Bobbing in Bequia

As Linda pointed out last blog entry, we made it to Bequia and inertia has taken over. It has been so long since we’ve been able to follow our preferred schedule of a few boat chores followed by swimming, reading, or hiking, that we decided to just stay put.




Light sandy areas to anchor in, dark reefy areas to snorkel over. What's not to love?

Admiralty Bay, off Port Elizabeth, has been quite nice. Based on our experience last time, we anchored near Princess Margaret beach where the holding is good and the wind is not quite as gusty as if you get farther up into the harbor, between the hills, which seems to funnel the gusts down in blasts. It seems to get rolly sometimes, but I think it is a wind against tide phenomenon, as it always seems to go away within hours and I can’t correlate it with the predicted seas from WindGuru. The snorkeling is close by, and it’s a quick dinghy ride to the secure town dock to drop off garbage, pick up supplies, or sit down to a roti and fries when we don’t feel like cooking.

So as we are talking to Cheryl, who runs the Fig Tree, while there using the WiFi, we ask if there is a music jam on the island. She decided on the spot to add it to the Fish Friday dinner special they run, and we announced it on the cruiser’s net she hosts on the VHF radio at 8 AM. We’ve been to several of the jams now. The first one I was the only one to show up, so it was a small acoustic show with guitar and ukulele. Last week Gavin (Secret Smile) and Andy (Manureva) also showed up so I didn’t have to do all the heavy lifting, although I’m still the only vocalist - well, with some occasional help from Linda, Cheryl, or the audience.



One man jam at the Fig Tree

We did a hike along the road to Hope before returning for lunch and also did a rugged off-road hike to Peggy’s Rock. Glenn and Dalynn on Amoray had been wanting to do this hike for a while, so we tagged along and after a few false starts, finally found the correct goat trail up to where we needed to start climbing over rocks, finally resulting in a ridge line walk for a hundred yards or so until we emerged from the vegetation onto the rock and a stunning view.


The trip down from Peggy's Rock was a lot quicker than the hike up!

During one of our trips to town, a couple in one of the chandleries recognized us from our blog, and we met Richard and Jan from Morpheus of London. Exchanged sundowners, dominoes, and some bobbing (bobbing in the waves like a cork while drinking) ensued. As they’ve also headed south, we expect to run into them again.

The refrigeration compressor had been running longer than usual, and a quick look at the sight gage revealed that the system didn’t quite get topped off with refrigerant when it was filled. I sort of expected this, as I did not pay for the refrigeration guys to stick around for hours until the system got nice and cold and that's when you need to top it off. The only complication was that several of the hoses for my gage set were in poor shape and were thrown away several years ago. I always figured I’d get new ones when I needed them, and now was the time. On a hunch, I stopped by Joana and, as expected, Wade had a gage set also, so I was able to borrow a hose and top off the system, which is getting nice and frosty in about forty five minutes now. Other than that, it’s been cleaning sea water filters and a few odds and ends. The head and the generator will need some work when we get to Grenada, but that’s mañana.