More vet adventures-Bequia to Grenada
Swiftwing
Thu 8 May 2008 13:53
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And so we continue the story of vets on board
Swiftwing. The next island to be invaded was Bequia-here we took an island tour
by taxi; visiting 'Old hegg Turtle Sanctuary' (mentioned in earier blogs) but
not the freshly killed whale on a nearby beach that they were all so
desperate to show us. The locals get a 2 whale quota per year! We enjoyed
an early evening swim and watched the sunset from Princess Margaret beach,
before a very damp Doody journey back to boat as Dougie thought it was
entertaining to take the bung out halfway back to Swiftwing! Bev was not
impressed!! The day finished with a visit to the recommend "Devil's Table" minus
Bev and Dougie, who elected to send John as our chaperon. A few Pina Coladas
later and Heather was having a dance off with the local Rasta man. Star jumps,
the one legged chicken dance and the standard break-dance move left all the
locals clapping! All made it safely back to the ship, thanks to the wind up
torch, that and John remembering where we were anchored!
A morning wake up chorus of Black Sabbath and we
were on our way to the celebrity hangout Mustique. We stopped at a tiny deserted
island called Petit Nevis for Elevenses and the most stunning snorkelling
experience: sparkling blue sea, intensely bright tropical fish and corals-and no
other tourists to share it with. Amazing!! On Mustique we had a wander
round the hugely over-priced shops-only the postcards were within our price
range!! We also had a dip at one of the nearby beaches where the water reached
our knees no matter how far out we went and we had to punt Doody halfway back to
Swiftwing due to the shallow reefs. Once back at the boat Dougie instigated a
dive-bombing competition off the rail. After dinner we dropped in at
Basil's-they really weren't used to A-list celebs like the Swiftwing crew:
usual regulars include Mick Jagger, Hugh Grant, David Bowie, Liz Hurley and
Tommy Hilfiger. The locals were really friendly and after John took Dougie and
Bev back to the boat one of Basil's barmen escorted 'the young ones' to a
nightclub for locals up in the village. It has a VIP room and everything
although we didn't quite qualify for that!The next morning we took a taxi tour
of the island as the don't do Mule hire on a Sunday. Our Rasta guide called
Boomboom(!!) took us up through the same local village and we noted that our
'nightclub' looked like little more than a chicken shed in the light of day!! He
pointed out all the stars' houses along the way and we had a nosey over Mick
Jagger's hedge but his driveway is so long and windy that we still a long way
from his house! We were then dropped at Macaroni Bay for an hour, definitley the
best beach of our trip so far! Palm trees, a long stretch of white sand flecked
with pink coral and clear turqoise waters(to use Dougies favourite word!!). We
even had it to ourselves for most for the hour-totally idyllic! We were
back at the boat before midday and set straight off for Tobago
Cays.
The wind had really picked up at this point and
Swiftwing did her trip max of 8.5 knots. We were flying! Arriving at Tobago Cays
to yet another reggae party, sadly this time we weren't invited. We decided to
anchor here then took a recommended island tour courtesy of John, and after
almost grounding ouselves on a coral reef in Doody 2 we finally made it to
Island 1 under a serenade of 'Food Glorious Food' and other such Oliver
classics. The Tobago Cays are a beautiful set of small deserted islands
surrouded by a horse shoe reef. We thought a beach to ourselves on Mustique was
great but here we had a whole island to ourselves! After an evening of star
gazing and 'Walk the Line' at Cinema Swiftwing we continued our jouney onto
Carriacou, via Union Island to clear customs. After a day of sailing sunbathing
on deck and Kat attemping to snorkel in the dark we anchored off Sandy Island (a
tiny island of reef, sand and a few trees, apparently its been used in a
number of TV adverts) and settled to Film 2 in the Swiftwing Odeon- 'Memoirs of
a Geisha' which Dougie especially enjoyed, despite asking at the end, "So what
was that all about?!"
Carriacou marks the entry into the Grenada region
so we keft Dougie to negotiate customs while we visited the local museum where
we saw a bed pan-our excitement could barely be contained! En route to Grenada
we manged to avoid Kick 'em Jenny an underwater volcano last active in 2003 and
has a 1.5km exclusion zone (not that 1.5km clearance would help you if it
erupted, as last time it caused a 900 foot water jet and a tsunami across
Grenada!). A nice afternoon sailing alongside Grenada saw us cover 42 miles in
approx 7 hours. As the sun sunk below the horizon we turned into
Prickly Bay marina, an enclosed bay in the far south of the Island. Dougie
was all up for another showing in Cinema Swiftwing but was told that since he'd
been asleep for 2 hours and it was 10pm we were all off to
bed!!
For our last day we hired a car to do a tour of the
island. We were heading for Annadale waterfalls and the Grand Etang park but due
to a lack of signposts and a somewhat inaccurate map we missed the falls and
found ourselves 50 yards from Grand Etang Lake asking directions to it! Lunch at
the lake shrouded in cloud and actually feeling chilly for the first time since
we've been here. It's amazing how quickly the climate changes, given that we'd
left scorching heat at the beach, but at this stage we'd climbed a steep windy
road through the rainforest and were at a height of 1910ft. We then set off in
search of the abandoned Pearls Airport, which we think we glimpsed through the
trees but again the map didn't exactly lead us to it-I expect Bev, Dougie
and John will explore all these things in the weeks to come. Next stop was The
Grenada Chocolate Factory which the guide book said you could see round for free
but once we got there the young lads we met when we got there said this wasn't
possible, however bit of eyelash fluttering got us some free samples!! They
directed us towards the Belmont Estate where we had a tour of the cocoa bean
processing plant. We were showed the farmers bringing in the cocoa beans and
having them weighed ( we were fortunate enough to be there on the day this
happens), then the beans being fermented, which takes 7-9 days. The beans are
then dried on huge trays on wheels which get wheeled out into the sun and are
'walked' by the workers to turn and separate them. The drying takes a further
week, then the beans are smoothed, this is done by machine now but it used
to be done manually-the workers 'danced' the beans in a large copper container.
We were also shown a video detailing how the beans are processed into chocolate
and given tasters of cocoa tea and chocolate! On the same estate we saw some of
the locals milking goats too. We then took the coast road back to Prickly
Bay. A thoroughly enjoyable day despite missing some of the things we were
aiming to see! Dinner out at the marina pizzeria and then back for our last
night on Swiftwing! sob!
Sorry the blog is so long this time but we've been
a bit tardy at updating it! Normal service should resume should resume
soon!
Helen, Elissa, Kat and Heather (Dougie, Bev and
John)
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