Bequia

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Hello all, were currently in Bequia which is located in the Grenadines. We will be traveling south from here stopping at possible Mustique, Canoun, the Tobago Cays for sure, Mayreau and Grenada. After that we will travel to Trinidad and maybe Tobago then on to Venezuela for Hurricane season. We have reserved a slip at the Bahia Redondo in Puerto La Cruz for the season so we have a safe haven. It is located in an area that has many surrounding islands so we will be able to take trips to these in between working on the boat (a never ending task)....but we love it!
We last left off in Dominica, the first pic is of one of the many beautiful sunsets there. We took a tour on a River Boat with our guide Martin on "Providence" which was an amazing tour. The river narrows and gets completely overhung by huge swamp bloodwood trees on both sides. Their massive roots spread out above the ground and down into the water, twisting and tangling into wavy designs. The Carib Indians use to use these bloodwood trees for communications. If you bang on them they are hollow, so depending on the tone and frequency of the hits, they could talk to each other throughout the jungle. The trees overhead form a complete canopy, so it is very dark at times. We heard and saw many birds, crabs and lizards. Fish (mullets) also swam in the brackish water, then the Barricuda fish swim up from the sea to feed on them. Barricuda are one of the few fish that can swim from sea to brackish water. (Brackish water is a mixture of fresh and sea water.) We stayed in Dominica a couple of weeks, mainly waiting for our mail which we had sent from the U.S. (thank you Linda). It was sent overnight and we received it 7 days later :). We made a trek to this post office on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday (when the mail came in) after 3:00 PM, so they had time to sort. We finally received it on Friday and were overjoyed until they said the customs officer had already left for the weekend and we had to have it inspected - I must of let out a yelp, cause they said - well if its not official documents it will be ok. We told him its just mail (had to get w2s-it was almost 4/15)..so we opened it and they let us go....phew!! The next picture is of a boat that parked to close to shore - well really it was blown there by Hurricane David many years ago, there are three wrecked right up on shore. Some local boys who rowed out to our boat in a boat they borrowed from there Uncle said that bats live in these wrecks. The boys were great and before they left they asked if we had any snacks, Mike said NO...but upon some persuasion, he gave up some of his black licorice :)..its usually not a problem to share, but there were no provisions (except roots) in Dominica and our snack drawer was very, very, very low on goods. On our way back from the Post Office we heard the blow of the conch shell, which means someone is selling fresh fish, and followed the sound. We bought this Tuna from the local fisherman and barbequed it up - it was wonderful!!!!
We left Dominica at 3:00 am to head for Martinique - we were only planning to overnight there and leave early for St. Lucia. The sail was great and we did overnight at Martinique (the last of the French Islands) then headed out at 3:00 AM again to hit St. Lucia. We stayed at Rodney Bay, St. Lucia for about a week. We reprovisioned the boat (somewhat), stocked up on gas and diesel, and enjoyed the Easter Weekend. They celebrate from Good Friday to Easter Monday. It was very nice there, but we didn't do any land travel as we wanted to keep heading south to the islands were in now so we can relax a little before we have to head to Venezuala.
We left St. Lucia at 10:00 PM for an overnight sail to Bequia. We started at the Northern tip of St. Lucia, sailed past St. Vincent and landed in Bequia at 3:30 PM, the winds were kinda light, but we had a good sail anyway. Bequia is very beautiful but have not explored yet. The anchorage is rather large and we ended up on the outskirts, having a little privacy. Mike has finally got the hang of fishing as you can see by his catch...it was very exhausting, thirsty work....We have discovered a new fruit here, its soursop....not sure if we like it or not, its very hard to eat, but the local guy told Mike is very good for your virality...so he bought ten.
Thats all for now, will fill you in on the rest of Bequia on the next update. Hope everyone is doing well!!!
Cheers Mike and Kim