Bequia
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Fri 21 Jan 2011 22:09
As the watermaker is still out of action, we stocked up on water at the new water barge in the middle of the Bay - the water we got in Bequia last time was horrid brackish water that tasted disgusting even in tea, but by now we were down to the last dregs of our tanks so had no choice - fortunately the guy running the barge travels to St Vincent to stock up on fresh water when he runs out - the other barges and the marina use rain water as there is no mains water at all.
Bequia is a true Caribbean paradise - it is very laid back and very local, with hardly any western influence at all. Port Elizabeth, in Admiralty Bay, is the main and really the only town on the island. It has a small vegetable market which sells just about every kind of vegetable and fruit grown on the island - again there is a post Hurricane Thomas shortage of bananas here as I found out when I tried to order my favourite cocktail - banana daiquiri. What we are learning is that whenever you see an item in the supermarket that you want, you have to buy in bulk as you may not see it again, even in the same shop for ages, this time it was tinned coconut milk so now we have lots.
The island is very small and again you can do a tour by taxi, but we were feeling a bit toured out, so spent a couple of days doing jobs in the morning and hitting the beach to top up our tans for our return home in the afternoons.
On Sunday, some friends of ours passed us on the way out of Bequia and then strangely, turned round and circled out boat - which we thought was a bit odd until we looked forward and saw a huge pelican sitting on the pulpit of our boat!
On Monday, after a hard afternoon at the beach we decided that a sundowner was needed in one of the bars in town. One bar is called the Whaleboner, it's bar is edged with a huge whale bone, and the seats are topped with a whale vertebrae - all very cool I'm sure but bloody uncomfortable!!! The photos I took unfortunately were too dark to see - oops! Bequia has a long tradition of whaling and still has an active whaling station on the south west coast of the island. They usually hunt the humpback whales which migrate south to breed between February and April. They are allowed to catch up to four whales a year, but very often don't catch that many. Bearing in mind that few people in Bequia now have the skills to catch a whale, and that is is done using a harpoon from an open sailing boat, the odds are definitely stacked in the whales' favour!!
After a few days relaxing, we set off back to St Lucia, from where we fly home on Thursday 27th January - we return to St Lucia on 13th February, and are then setting sail south towards Grenada and the Southern Islands in the Grenadines.