Peace in Bequia

Bequia is a great place for cruising yachts. It seems to be the only way to visit and the sailors seem to offer enough into the economy to maintain a good standard of living. The other trades here are also still linked with the sea. There is basic ship yard next to where the inter-island ferries leave. James has been horrified to see then still using ro-ro ferries with lifting bow doors.

You can live well on little here. We had our main sewn up for about the price we paid when we blew it in Cowes, but the same chap has quoted us a mere £300 to re-cut The Blue Peter’s genoa down for us (labour is a mere £18 per hour). At that price, it’s worth a punt. He’ll take a week or more as he’s busy, so we’ll just have to stay put – no shame that. They seem to pretty careful to preserve their environment. There is a heavy penalty for littering and immigration were keen to stress that yachts should only leave litter ashore in the designated area. They seem to use their local resources where possible – even the Christmas tree was made from beachcombed coral and discarded line. Having said that, we saw a group of locals disembowel a large turtle on the foreshore as we landed this evening – turtle hunting is still legal here, unfortunately.

Beachcombed Christmas 'Tree' at Tommy's bar

The rest of the marine habitat appears very healthy here. The bay itself has sand over rock and is heavily used by anchoring boats. Despite that, people either use holding tanks or the water mixing is good as the algae levels are contained. The rock reefs within the anchorage have around 3% coral and the rest algae and sea urchins, but as soon as you round the point, the reefs are thriving, healthy and diverse. It was a delight to explore these unspoilt areas where the fish were also unworried by my presence in the water.

I’ve yet to explore the shore fauna, but we’ve seen many species of birds from the anchorage. Brown boobies, frigate birds and royal terns are frequent, whilst brown pelicans and little blue herons (which can also be white, confusingly) can be seen at each end of the day. On the beach, we’ve seen common ground doves and bananaquits, but I can hear other tantalising calls from the forests at dawn and hope to nip ashore early one day soon.

I made bread - and it's light and fluffy and everything!

The weather has continued to be wild and unseasonable. The fierce easterlies have continued with just a small respite this morning when they were replaced by heavy rain instead. It’s been ‘entertaining’ trying to get the main and genoa off, and then get the main back on again. James has also managed to get our spinnaker fitting made. We bought a new stainless ½” bolt for the forestay and had the ends machined to take two proper heavy duty 12mm eye nuts. You really can get anything you need for a yacht here.

We’ve paid for an overnight visit to Tobago Cays but are waiting for a better weather window as we don’t fancy rolling heavily overnight in strong easterlies protected only by coral reef. Meanwhile, the kids have rediscovered the joys of the surf and shore. On the south side of Admiralty Bay is a small sandy beach fringed with rock reef and volcanic caves. The anchorage appears to be an extinct caldera so there are good drop-offs to explore underwater.

Rum punch at Tommy's

Time to sign off – another rum punch at Tommy’s is beckoning!