Yesterday evening we went ashore to enjoy Happy Hour at “De Big Fish” with a few of the local cruisers amongst whom were some old faces. Bees Knees and Cat Tales were both (all four) there. Also we saw Bill and Sue from Unchained who we last saw, briefly, back in Dominica. Also were Dennis and Elaine from Audrey Paige. We stayed quite a bit longer than an hour before heading over to the marina where we were tied up to have pizza for dinner. We had a couple of extra drinks with this and were a bit sozzled by the time we returned to Dignity.
Scott arrived around 9:30 and it was back to the bar to socialize. Didn’t go to bed until after midnight. This morning I had a nasty hangover.
Today we’re at work checking the boat out. We’ve already left the dock to perform some tests while under motor and are completing the work back on anchor.
We’re going touring with Scott tomorrow. We have a taxi lined up who will take us around the island to go hiking to waterfalls and to go to the fish night on the west coast. Everyone says the fish night is good fun and tomorrow is special as they’ll have live bands too.
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In the afternoon we sailed over to Petit St Vincent. It was upwind and while at first we made good progress tacking against the wind, the final mile or two was against the current too squeezing between PSV and Petit Martinique. We decided to motor this last bit. Three boats arrived almost together. The one nearest to us seemed to be picking the best spot in the anchorage so I headed for another. As we reached our destination this other boat squeezed through and stuck their anchor down too right by us. A bit cheeky I thought but then they may have felt the same about us. We shifted Dignity but weren’t happy with our spot so we left the cluster of boats where we were and headed around the island to another spot where we were the only boat. That is always nice.
We took a walk ashore along the beach before settling down for dinner then watching Captain Ron – quite a funny Kurt Russel movie, half of the laughs can be better appreciated as cruisers ourselves.
Today we’re off to Petite Martinique about a mike away. We may or may not head out to the nearby reef on the way.
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]]>In the afternoon I dinghyied round to “Cat Tales” a catamaran we’ve been seeing from time to time as we’ve come down the islands. We though it was fine time to say hello. Dawn and Laurie were a fun couple and readily agreed to come aboard for ‘cocktails.’ Bees Knees had been delayed in their departure by the weather so we invited them over too. Everyone stayed till quite late. A good time was had all round. Hopefully we’ll see Cat Tales again soon.
Today we’re probably off to Petit St Vincent and Petit Martinique. But who knows. We still feel pretty loose about our agenda for the next week or so.
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This morning I set off into ‘town’ to check in. I was the first one in at 8:30am and by the time I had completed the paperwork there were quite a few others behind me. Good thing I went in early. I picked up some fresh out of the oven bread and headed back to the boat.
Back on the boat I managed to Skype with John on Windancer IV who expects to be in Bequia by the weekend. No doubt we’ll bump into each other fairly soon. In a week or so he has to go back to Canada for 2-3 weeks and has asked us to keep in touch with his family. We’ll be delighted to help out as we’ll never be far apart.
We made plans with Bees Knees to rendezvous ashore to go for a walk. Helen and I went back into to town to wander around while we waited for Jim and Anne to sort things out, come ashore and check in too. I found a shop selling fishing tackle. I bought some multi strand leader to replace the stuff that’s been coming in without lures on the end. He thought it could easily be something like a kingfish chomping through my wire leader and thought the multi-strand was a good idea. I also bought a replacement lure to make up for my last loss.
Having wandered around some more we hadn’t heard from Bees Knees. I checked my handheld VHF and found the squelch too high. I lowered the setting and tried hailing them only to discover my battery was practically flat. I borrowed the port captain’s radio and still had no luck. Figuring they were adults and would work out what to do, Helen and I headed off to the Atlantic side of the island to find the turtle sanctuary. It was about 3 miles walk about in the heat. By now we were walking in the midday sun which is not the best of ideas. Nevertheless we got there and were able to see many turtles that were being reared from eggs til the age of five and a half and being released into the wild. The sanctuary also had some red legged tortoises for variety.
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(Postnote: On our way back we passed by a party of cruisers heading out the way we came. Turned our two of these were Laurie and Dawn from Cat Tales whom we’d often heard on the morning net/VHF and got to know in May when we met them in Union Island.)
Back in town we treated ourselves to ice cream after our hot walk. We made one further trip into town to drop off our empty propane tank which we’ll pick up tomorrow. Back on the boat I have started replacing the leaders on the lures I have. In my Skype chat with John I learned all their success was on pink plastic squids and hand lines. Turns out I have some of those so I’m making one of those up too. Maybe I should get one of those things that allows you to put out two lures on one line. Hmmm.
Tonight we’re off to Bees Knees for dinner. They have bought some fresh fish and are sharing with us. Helen says we could be living of fish for weeks with all I’ve spent on the gear but that’s not the point is it?
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