The Grenadines - Bequia

When last we wrote we were on our way to Bequia from St. Vincent. The trip here was relatively uneventful. Bequia is a small island 12 miles south of St. Vincent but is the largest in the Grenadines at 7 sq. mi.,. We started out in fairly low winds and calm seas with Aleitha at the helm. As we left the shelter of St. Vincent the wind picked up to 20 – 28 knots and there was a lot of wind-chop in the seas. Aleitha managed the winds and seas quite well. When Griff asked her what she thought of sailing now her comment was “It’s pretty awesome considering a week ago I had never stepped on a sailboat before and now I feel like we are beginning to work like a team.”

We are anchored in Princess Margaret Bay which is a 10 minute dinghy ride from the capital of Port Elizabeth. We are a swim away from the beach and some snorkeling.
We went in to town and bought some fresh fruit at an open air market which was partially funded by the Government of Canada. We have tried mangos, pineapple and now prickly pear.

Yesterday we went on a tour of the island. It took 3 hours and we saw all the sites on the island. We started with the old English fort, Fort Hamilton which overlooks Admiralty Bay. As with most of these islands the French and English fought over them in the 18th century. St. Vincent and the Grenadines were won by the British and now are and independent country in the commonwealth like Canada.

After a brief stop there we headed over to the other side of the island which is where the primary fishing village is. We stopped at a whaling museum and learned about the whaling industry in Bequia. They still whale today using the same methods used in the 1800’s – small wooden boats and hand thrown harpoons. They hunt the humpback whale from February to the end of April and are allowed to kill only 4 whales each year. This year they did not get any whales.

We stopped for refreshments at Friendship Bay. This is a bay on the opposite side of the island from where we are anchored. If we come back we will probably stay there. It has a large crescent shaped sand beach and an interesting restaurant, The Mosquito, with swings in the bar.

After this we had two more stops to make back on the west side of the island. The first was at the Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary. Here Brother King takes hawksbill turtle eggs, hatches them and raises them in tanks until they are big enough to have a better chance for survival in the wild which is when they are 4 years old. The hawksbill is an endangered species. More can be learned about this species at http://www.turtles.org/hawksd.htm

Our last stop was at the Spring Plantation Pottery Studio. The plantation used to be a sugar plantation, but is no longer used for that. Mike Goddard took the old sugar building and turned it into a potter’s and artist’s studio. Aleitha was quite interested in this as she is a potter. Apparently the people who own the land sold it, likely to a developer since there are a lot of big foreign estates on that part of the island, and the lease for the Pottery Studio will not be renewed. An unfortunate sign of the times perhaps.

Randy and Aleitha went diving today. Griff didn’t go as he was feeling under the weather. We will be leaving tomorrow for Canouan, the next island down in the Grenadine chain. Hopefully there will be internet but if not, see you next time.