6 Mar 2018

6/3/2018 : Back in Bequia

It has been an interesting time lately.

Last week, we were sailing around the Grenadines with Janet and Philip, Debra's aunt and uncle. We showed them around Bequia for a couple of days, then set sail in the north-easterlies to Mustique where they were hoping to get to see some celebrities. Sadly, Basil's Bar was being refurbished, which was their best chance of seeing someone famous, but there was a pop-up Basil's instead. We went for sundowners and some music was planned for later, but none of us saw anyone we knew. The music was very good however, and we reggaed the night away quite happily. We walked around most of the island too, finding the odd palm tree to climb along the way.
 

The walk around the windy side of the island to Macaroni beach was spectacular, turquoise seas that were constantly attacking the shoreline were amazing. As we climbed higher along the cliffs, we hoped to see a whale, but sadly it wasn't to be. Back on board, Debra and I went snorkeling with turtles which was a treat.


The sunsets we're pretty special too. As always in Mustique, the anchorage was rolly, and we only stayed two nights before heading down to the Tobago Cays.




The Tobago Cays were as lovely as ever, if a little busy. The snorkeling out on the reef allowed me to come face to face with a reef shark, about 6 feet long. It glided serenely past me, and I turned around to tell Debra what I had just seen. She is going to be doing her PADI open water diver course this coming week. She wasn't happy at the prospect of meeting a shark just yet and so we went further away from the reef and snorkeled the coral heads instead. We didn't think the variety of fish was as good as the last time we were here in April last year but it was still pretty special. However, we did manage to swim with turtles once again, and by duck diving, I was able to stroke two of them.

We returned to Bequia just as the winds switched to be south-easterly and had a really great sail back. We said goodbye to J&P yesterday and the swell that had turned to coming from the north-west hit. We were OK on a mooring close in to the top end of the bay, but the boats out at anchor were really rolling in the surge. Two metre plus waves were crashing on the shore and a recently completed walkway was destroyed.




The surge has abated somewhat today, and we have walked the shore to see the damage, but the shore is still suffering and it's forecast to continue like this for a few more days.  The power of nature beats mankind every time.


Thankfully, we are still able to enjoy ourselves!



We dined at the Sugar Reef restaurant which sits on the beach. Food was great, location superb, company wonderful.




We are waiting for our last set of visitors to arrive at the end of next week and we will sail back down to Grenada with them. Then the work starts getting ready to haul out and come back home. Not long left here now 😣