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Diane's Diary3/25 Monday We left at 9:30am for a long walk. We saw the lady we met yesterday. She called out to us from her house as we were walking & invited us to come visit her on our way back. We originally were just going to walk to a bay called Spring, which was about a 20-minute walk, but we met a tourist walking who has been to Bequia frequently. He suggested walking a little further for some great views. Well, that's all Larry had to hear - great views - as he wanted to take pictures so we continued walking. We walked all the way to the turtle farm- about an hour walk in each direction with lots of hills. The views were very nice but it was a long walk in the hot sun with very little shade along the way. We stopped by at the ladies house, Orial, on the way back & she gave us a bunch of grapefruits from her garden & made us some delicious pumpkin fritters that were excellent. She was 82 years old & she & her husband had lived in Bequia their whole life. It was very interesting speaking with her & we got a real sense of the island. We were especially delighted she gave us all those grapefruit. Larry said the pumpkin fritters were great & I liked them also. Afterwards, we got some dinghy gas & stopped at the Caribbean Compass office. We definitely use a lot more gas with this new engine. Anyway, we were tired after our long walk so we just rested on the boat the rest of the day reading & swimming off the boat. 3/26 Tues We were both tired from our long walk yesterday. But I took the dinghy into town. I stopped to buy Larry a Regatta T shirt, & walked to the Compass office to give them the article I had written. It was a book review of Nigel Calder's new cruising handbook. Sally said it would appear in the May or June Compass. I also walked up to the lady we met yesterday to give her some candy we had on the boat as a little thank you present. I think she really appreciated it. Meeting her was what we cruisers want- we enjoy getting to know the locals & it made our experience on Bequia so much nicer. Anyway, we had lobster today- the first time in the Caribbean. It is very expensive to buy- about $5USD per pound but we just traded 2 cans of Brinkman Farms meat for it. We had an early dinner as we invited S/V GWW over for drinks tonight. The lobster was great! I will see if we can trade some more for cans for it. We traded 2 cans of meat for 2 lobsters probably about 2 lbs each. In St. Martin, the huge lobster we each ate would probably cost around $30USD, as lobster was very expensive there. Anyway, GWW was supposed to go over to S/V Solent tonight as he had forgotten we had invited him also. Ken asked if S/V Solent could come over here also so what could we say? We didn't want to say no. So, we had 6 people over & all had a great time. I was glad we ate early, as they didn't leave till after 8 & it would have been too late to start making the lobster then. I love lobster so much I could eat it every day! However, I do like Maine lobster better but that's not available down here. So, when in Rome do like the Romans do, so, I will eat local lobster. BTW, you only eat the just the tails as they do NOT have front claws. They are called spiny lobster as they have lots of little spines on them so it's difficult to eat the entire lobster without getting your hands all ripped up. 3/27 Wed Well, today was a lazy day & we didn't even leave the boat except at night. I started writing an article for Latitudes & Attitudes magazine. They said they would be interested in several different topics. I don't know if anything will get published but you just have to write it & hope it's good enough to be published. We'll see. First I have to finish writing it. Anyway, Ken from GWW stopped by several times today. He lent me John Grishman's new book Painted House & asked that I read it within the next 2 days as he was going to leave & wanted to donate it to the local library before he left. So, I had to stop writing the article so I could read the book. See what a tough life we have out here! We have to make tough decisions as to what to do! Hey, someone needs to make these tough decisions! Anyway, we went to a huge party on GWW at 5:30 & had a great time. Last year Ken did this when we were here in Bequia & that's where we met S/V Pride, Kristali, Moon Rise, Jacobite for the first time. Ken invites a whole bunch of boats from the anchorage so it gives you a chance to meet other cruisers. Of course, he has a 60-foot boat so it helps to have a party on such a huge boat. 3/28 Thurs This morning we went to the Caribbean Compass' annual brunch for writers. We asked if we could go & since they had a cancellation, they let us come. I am a writer for them now as I have a "letter to the editor" in the April edition. Also, I have several articles I would like to do. In high school, I really enjoyed my creative writing class. So, I would like to get back to doing some writing again. The Compass does not pay much for doing articles though. Anyway, the brunch was very nice & the food fantastic. They had a very nice buffet with fresh croissants, salads, ham, eggs, sausages etc. They also had bloody marys & mimosas. I usually don't drink in the morning & I think that's what made me drowsy later. Anyway, we enjoyed the brunch & getting to meet some of the authors we have been reading about in the Compass for the past 1.5 years. After brunch, we came back to the boat & just relaxed. I also was reading the Grishman book GWW lent me. 3/29 Fri Good Friday! Somehow holidays don't seem the same out here. Every day is no different from the day before. Today was the start of the Bequia Regatta. Every one told us to stay as we would have a good time so we decided to stay a day or so & if we liked it, we would stay for the entire Regatta. The big boats starting racing today- the local boats start tomorrow. We took the dinghy out into the bay to take pictures. We were pretty far out in the harbor & it was too rough for the camera & dinghy. We also should have brought the handheld radio in case we had a problem. Anyway, after the start, we came back to the boat, swam & relaxed. We went to the first party at 5pm at Da Bistro restaurant. Free food & cocktails! We got there early as we had some pictures we had taken that wanted to barter for the Mt. Gay race hats that are a collector's item. Anyway, they told us to see them at the awards night on Monday to see if they had any left. It was definitely a good thing we were there early as they put some pizza & appetizers out but they went really fast. If we had not been there when the food came out we wouldn't have gotten anything it went so fast. They also had free Mt. Gay rum & Heineken- two of the sponsors. Anyway, we stayed till around 6:30pm; we wanted to get back before it got too dark as we did not bring our flashlight with us. We had a light dinner of Raman noodles since we had the food at the party. It definitely was a very nice party. At the Heineken Regatta we did in St. Martin last year, they never had free food or booze. Of course, there was a lot more boats there. 3/30 Sat Holy Saturday! The local boat races were supposed to start in Friendship Bay at 9am. This was a short bus ride or a very long walk up this huge hill so we left the boat at 8am. We had to wait a few minutes for a bus although there were lots of taxis at a considerably higher price. But we caught the bus at 1EC each or .37USD. The taxi would have been $5USD for both of us. Of course, the bus left us about a 10-minute downhill walk from Friendship Bay. We had come this way last year so we were familiar with the walk. Unfortunately, the race brochure was incorrect on the starting time- the race started at 10am not 9am as listed. This meant we had to wait around an extra 1.5 hours with no place to sit. But we did see the local boat Tornado we had seen the week before. We spoke with them & they gave us a few beers each. It really helped getting to meet the locals. The crew on Tornado was Alvin, the owner, Kingsley, the boat captain & Junior as crew. We enjoyed all the pre-race excitement. Larry was having a good time taking pictures. After the race started & the boats went out into the bay, we could no longer see them. Many of the locals had cars so could follow the race around the island. But since we didn't have a car, we just waited there. We went into the Friendship Bay hotel but it was very expensive. A hamburger & fries was $10USD. That's too much for our cruising budget so we just had French fries instead. At $3USD they weren't really worth it, but we were hungry & knew we wouldn't have lunch for several more hours. The racers started coming back in about 2pm. We saw our friends on Tornado & they finished first. They had a party on the beach with very loud music (of course it's always loud down here) & food & drinks. The local racers get free meals & drinks. Alvin had leftover coupons since only 3 guys raced, but they had registered for 4 so they could get extra T shirts & food & drink coupons. Alvin was kind enough to give the food coupon to us so we had 1 lunch for the both of us which was pretty good - chicken curry (on the bone of course), potato salad & great beans & rice. He also gave us 2 beer coupons. We left shortly after we ate because the music was so loud & we were tired from standing around & drinking. We walked the 10-minute uphill climb back up to the main road & then caught a bus back to town. We got back to the boat around 3pm, both of us so exhausted we didn't even go to the party on shore. 3/31 Sunday Easter Sunday -although it definitely did not feel like a holiday. We didn't even do anything special for it, which was definitely kind of sad. Phone calls are very expensive in the ex- British islands so I didn't call home. We were definitely thinking of everyone though. Today was a rest day from the regular racing although they did have the single hand around Bequia race. The local boats finished up there races in Lower Bay so they will start from here tomorrow. Today they had a bunch of fun competitions on the beaches- sandcastle building, boat building etc. It was great to watch & the day was perfect as there was little wind. I even went snorkeling near Lower Bay & it was pretty good. What made the snorkeling nice was that the wind was so calm. Of course they had loud blaring music on the beach. |