful upmarket bar/restaurant created 10 years ago out of the old sugar plantation house, and a beaut job too. Excellent burger & chips, Abes swims in the small garden pool below, we look at some sugar cane still growing there. The place is immaculate. Meet the only other customers, a three generations family of Grandad, son and daughter-in-law I would guess, and twin grandsons. The patriarch is very personable, clearly very well off, and lives on the island part of the year. Aged about 75. His Columbian wife, early forties, spends her time alone just fiddling with her iPhone in the bar area messaging Columbians whilst the twins and granddaughter play in the pool below with their parents.
Drive back, wrong way down a road we are told, no signs, back to Maria’s to hand the keys back, then to Pinball to move off the mooring and go to anchor at the entrance to the large bay. Swim, shower on deck, Sundowners. Abes is in bed by 2015, me a little later, having set two chains and four padlocks on Barbara trailing at the stern, plus moved the solar cockpit light over the top. I love Barbara, alright?

It is a gusty, wild night with very strong and noisy blasts coming through regularly, with some rolling. Wake at midnight and go up top to check security on this wild sounding night, all seems ok but it is not so easy to sleep with the security thing in my head. After all, the ‘pirate’, incident was not that long ago.
Read more of the Para’s D Day adventures on Kindle. VG. Melee of first hand accounts. 0130 back to sleep.

Wednesday, 11 April 2018 AT ANCHOR ADMIRALTY BAY BEQUIA

Dawn brings reassurance. Still windy out here as the trade winds funnel through the gap upwind leading down into Admiralty Bay. Banana cake for breakfast - bought by Abes from the boat-boy early yesterday, together with some rather solid croissants. In later for a coffee at Maria’s.

Thursday, 12 April 2018 LAST DAY AT BEQUIA?

Still pretty windy, gusty.
Woke at 7. Abes was up, as usual, making tea. Then off with a splash for his swim to the beach and back.
Terrific blasts coming through regularly, then back to 6-10kts. I never could quite understand how a parcel of air can be screaming along at gale force right next to air thats virtually stationary.