Bequia

WELL........My computer keyboard stopped working again and I am hoping that after several trips to computer shops in Martinique, St Lucia and now Bequia that I may now be able to get it going again as I am a little behind with my news and having to do this in an internet cafe..... slow and expensive!!
So.... we spent a couple of nights in Rodney Bay after a pleasant southbound sail from Marin to do the supermarket shopping thing and bus trips to Castries then headed south for Vieux Fort in the south of the island to pick up Katharine from the "big" international airport. We didn't quite make it to Vieux Fort though that day so moored between the famous "Pitons" for the night. A rather impressive spot inbetween the two peaks.
A quick sail round the next morning and then I decided to walk to the airport to meet Katharine as it didn't look far.... we could see the aircraft tail fins from the boat..... great, except that it actually meant walking around almost the whole perimeter of the airport! Still, I got to see the Atlantic coast of St Lucia and very nice it looked too... pictures in a later blog... can't do them here.
Katharine arrived on time and we taxied back to the port! We sailed back to the Pitons the next morning and moored there for the night. Managed to scramble ashore the next day via a very rickety and as it turned out unusable pier for a lovely cheap local lunch. I had breadfruit for the first time..... ok but boring... a bit like bread really!
Next day, we headed north for Soufriere Bay and took a mooring near the beach. It was an interesting spot as we had a good view of the nearby houses and the pigsties on the beach coupled with an intermittent sulphurous pong from the slightly active volcano over the hill! We moved a day or so later, when the dreaded Northerly swell hit again, to a "quieter" buoy on the other side of the bay. This time we only had to put up with the laughing gulls which hung around at certain times of the day waiting for fish. While in Soufriere, we did the tourist thing for a day, visiting the botanic gardens, the volcano and the warm springs. A good time.....photos later.
Katharine had caught a cold (no surprise there!) on the aircraft so was not feeling too energetic for a while but I think the warm weather helped to shorten its duration?
Anyway, after a few days doing St Lucia, we headed south for St Vincent and the Grenadines leaving at first light so as to get there before dusk. We had a "lively" sail with the wind gusting force seven between the islands and arrived in Bequia before sunset. There are very few places to stop in St Vincent....one little anchorage where the Pirates of the Caribbean was set... but not very safe... a yacht had been broken into earlier that week. Bequia is much safer and a lovely place too, great for yachties.
We took the ferry to St Vincent ( Kingstown, the capital) for the day.... we wanted to see Wallilabou Bay ( the film setting). The ferry trip was a real experience as the Atlantic swell between the islands made us roll alarmingly...photo later!! The ferries were originally built for the Norwegian fjords and are very top heavy.... not meant to roll....much!
We just had to take a local bus to Wallilabou bay, another brilliant fun sightseeing trip around dodgy mountain roads but so cheap... St Vincent is very much like the other islands but greener... more rain... and not so touristy....yet.
On the equally rolly ferry trip back, Katharine spotted a large black fin...not a shark... but a whale. Think it was probably a "false killer whale" we decided after some research. A bit of a treat. On this return trip in the dark, we also spotted a coastguard vessel in hot pursuit of a pirogue (local fishing boat)... probably drug related. This event was reported later in the local paper. Exciting stuff! A couple of days later when Katharine and I took the ferry back to Kingstown for her flights back to St Lucia and the UK, we witnessed another hot pursuit, through the docks; this time two men being chased by half a dozen armed police. Scary rather than exciting this time as we were only about 50 yards away!
Bequia on the other hand appears to be a really safe haven and I shall write more about it next time when I have my own computer back.