13:14.8N 61:16.3W

26-27 Jan, Bequia to Wallilabou

Sailing this stretch of the Grenadines at this time of the year can be described as ‘challenging’.  The island chain, as one heads up, points NNE, and the winds are usually NE to E, 15 to 20 kn, with gusts of 30ish, and at the ends of each island there are stronger winds, strong westerly currents and ‘lively’ seas.  All the books suggest that one should expect a wet and bumpy ride.  Thankfully, my present crew seem to take this in their stride – No mal de mer. No complaints, but ‘pleasure’ is not in abundance.  If time allowed one would wait for the right winds and only do it every two or three days – we didn’t have that luxury.
The passage from Canouan to Bequia was pretty good (I thought), enough east in the wind to lay the SW tip of Bequia (with some to spare) and reasonable weather.  But, it was a long motor against the wind to reach the area where we could anchor, and a long time finding space and getting the anchor set properly in a rather coarse sand and coral debris.  Snorkelling to check the anchor isn’t too much of an ordeal here.  Success at last but we were quite a long way out of town, opposite Princess Margaret beach.  Port Elizabeth, the capital of Bequia, is obviously a mecca for Yachties, as probably 100 or more boats were moored or anchored here in Admiralty Bay.  A nice enough place but we couldn’t really see the great attraction, perhaps it was too windy, or maybe we didn’t stay long enough to appreciate the snorkeling/diving.  Anyway we cleared out of St. Vincent & the Grenadines here as the plan was to make a brief overnighter in Wallilabou and then on to St. Lucia for some R & R.

Another pleasant but lively sail up to St. Vincent and a cruise up the coast to grab the last mooring in Wallilabou.  With a name like that one has to stop there, and it’s also where they filmed a lot of Pirates of the Caribbean.  This was also the only place so far where we were pestered by boat-boys – all part of the Caribbean ‘experience’ I guess but they are rather threatening, especially when our offer of $10EC (£3 ish) was deemed not enough for tying up our lines.  He suggested that $10 was the rate 5 years ago, I claimed that England was in a recession and 6 months ago we could get twice as many EC to the pound.  The problem is, what happens if you upset them?
We had a quick run ashore for happy hour in the local restaurant, a few photos of the set for Pirates of the Caribbean and then back to the boat for dinner, Chez Paddy & Wendy, and a comfortable night.

P & W sailing again - we all have hair partings on the right.

Enjoying the expensive Hairoun Gold (5.6% alc).

Wallilabou & Caribbean Pirates