Looking at the state of our St Lucia flag, it was clearly time to leave, but, although we had planned on leaving during the early hours of Tuesday morning, 20th February 2024, the winds were more out of the southeast than east, so we decided to stay an extra day. This decision paid off because we had a lovely sail over to St Vincent Island after passing the Pitons at daybreak and again after rounding the southern end of St Vincent. We did, however, get our provisioning completed as planned on the Monday. This required a 5 Km round trip in the heat and humidity, lugging all our groceries on the return leg because, out of principle, Elaine refuses to pay the exorbitant taxi fares; total daylight robbery, so she’d rather walk! Our little grocery cart certainly came in handy, thankfully.
With time on our hands and having decided to haul out in Grenada to get the antifouling done, we returned to shore for an afternoon coffee and to purchase all the bits and bobs we need for the haulout, deciding to get what we could when we could, since everything seems to be a tad hit and miss in this part of the world at the moment.
On the Tuesday we woke to an overcast, rainy and much cooler day and got wet going ashore in the dinghy, but we still had a few errands to run before our departure, none of which turned out to be simply; first, after running around like headless chickens to get ashore to clear out, we discovered the Customs and Immigration offices had decided to take an earlier lunch break. Then, needing cash, we discovered the cash machine was out of order, resulting in Roy having to walk into town through all the mud. Getting dinghy fuel ended up being the easy task of the day and gave us a better option for filling the diesel tanks before we head west for the hurricane season, instead of using the very busy fuel dock in Le Marin, Martinique.
When the Customs and Immigration offices eventually reopened an hour and a half later, we completed the officialdom process, but not before bumping into our yacht broker, who happened to be chatting to potential buyers. That encounter resulted in a mad dash back to Paw Paw to get her presentable for a viewing, following which an unexpected enjoyable evening ensued over wine, as we showed the couple around.
On Wednesday, 21st February 2024, we were up early to weigh anchor and by 0140 we were heading out of Rodney Bay, bound for the Grenadines. After 9 years it seemed the security situation in St Vincent had not changed, so we were giving the island a wide berth. It was, however, the first time we’d seen the island from a distance during daylight as dawn gave way to a beautiful, calm, sunny day and we were definitely surprised to see how picturesque it actually was, with colourful houses, in little villages dotted along the coastline, cascading down the mountains to the shoreline. We also saw a few yachts in some of the anchorages or Med moored to the rocks along the coastline, indicating that the security situation may be somewhat under control. We, however, were happy with our decision to sail on by, based on our research and what we’d read on the Caribbean Safety and Security Net. Regardless, we still had a few “boat boys” come out to Paw Paw while we were underway, who were selling fish, while others attempted to entice us onto a mooring ball.
By early afternoon we’d reached our intended destination; we had returned to another favourite spot, Bequia Island. After picking up a mooring ball, we dinghied ashore to clear in and enjoy a quick snoop around. Thankfully we were not disappointed as we were with St Anne’s, Martinique. While much had stayed the same, there had been positive change too, particularly improvements on some of the infrastructure and new businesses had opened, but the old favourites were also still in business, including the Gingerbread Café, which had become an ice-cream parlour and the café section had expanded to become the Sugar snd Spice Café. The Fig Tree restaurant was also still operating, a place that brought back wonderful memories of our 2015 Christmas potluck lunch enjoyed with cruising friends, as well as the Frangipani Hotel, where we had enjoyed a sit-down Christmas Eve Dinner with the same bunch of cruising friends, while listening to a steel band. All of this was noticed as we walked along the “promenade” / beachfront to the Princess Margaret trail and onto the Princess Margaret Beach to stretch our legs. It was lovely to have somewhere to walk again too without dodging potholes, mud, cars, derelict pathways, etc.
Having frequented most of our favourite establishments over the following days, we decided to visit the Plantation House, an advertised 5-star hotel that was not in existence when we last visited Bequia, to enjoy a morning coffee and baked delights, but the latter, especially for the astronomical price, was sadly anything but a delight; a stale croissant with jam, no butter served, and a frozen slice of cheese cake. Appalled , we decided to rescue our day by exploring pastures new and walked over to Friendship Bay, enjoying the stunning scenery along the way, the beautifully painted colourful homes, the pretty gardens with all the flowers in bloom, a lovely walk on the beach and a delicious lunch at the Bagatelle Restaurant adjacent to the Bequia Beach Bar; a West Indies Chicken Roti each which we’ve been dying to have since returning to the Caribbean. It was definitely worth the wait! The stunning setting overlooking the other Grenadine islands and the cool breeze to keep the heat and humidity at bay, definitely added to the experience.
One of our days was spent trying to get a local SIM card service, but given the ridiculous cost of $150USD to purchase the card with some data, we decided our T-Mobile service out of the US would just have to suffice. It wasn’t until we returned to Paw Paw that we discovered the SIM card service and data we’d purchased in St Lucia was actually working in St Vincent and the Grenadines. After all that, all we had to do was top-up our plan online. Problem solved!
Other significant changes we noticed, apart from the price of things, was the number of yachts in the anchorage, either on the vast number of new mooring balls installed since our last visit or at anchor, the tremendous increase in tourists, either staying on the island or arriving from the mainland, St Vincent, by ferry for the day and seeing cruise ships in the anchorage, with passengers being ferried back and forth in tenders, but unfortunately churning up the water as they did so, which had us rocking around all day. It was the ferries, however, that gave us the biggest headaches because they didn’t slow down at all until they were almost on the newly built commercial dock. Regardless, the place was actually booming and a rather unexpected surprise were the number of French-speaking tourists on the island; they’d clearly given up on Martinique too, it seemed!
By Saturday, 24th February 2024, having enjoyed the delights of Bequia, old and new, as well as barbecued onboard given the very pleasant weather, enjoyed swims off Paw Paw’s stern in crystal clear water, chatted to family and friends and continued with our Irish lessons, our time had came to a close. We were off to explore pastures new, but not before topping up our provisions and spending $100USD on the most pitiful handful of fruit and vegetables we’ve ever seen; the price of visiting what had now become a tourist trap. We were definitely missing the Saturday market in Finike, Türkiye.
Our desire to explore further afield coincided nicely with that of a more famous explorer, given a memorial stone that was unveiled in Westminster Abbey to mark the 150th Anniversary of Ernest Shackleton's birth; an explorer regarded as a quintessential British hero, but was born in Kildare, Ireland, on the 15th February 1874. The memorial stone contains Connemara marble and Kilkenny limestone and is situated in the abbey's south cloister near to memorials to fellow explorers James Cook, Francis Chicester and Francis Drake. We may not be as famous as these fine gentleman, but we have followed in the footsteps of James Cook and Francis Drake during our adventures around the world.
That said, the Irish government is now being urged to purchase Shackleton's Polar Medal, a medal with three clasps to represent his three Antarctic expeditions and was one of many honours bestowed on him.
Shackleton is most famous for overcoming adversity when his ship, The Endurance, became stuck in ice on the third expedition in 1915.
After being stranded on ice for over a year and moving camp a number of times, Shackleton and 5 other men took to a lifeboat from Elephant Island, travelled over 800 NM in stormy seas and hurricane winds to reach South Georgia Island.
Shackleton and 2 others still had to cross 51 Km of mountain to reach a whaling station and summons help for the rest of the 22 crew still stranded in Antarctica and who were all subsequently rescued.
However, what is also not widely known, is that 6 of the men who travelled in the open boat for 15 days, 3, including Shackleton, were Irish. The other 2 were Tom Crean and Timothy McCarthy.
Just a little bit of trivia as we educate ourselves on a country we hope to call home someday; now if we can only get Paw Paw sold!
