Beautiful Bequia

Tuesday 13th July
Location: Admiralty Bay, Port Elizabeth, Bequia.

Another a beautiful morning! It’s wonderful getting up early because you want to, not because you have to. Mornings such as this, when I actually have the option to sleep in, I still find myself waking early with a desire to get up and just enjoy the peace and tranquility surrounding me. As I sit here quietly in this beautiful bay watching the morning sun rise slowly over the mountains of Bequia, casting iridescent colors of sparkling light over the ocean, and gradually filling the sky with crimson, I feel truly blessed. All the fishermen are heading out to sea in their brightly painted little wooden boats. While the fishermen of the air; the Booby’s, and gulls swoop low over the water scooping fish from the surface. The pelicans drop out of the sky suddenly as if shot, and dive under the water popping back up seconds later with their catch wriggling in their beaks, with one swift movement the pelican tips back it’s head, opens its enormous beak and swallows it’s catch whole. I listen to the gentle lapping of the waves slapping against Daisy’s hull, and feel the soft, salty, early morning breeze on my face. At this moment I can forget all my terrors of sailing, but realize that without them I would never have this.
There is balance in all things, if you have high’s you must have low’s, the higher the high’s the lower the low’s, and I have had a few terrorizing moments on a couple of legs of this trip so far, so I’m feeling as though I have earned a few high’s.

We have done a lot of sailing since we arrived back on Daisy in June, with progressively less and less time between stops, and I’m really quite tired, but until we get to Bonaire there will only be hours instead of days between our ports of call. Even when we reach Bonaire we will only be there for 2 days, before we set sail for Curacao, and that’s only if we keep to our schedule.

Who ever said boat life is relaxing, obviously never lived on a boat! If anyone was to ask me, I would repeat something I heard a few months ago, “boat life is simply maintenance in exotic places!”

About 9am we went ashore, and Edi and I strolled along the main street overlooking the bay, and shopped in the local fruit and vegetable market, while Bob did the customs check in.
Bequia has a feeling of quiet, understated civility about it. Everyone you meet is warm and friendly in a very genuine way. The stores have a modern feel about them, and they have the best Internet since we left Tortola. One of the local artist’s sits outside his shop carving another model sail boat. His little shop is full of them, varnished and painted to perfection, I wish I could afford to buy one, but then where would I put it? I see a sign down one of the side streets that reads “Art Show”, and I make a mental note to go back later and take a look. There appears to be an equal mix of black and white, and I already feel as though I could belong here, corny as that sounds. I’ve visited most of the islands from Puerto Rico as far down as Grenada, and over to Aruba, but not on one of them did I feel as though I could live there. Bequia is different, so different, It doesn’t have the lush rainforests and waterfalls of Dominica, or the bustling city feel of Guadeloupe, the huge spice markets of Grenada, the fabulous shops on St.Barths, or the millionaire lifestyle feel of Mustique, I didn’t even see fabulous beaches, yet somehow none of that mattered. I’m already in love with it, and would buy a house here in a heart beat, I wish I could just stay here forever.

Well we did something different today, we filled our diesel tanks without leaving our anchorage, the diesel boat pulled alongside us, how easy was that! While we were filling the tanks a fishing boat came alongside offering freshly caught yellow fin tuna for sale, I bought one, and the fisherman filleted it for me. Yum, fresh tuna for dinner tonight.
Off to the Tobago Cays tomorrow, (for a few hours) and then destination Los Tostigos. We’re planning to leave around 2am Thursday morning so we can make the 16 hour trip and arrive in Los Testigos before nightfall.