Bequia (Part 1)

The pictures from our arrival into Admiralty Bay on Bequia were really rather good. They captured the action from the stiff breeze although I guess in a perfect world we would have had full sail and bunting set for capturing that once in a lifetime image to hang over the mantelpiece. For reefed down reality cruising, though, it was nice to get some photos of BV blasting along and the view of that from outside the cockpit.

Bequia was a delightful stop off for us and we spent far longer here than we expected but that was mainly due to it being really rather windy. Admiralty Bay does get the wind funnelling though but we felt very secure anchored on the north side of the bay. The south side, pictured above, is closer to the bars and restaurants but the holding is said not to be so good and it’s also a lot more crowded so, with a blow on, we were very happy where we were.

Port Elizabeth, at the head of Admiralty Bay, is the capital of the 7 square mile island and is really rather fun. The people here very much rely upon the visiting yachts for their livelihood and so everywhere we went people were welcoming and friendly. The word has obviously got our because on several days were also joined by cruise ships anchored in the bay. The town/village is a mass of brightly coloured buildings and shacks and there are a surprising number of shops and bars. Shopping at the Rastafarian run fruit market was a great experience…yeah man!

Seawind arrives with a problem
with their mainsail    

Along the southeast side of the bay is the ‘boardwalk’. More concrete path than boardwalk, it wends its way around the coastline just above the sandy beach passing private villas, diving centres, beach bars, restaurants and a rather civilised looking hotel. We enjoyed some of the boardwalk venues as very pleasant places to while away a few moments, with a slice of local ginger cake and cup of tea, or just to sup a beer and look at the views.

For us it was particularly fun because Lars and Susanne on Seawind arrived in from Barbados and so we had a great time catching up. Their arrival was bit unusual and we wondered if the Swedes had started a competition as to who could anchor under sail in half a gale. But it turned out that they still had their mainsail most of the way up on arrival because it had jammed when they had tried to lower it. It was great spectator sport for us because they anchored quite close to us so we had ring side seats for Lars’ climb up the mast to clear the jam.

OCC gathering in the Fig Tree Restaurant    

Listening to the OCC SSB/HF radio net in the morning it also became very apparent that we had most of the OCC Net controllers anchored in the bay with us and of the 150 or so yachts in the bay sitting out the winds, we saw around a dozen of them flying OCC burgees. That prompted a lovely evening of drinks and dinner in the Fig Tree Restaurant and several reciprocal evenings of sundowners and dinners on board various yachts of the fleet.

If that wasn’t enough to distract us from daily chores and maintenance tasks, there was also the rugby. With the 6 Nations on there were a lot of familiar faces lounging in Papas Bar on the hill watching England play Wales.

It wasn’t all lazing about though because Nicky got out her varnishing brush for some touch up work, we tackled a few other small maintenance jobs and dived on the hull to give it a good scrub ready for our transit north. We also took the dinghy out to Lower Bay and the ‘Devil’s Table’; submerged rocks which made for some very good snorkelling.

Bequia, St Vincent Grenadines