Ready to go?
Oriole
Sun 14 Dec 2008 12:28
Chaguaramas, Trinidad 10:40.76N
61:37.90W
We flew up to Bequia on Monday in a little Dash 7
landing in St Vincent and then taking the ferry across to the island. The
ferries are old Norwgian fjord ferries and not really entirely suitable for this
sometimes very rough crossing. Earlier in the week one of them had broken
down with passengers on board and nearly washed up on the rocks. The
spectre of the Herald of the Free Enterprise is not far away. However
everyone seems to get there ok in true Caribbean style.
The view from the terrace at Whaler's
Lodge.
Don and Cathryn met us at the dock and we were
whisked away to the most delightful house of their friends overlooking the
islands to the south of Bequia - a house and site we had previously admired not
realising that we might ever stay there. We were here for Annette Ridout's
60th birthday celebrations and Don had organised a pre-birthday party the night
before.
Don making sure there was enough to
drink.
A large contingent of revellers had come from
Lymington and had chartered 2 catamarans for a sailing holdiday and there were
other sailing friends who had come on their own bottoms. A few locals came to
the pre-party and the owner of the house and his wife flew in from St Vincent to
the little airstrip just down the road. A very social time ensued and the
assembled company polished off a lot of booze. The birthday party was held
at the small exclusive Firefly at Spring. It was a great day and a full
description and photos can be seen on www.blog.mailasail.com/nordlys
The birthday girl.
During the few free moments we repaired to the
beach, swam and walked and had fish lunches in a quiet beach cafe. It was
sad not to be here in Oriole which was the original
plan.
Evening light over Admiralty
bay
However on our return to Trinidad on Thursday our
missing liferaft was at the airport. Despite the lateness of the hour we managed
to extract it from the bonded
warehouse notwithstanding the bureaucratic obstruction of the
Customs. Today we are going out for sea trials to test all the systems
after our refit and all being well expect to leave this week.