Bequia with reggae.
Oriole
Sun 24 Mar 2013 16:47
Admiralty Bay, Bequia, St Vincent and the
Grenadines.
13:00.53N 61:14.312W
The winds became light again last week and we
waited until Sunday to nip down to Rodney Bay, St Lucia, and then straight on to
Bequia on Monday. However down the bottom end of St Lucia, where we
were expecting to find a good sailing breeze, we had to motor until at least
five miles clear of the island before the wind filled in. After that we
had 15-20 knots on the beam with the usual wind acceleration as we approached
the north end of St Vincent, where the ganja grows copiously on the steep
mountain slopes under the auspices of the blind government eye.
Bequia seemed full of friends as we arrived, with
five yachts with whom we are particularly friendly and a couple from Noss Mayo
with friends from Plymstock staying ashore. It has been a mad social scene
and our livers and waist lines have not benefitted but we have tried to
burn off the worst of the excesses with some vigorous exercise, swimming and
walking. With more friends coming north the problem is not going to go
away for a few days yet.
This week's rant is about the nightly noise in
Bequia, where various bars and clubs in turn and sometimes in unison play really
loud amplified reggae and other unrecognisable sounds until the not very
early hours of the morning. Even the locals are starting to complain about
their disturbed sleep, so hopefully this problem will be sorted before too
long. Bequia, however, is not alone and increasingly, with the
availability of inexpensive amplification systems and the West Indian
love of loud music, anchorages up and down the islands are becoming noise
blighted. Fortunately there are some notable exceptions and here the
French amazingly come in for some praise and Antigua and no doubt some others
are still tastefully quiet!!
The whale boat in Friendship Bay ready
to go.
The local whalers, who are allowed to catch four
whales each year, caught two last week. The rules state that this has to
be done under sail with hand harpoons and is a really dangerous game. One
of the whalers showed us some photographs of the whale they caught last week
sounding alongside the whale boat in a mass of spray, wave and lashing
tail. As he put it, "One can lose one's life at any moment".
Whatever one thinks about whaling, this very small scale hunting is a
great tradition for this tiny island. There are accounts of the harpooner
jumping onto the back of the whale to deliver the coup de grace! The
butchering however is a bloody procedure.
Our SSB radio net which John runs has been very
successful this year and we have had daily clear conversations with friends from
as far away as the Bahamas and Trinidad. One boat approaching St Lucia
from the Canaries heard the net 900 miles out, but sadly could not make himself
heard. This old technology communication system has given us a lot of fun
and has brought together many new friends, with eight to ten boats joining in
every day at 0730.