Bequia to Grenada

Serai
Jason and Emily Willis
Sun 21 Jan 2007 21:40
12:02.75N 61:44.93W

THREE CHEERS FOR BEQUIA.

Really pretty place and the people are lovely. We arrived in Admiralty Bay and got straight into the shopping experience as we were short of food. And when I say experience...it really was. Of course we had to go to the Rasta Market. (Thanks Mark and Sally for all the tips - you made our whole trip) Ems got completely surrounded and ended up buying what seemed like everything. The rest of us got hassled too, but just kept telling everyone that it was up to our 'chef'. This eased matters for us, but seemed to make it worse for Ems! After all that food shopping we needed to relax with a meal out. We were all feeling guilty about stressing out the chef, so she had a night off, and we ate a great meal at Gingerbread, along with tunes from the resident pianist and vocals from a nice lady who couldn't in fact sing a note!

Next day we hired a car and headed off round the island, visiting a turtle sanctuary and lunching at the Friendship Bay Beach Club. It was great to see the island and to spend some time chilling on the beach. On the way back we checked out the Sunday Beach party at Lower Bay. Lots of loud music and a few beers...Limin' mon!

Before leaving Bequia we stocked up on some more fishing gear, as the Windwards fish were certainly proving elusive, and a couple of small lobsters from Flex. Yum!

Next Stop, Mustique, and the promise of seeing someone famous. Apparently Jack Nicholson was there at Christmas, but had obviously left by the time we arrived as we got no requests from him to come over for drinks...strange..oh well, his loss. Anyway, loved Mustique, but for different reasons to Bequia. It is not the kind of place I would want to live. Its very conservative Caribbean, very well tended Caribbean. I never felt like the locals were very happy there though. There was a strange 'them and us' atmosphere. Having said that, we went to some great beaches and loved hiring out a 4 x 4 golf cart. The houses are all to die for. Just magic. We enjoyed sundowners at Basil's, as well as the Firefly. The latter was a truly idyllic hotel and restaurant, with a piano bar and views over the bay. We sat and watched the sun go down over Serai for a couple of hours and then headed back to the boat for a lobster dinner.

The following day we headed on to the Tobago Cays. We had a really memorable sail, with a nice wind on a broad reach. The Cays lived up to their reputation, but were a bit full of boats and people, with 2 cruise ships in. Went snorkelling and saw rays, turtles and sharks though, so not all bad! Of course I got a bit too cocky and tried to take Serai to the edge of the reef...yep it definitely shallows!

After the Cays we had a great sail to Union Island where we went Chatham Bay and swam, snorkelled and of course went to dinner on the beach at Shark Attack. Met another boat who is also going to be doing the pacific but in a 90ft boat - oh well could be useful!! Next stop Clifton and here we once again stocked up on food (J's bro was eating me out of house and home!) and then dinghyed over to Happy's Bar for a few rum punches and a great sunset.

Off early the next morning, as we had to get to Grenada to catch Paul and Sally's flight back to St Lucia. The sail was 35 miles downwind, flat seas and averaging around 6-7 knots. Beautiful. To top it all off we had a huge pod of dolphins join us half way through - they were with us for about 30 minutes and the pod must have been at least 50. They were playing on the bow and having so much fun - i have never seen so many, it really did take your breath away. It is moments like this which have such an impact on us and make us realise how lucky we are.

So here we sit in Grenada after a whistlestop tour of the Grenadines. They are as beautiful as people say they are and we had such a great time sharing all the moments with Paul and Sally. We plan to stay in Grenada for a few days as we are planning on doing more work to the boat - on the agenda - fit the watermaker and paint the decks. The forecast does not give rain for the next 4 days so lets hope that holds true.

Until the next instalment......

Take Care

J and Ems xxx