Our time in Bequia - January 11 - January 31, 2012

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As we mentioned we are currently in Bequia, one of the many islands that are part of the Grenadines and therefore part of the country of St. Vincent & the Grenadines. We found it was a very pleasant island to spend some time on our travels south last year. Luckily there are a few ways we as cruisers can find out the schedule of events on the various islands in the Caribbean. We had heard great things about the Bequia Music Fest from others that had been in previous years. This year it was running from January 26^th – 29^{th so} hoped we could coordinate our travels to take in this event. We arrived in Bequia on January 11^ththerefore were a little early for it so had to decide if we would going to hang around for it. We heard from many others that were already here that it was well worth waiting for so without a schedule of any other place we had to be we decided to stay. We knew that Bequia was not a bad place to be “stuck” for a few weeks.

How do you fill your time when you have time to “kill”. Well, it didn’t seem to be hard to do as we seemed to keep busy, but at times not sure what we got done. We figured that may be a list of activities would explain how the days flew by.

1) Working on the teak – not too much, don’t want to have too much fun at one time

2) Re-organize and unbury some items in storage – this becomes almost a full day project as it disrupts every “room” on the boat while working on it, lots of fun

3) Doing all of those normal activities that need to be done no matter where you live - laundry, shopping, filling gasoline tanks – this involves trips to shore in our “family car “which always seem to take much longer than when living on land

4) Eating a few lunches out – trying some places we hadn’t tried before – we can definitely recommend the rotis at the Fig Tree and burritos at Tony’s. Even the pizza place in town makes a mean slice of pepperoni pizza “just like back home”

5) Take a ferry ride to St. Vincent to explore new areas of the city and it’s shops – an all day trip

6) Have dinner at the Sailor’s Bar & Restaurant , we heard there was live music – it was a treat, local talent as well as a cruiser we know that plays Cajun music – lots of fun & a good meal as well

7) Entertain – have Tony from Australia over for dinner – we have been wanting to do this since meeting him last year in St. Martin – we finally had a chance to connect and follow through on the invitation (by the way he was one of the musicians we heard at #6 above – great Cajun music

8) Email and Skype back to the US numerous times to decide if Janice is going to have surgery on her right hand – the final answer is yes

9) Continue the work on making plans for the trip home for minor surgery on her hand– flights, transportation to Albany from NYC, hotel, scheduling appointments while home, finding a safe place to leave the boat, figuring out how we take care of Sailor again while gone – lots of computer time with intermittent wi-fi connections

10) Snorkel a few times – nothing too exciting, but good exercise, Janice got a replacement fin, it’s about the same size so now with 2 fins she swims pretty straight instead of doing circles

11) Read for pleasure – Janice is just finishing an interesting book, Third-Class Ticket by Heather Wood

12) we dragged anchor one night after being in the same place for 2 nights, that got the adrenaline going, and once again we learned anchoring at night is not good for marital bliss on board

13) Hike to some areas that we hadn’t explored last time we were here in Bequia

14) Spend time (2 different days) with the officials of St. Vincent (customs & immigration) getting an extension to stay in St. Vincent more than a month as our current time was expiring. Hard to believe we have been in country for a month, but remember the Grenadines are part of the country of St. Vincent.

In looking over the list we realize that we didn’t get the sewing done we wanted to (however, we are getting closer to knowing how we want to make some of the projects), the oil change is still to be done tomorrow before we leave on Wednesday, we didn’t get a dive in as we had planned, and we didn’t make it back to St. Vincent to see the Botanical Garden. How time flies when you are having so much fun!

It is now January 30^th therefore the 12^th Bequia Mount Gay Music Fest is now over. We made it to the events on Thursday, Friday and Saturday which were lots of fun, but by-passed Sunday as we felt we needed a day to rest from the music, dancing, beverages and late nights! We were fortunate to have run into Dave & Melinda on MoonDancer as we spent the time together going to the festival events. They were great company and it was fun getting to know them!

The festival was quite a cross section of music – everything from the Blues, Steel Pan Orchestra, Reggae, Rock, Jazz, and Cajun. Most of the festival was held at DeReef, a beach bar & restaurant on the leeward side of the island, with the Saturday afternoon event at the Bequia Beach Hotel on the windward side. We were fortunate to have very good weather for the weekend and they had a great turnout as we definitely felt like sardines at the Saturday night event- I doubt they would have passed a fire inspection with the number of occupants – luckily this place is open on one side to the sea! We can see why people recommended staying for the event – if you are ever in the area next January, be sure to put this on your schedule!

The weather looks good for moving this Wednesday and Thursday so will continue our trek north. Not sure what the wi-fi situation will be, but will keep you posted when we can. Hope the winter isn’t treating you too bad – we are still enjoying the ocean breezes and pleasant days even when we have a few quick squalls pass through. Best wishes to you all!

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