10/31/2009 Bequai to St. Barts

10/17/2009 Today I worked on getting the boat ready to move. That included fueling up at the local gas station with jerry cans. Fuel prices are up about 25% since I was here in June. It is good to be back in Bequai. I do really enjoy it here and I have fond memories of my last trip here.
This evening I went ashore as I saw that Tommy’s Cantina was open for business. When I was here in June, Pam thought she would have the restaurant closed until the beginning of November. They had their fish special going again tonight as always. The catch of the day was yellow-fin tuna or barracuda. I went for the barracuda. It was delicious. Pam was there working the bar so I sat on talked with her until about 9:00. There was a group of younger people sitting around a table having a good time. I started to talk with on the people. He is Bob. Bob is from Sweden. I never met anyone named Bob from Sweden. We started talking and I did my best at international diplomacy and introduced him to the Tequila Shooter. After that we became fast friends. A little bit later I was invited over to the table. They were on a short break from an institute they are attending in St. Vincents. There was Bob from Sweden, two from Mexico, one American, and four from Brazil. They are part of a small group that will train for six months at the institute on St. Vincents and then spend six months in Africa doing different types of mission work, depending on their background.
After we closed the restaurant we headed over to meet the rest of the group at another bar. That group had a couple of Korean woman, a woman from Liberia and more from Brazil. We started sharing about our adventures, which in the end is what I believe tied us together. Some suggested that I could take them out for sail on Sunday, and I obliged as I always do if someone wants to go for a sail.

10/18/2009 Today came around real early after hanging out with the group until the early hours of Sunday morning. A small group of them met me at the dock as I indicated at 10:00 this morning. Bob showed up with Sara, Monica, and Miran.
The winds were blowing real good today. I took them out for about a three hour sail out of the bay and they had a great time as the waves were crashing through the nets and they loved having the water splash around them. Sara was the only one that had been sailing before. So this was all pretty new for most of them.
After that we sailed back into the bay and anchored off of Lower Bay Beach. There are two reefs on this beach, one at each end. We cooked up some lunch that included kielbasi, fried potatoes and some beans.
Then it got real exciting. Miran had only been in the water once before, only a couple of days earlier. She asked for a life jacket and I provided an inflatable type used for snorkeling and diving. She was still very hesitant. We took the dinghy into the beach and got into the water. Everyone had snorkels and masks and we set off for the first reef. Sara took off as she has diving experience and Bob took off. I was helping Miran and Monica. Miran did not take to it, and Monica had never done any snorkeling before.
Monica had a great time swimming along and seeing the different smaller fish. I saw my first sea snake. (After looking through my reef book, it may have been a Tiger Tail Se Cucumber.) The fish we did see were of the smaller type, but there were plenty of different colors. When we made it back to the beach, Miran was having a ball feeling much more comfortable with the life jacket. She would not get out of the water. She was really enjoying herself. These are the kinds of experiences that live with you forever. I was able to share a little bit of my adventure with four other people that never experienced anything like it.
Later in the evening I made it back to Tommy’s for more barracuda and Pam introduced me to her husband Tom. We sat and chatted for quite some time and had a good time together. I still highly recommend that if you make it to Bequai, make sure you stop in Tommy’s for dinner and drinks.

10/19-20/2009 This morning I cleared out with Customs and Immigration. I then stopped to pick up a couple of provisions and sailed away. I had another great time in Bequai and The Grenadines and look forward to my next visit there in the future.
The winds were good, and checking with the weather service the winds would start to die the next few days. I was planning on stopping at a bay on the north end of St. Vincents, but decided against it for three reasons. One being that I was traveling faster tan I expected and I was there in the early afternoon, too early to stop. The second was that the shore was very steep and not good holding according to the cruising guide and the third was that the cruising guide talked about possible theft in the area. This seemed to be a common story that I heard from several people about St. Vincents.
I decided that I would sail through the night and try to make it to Guadeloupe. During the evening I sailed past St Lucia towards Martinique. I had a clear night as the moon was waning and the winds were good until about 2:00AM. Then the winds died and I was in the lee of Martinique. I fired up the motors and took off for what would be two more days of motoring.
I did not want to stop in Dominica. I still have bad memories of being boarded there and the attempted robbery. I was not going to be able to make any decent anchorages on Guadeloupe before sunset so I decided to shoot for the Les Saintes. They are a small group of islands just south of Guadeloupe. As the morning went on I knew I would not be able to make it to even Les Saintes before sunset. With reluctance I headed for Portsmouth on the north end of Dominica. I did not have problems there, but I had read in a cruisers newspaper about a couple that had been boarded there and robbed. They did catch the thieves and were in the process of arraigning them. This does not make me feel any more secure. I motored into the bay at 2:30PM. If I thought the bay was empty when I came through at the end of May, it was deserted now. There were three other boats in this huge bay. The locals must have had it real hard this off-season.

10/21/2009 I took off real early this morning around 3:30AM. I was motoring again as the wind did not pick up at all during the evening, except when one rain storm came through. It was an uneventful day as I motored past Guadeloupe towards Antigua. I set for Jolly Harbor on the northwest coast of Antigua. I spent a couple of days there when I came through. It is very protected, with fuel, water and groceries. It would be just after sunset when I arrived, but I had been in here before and knew that the channel was well marked.
When I was half way between Guadeloupe and Antigua, I was buzzed by another private airplane. This is the second time on three days after never having this happen in the past. I made it safely into Jolly Harbor on schedule and set the anchor. I would stay here for about 36 hours getting ready for my week in St Barts.

10/23/2009 I readied for an early morning sail for St Barts. When I motored into the bay on the 21st in the dark I noticed glows in the water. It was the fish swimming away from the boat and the bioluminescence glowing. The next evening when I went ashore for dinner I saw the same thing. The bioluminescence was the brightest I had seen since I was in Viequez. When I went to raise the anchor, it glowed as deep as I could see into the water. I would have to say this is the brightest I ever saw. I was kind of surprised when I talked with the locals that nobody knew anything about it. It might have been a rare occurrence. There was a whole business built around it at Viequez.
I got a little later start than anticipated when I left at 5:00AM. I had some winds, except it was dead down wind. It is probably the slowest point of sail on the boat and the hardest for the autopilot to keep up with. For the first time since the BVIs I sailed the spinnaker. I tried it for a while, but the course I would need to set was so far off that it just wasn’t worth it. I motored again to St Barts as I did not want to come into the harbor at night again. I mad einto the harbor just as the sun set. That was 334 nautical miles in four days. It gives me an idea of how fast (or slow) I can travel if I need to hide for cover from a hurricane.