Martinique?

Last of the Grenadines

Tuesday, December 5
Admiralty Bay, Bequia, Grenadines
N 13 degrees, 00.28 minutes
W 061 degrees, 14.54 minutes

We have spent the last week enjoying Bequia, a small but lively island in the northern area of the Grenadines. The bay here is enormous, with plenty of room for the constant boat traffic, and lots of places onshore to eat and shop and look around.

We have been stuffing ourselves with roti and other West Indian curries, as I seem to recall that the little, cheap curry places were not as frequent north of the Grenadines. On Sunday we went to a great curry buffet in Coco's Place, a restaurant perched on the hillside overlooking Lower Beach and the Bay. The beach itself is a popular place on Sundays, with people playing football (that's soccer to you Yanks) and cricket, and music pouring out of the beachside bars.

As we got closer to the beach, we noticed that no other dinghies were beached there, and there was a bit of a roll picking up as we got into shallower water. I remembered reading something in our guidebook about how it was tricky and therefore inadviseable to land a dinghy there. The book recommended that we take a cab from the town--yeah, right! Pay? Real money? When we can walk or sail or dinghy or crawl? We are EXPERIENCED cruisers, right? With thousands of miles under our keel, right? So in we went through the surf, doing okay until the last few feet, when the shore shelved suddenly from four feet deep to ankle deep, and a wave broke over the back of the dinghy, soaking us both. I was glad we keep our little camera sealed in plastic, for just such occasions.

A Rastafarian had seen us and was there on shore, ready to grab our bow and help us heave the boat out of the surf. Clearly, he had done this a few times. After, he gave us a handshake and went back to dancing at one of the bars.

Yesterday I dragged Dean to the other side of the island to see an alleged turtle sanctuary. Once again, we walked. It was only two miles, but they were steep, sweaty miles, and we were glad to take a break at Spring Bay, halfway to the turtle sanctuary, and look into an old sugar plantation, part of which has been restored and turned into a potter's studio and gallery. We met the artist, who hails from Britain originally, and who had just returned from six months at his studio in the south of France (nice work if you can get it). Unfortunately, as he had been gone for six months, he didn't have any more of the fabulous plates I had seen and wanted to purchase. I consoled myself with a whimsical bowl with a toucan's head, inspired by some ancient Arawak pottery. I also became enchanted by an oil painting--a big splurge, but Dean and I agree that it's worth the money to pick up some original artwork along the way. The only problem would be getting this thing home. We are waiting to hear from the artist regarding shipping costs.

We weren't sure what to think of the turtle sancturary along the beach. Ostensibly, it's a good idea to help these rare hawksbill and green turtles, which generally have survival rate of one in a thousand in the wild. For the past twelve years, Mr. King, who started this project, has picked hundreds of newly-hatched turtles from certain beaches in the windwards, keeping them in pens until they are about ten years old, and then releasing them. Since the turtles don't begin to lay eggs themselves until they are about 25 years old, we have to wait another decade to see if raising these turtles in captivity will have an effect on the dwindling population.

We think that we are leaving tomorrow, overnighting in St. Lucia, and getting to Martinique on Thursday. We don't know what the email situation will be there...