Jobs done, blog done, and time to relax…. Later that afternoon we had a couple of beers bobbing at Bollheads and enjoyed the water. Quiet night on board.
Saturday morning we went into Aqua for internet – wasn’t working as the power was down. So they started up the generator and we waited…. and waited…. and ate chocolate cake – yum!! – and drank coffee…. and waited…. To no avail – so we had to abandon the idea. It feels quite weird not to have access to anything at all – even 3G on my Kindle doesn’t work! Oh well….never mind.
Later in the afternoon we met up with Patrick and Lucy (Illusions) and Chris and Linda (Troubadour) for a little beach bar pub crawl….. We started at Mr Pleasures where we were entertained by the man himself and Moses – and would have stayed longer but they ran out of beer! Next stop was to Sunset View …. and finally on to Bollheads, where we had left our dinghies. Fun time had by all followed by an early night on board.
Sunday we had a lazy day – really preparing to go to sea on Monday – and then went over to Troubadour for sundowners prior to going to Bollheads for dinner. Mr Pleasures and his merry men turned up to entertain us; great food by Tim as always, who was letting his hair down tonight; and even Chris got into the act by playing a few tunes… We had a good old fashioned sing song. What a fun evening! Sad farewells all round and back on board ready for an early start on Monday.
Monday and the forecast is for brisker winds than we envisaged when deciding to move on – but we are ready to go. So around 8am we poked our noses past the headland and hoisted the sails – heavily reefed – and headed off on the trip straight to Bequia, which is about 30 miles as the crow flies. Of course the wind is coming from the direction we want to go as usual – grrrr…. The seas were big, the currents were strong and the wind was blowing at 27 knots. We had a fantastic sail, making some great speeds, but we got relentlessly pushed away from the island by the waves and the current. Our tacks were pretty useless to get some more easting but we persevered. During our sail Richard shouted at me – look at that plane! It was a private jet coming very low over the sea straight at us – at only about 100 foot above the surface… Stomachs in mouths we watched him continuing to bear down on us at speed, he came behind us and circled around our bow, and then headed off to Mustique. So this was a deliberate buzzing! Phew – wasn’t expecting that…. and working class language was heard in the cockpit of Morphie as a result….. I really thought he was going to hit the top of the mast. Then Richard thought it could be ‘moves like Jagger’ on his way to the music festival???
Anyway, back to the sailing…. and eventually we had to decide what to do if we wanted to make it in before dark…. so ended up motoring the last five miles. Was a great day though and we covered 51 miles in total – were pretty salty by the time we arrived, but hey, who cares?!?!? We stayed aboard and enjoyed our first Bequia sunset before heading to bed very early, pretty shattered.
Tuesday morning we were up early and tuned into the cruisers net and heard that our friends Dan and Ruth, on Evensong, were here! Soooo excited…. we haven’t seen them since Martinique last year. So we quickly made arrangements to meet them on the beach for a bobbing session later in the afternoon while we got ourselves sorted out. Dinghy back in the water; outboard off the rail; stainless and wood washed down; beds changed; laundry done; into town for drinking vouchers and some fresh produce; and then to the beach. Phew! Princess Margaret beach was as beautiful as we remembered it and the water sparkling and blue. Bobbing and catching up was fun – with ‘odd’ rounds for us and ‘even’ rounds for them. We also met up with Ann and Ed from Windswept Dreams. We loved watching the stormy sunset coming through and probably stayed out a bit later on the beach than we should have. Going back to Morphie around 7 and we didn’t have a torch or had left any lights on – so finding her in this very crowded anchorage was a bit of a challenge, not to mention getting the boat unlocked! Lesson learnt…. and so early to bed after a quick dinner.
Wednesday morning and Winfield came by – we had arranged to get our varnishing refreshed whilst here – so we agreed a price and he got the lads to come over to start rubbing down. Went into town for breakfast at Gingerbread – enjoying the views and the local birds who are looking for titbits….. then onto the tourism office to get info on the music festival and decided to buy tickets for Friday night – which is Dana Gillespie and the London Blues Band plus guest artistes from the Mustique Blues Festival.
Also went into the dive shop and organised a shallow dive for Thursday to get us back into the swing of things. Whilst out and about we bumped into Glen and Pam from Blue Pearl – at last! We have been missing them by hours / days ever since we arrived back in Grenada. They were heading out to St Vincent to pick up friends, but are coming back to Bequia so hope to catch up with them properly soon!
Wednesday afternoon we went bobbing again with Dan and Ruth and were met by Patrick and Lucy from Illusions who had pulled in the day before. Was another lovely way to spend the afternoon – followed by a great dinner onboard Evensong, where Ruth was trying out local recipes. Pretty authentic results too!
Thursday morning and Winfield finished the preparation work and got the first coat of varnish on. We are sorting stuff out to go diving and realise that Richard’s computer has a dead battery – now we had a replacement kit but do you think we could find it???? No….. so a quick trip to town and he managed to get a battery so we went through the delicate process of replacing it. This is always a worry as getting it wrong means that it floods and dies on the next dive. Kitted up, went ashore, and joined the boat. Loads of divers on board but most of them were students doing qualification dives so Ruth, Dan, Richard and I were with the divemaster on our own.
Lovely shallow dive starting at 10 feet off the boat and then meandering down a sandy bottom towards the reef which drops down to about 45 feet – Dan and Ruth had some equipment failures but managed anyway…. Great dive – we saw two frogfish which is such a treat, but sadly couldn’t find the seahorse that lives in this area. There were loads of spotted eels, cleaner shrimps, schools of parrots and triggers and the usual assortment of critters – along with spectacular coloured coral and large sponges…. Just beautiful – and we had over an hour underwater which wasn’t bad for the first dive of the season!
Back to shore, organised more diving for Monday, and back quickly to Morphie to clean up before heading into town. We enjoyed a spectacular sunset and sundowners at the Whaleboner with Dan and Ruth followed by dinner at Gingerbread. Pretty tired so we didn’t go next door to the Frangipani which was kicking off the music festival with steel pan band music – not really our favourite thing. So back on board – this time with lights! – and so to bed.
It is Friday now and we are heading into town for the internet. During the night a Windjammer cruise ship has come in along with loads more boats – we have never seen so many boats in an anchorage! Looking forward to tonight and nothing much planned otherwise.
Bye for now.
Jan