The sail from Mustique to Bequia was short and exciting. Starting with a gentle breeze, we were overtaken by a squall that gave us up to 30 kts and a lot of rain too. An hour later we took out the reef and unfurled the genoa again and by 1:30 pm we entered Admiralty Bay.
A beautiful and wide bay with as much as 75 yachts and cats already anchored. Still there was enough room and it didn’t take too long before another ‘Walter’ helped us with a mooring buoy.
Next came the bread man, the ice man, the water and diesel guy and the lobster guy 
Port Elisabeth is the main village and not too big. It’s picturesque and totally ready for all the yachties. I managed to have the gas canisters filled and get the laundry done. Bequia is also famous for it’s craftsman for all kind of woodwork. So I went to Caribbean Wood to get a new teak handrail that was broken. However, Caribbean Wood was closed for the holiday.
Another yachty told me to go to Parish Workshop, Jim would be able to help me. It took me some time to find him and indeed it was only a workshop. But Jim was very friendly man and did help me out. He made me a new handrail, by hand and did it right away. He was a real craftsman but it still took him over an hour to fix it. I was watching him all the time and I must say that I was impressed by his skills. When he was done he asked me if he could ask $ 60 EC, that is about € 20….. I told him that that was perfectly okay and thanked him very much. Back home that would have cost me at least 5 times as much and it would definitely not be better or nicer!
Next morning we went for a dive. That was amazing, not only because of the fish but far more because of the scenery. Rock formations with numerous kinds of coral in beautiful colors. Too bad my camera doesn’t go that deep.
After the dive we checked out at customs and immigration and did some shopping. Tomorrow morning at daybreak we’ll leave for St Lucia and have dinner in Rodney Bay. That will be Marc’s and Clare’s last night… They’ll leave Saturday.
The 65 nm sail from Bequia to Rodney Bay, St Lucia took a bit longer than planned. We left around 6 am, but the wind was just a bit too much in the North to make it in a single tack. Also it was kind of blowing, about 30 – 35 kts. The St. Vincent Street between St Vincent and St Lucia is kind of shallow. That makes the waves steep and short and high too. At one point a huge wave rolled all the way over the deck and we got some serious water down the hatch.
With only a couple of hours more to go, the genoa got torn for 20 cm and we had to furl it in to save it. Luckily in Rodney Bay they have a very good sailmaker. We motor sailed the last part and around 9 pm we got into the marina and found a nice place.
Next day Marc and Clare were gonna leave but first we went to ‘Spinnakers’, a special place for Marc and Clare! This place has real funny waves, they actually roll back from the beach. I had never seen this before…We had lunch and a nice swim and chilled until it was time to go back to the boat and get ready to say goodbye.
Too bad they had to miss the party, and some party it was. Together with Collin, whom we had met several times since Puerto Calero, Lanzarote, and his Canadian/Finnis crew, Rob, Kristin and Tanja and a Dutch couple we met on the dock together with their kids, we shared a cab to the ‘strip’.
Actually we only got halve way when the taxi got stuck in the crowd and we walked the rest.
At ‘Delirious’ we had a couple of drinks and close to midnight we all went back to Spinnakers at the beach to watch the fireworks. By that time it got really, really packed and the whole place was vibrating on the music that came from everywhere. It was impossible to get another drink there so we all went back to Delirious and had a real great time!
We managed to make it back to the marina by taxi where we had a nightcap until it started to get light again. This was some new year’s eve!
