Monday, February 24, 2020

Bequia Week 2!



We started off week two with a busy Sunday! We headed out to explore some more, but couldn't go too far before we had to stop and take a photo of the tree in the road we go past every day! Not sure why they didn't take it down when it was a sapling....


We went up to Fort Hamilton and we had a great view of Admiralty Bay right over to Lower Bay. While there is a great view, there really isn’t much of the fort left – just a few cannons and walls plus a little spot to get out of the sun.

 


We headed back down to Port Elizabeth and met some lovely ladies on their way home from church. They were kind enough to let us snap a photo of them – and then we gave two of them a ride home.


We ended the day at Keegan’s ‘Full Moon Hog Roast’ – dinner was good – Barry liked the bonfire the best! I think he wanted to go down and help get it going – he kept getting up to look at it! And the full moon was so bright. Really nice evening.

   

Monday we had booked a boat tour to Isle A’ Quatre which included 3 other Canadians and 2 New Yorkers lol. We got to see the old whaling station and some of the areas of Bequia that are only accessible by water. We also had a great beach lunch – I had grilled lobster and tuna, Barry had the chicken – another surf and turf meal!

 

This week we did a lot of walking to check out other parts of Port Elizabeth and we took did the Belmont Walkway, then the Princess Margaret Trail to Lower Bay. It was a nice walk along the water with a stop at a little bar called ‘The Whaleboner’ for our ‘sundowner’ - guess what the bar stools were made off lol.

  

So Tuesday we decided to confirm our ferry for Sunday – good thing we did. Our ferry was cancelled for maintenance and the only option was to leave on Friday or the next Wednesday. We quickly made a new plan to leave Friday, stay overnight stay on Union Island and then take a water taxi to Carriacou on Sunday. After we sorted that out, we did more walking about - I wanted to take photos of the gingerbread trim on the buildings.

          

That left Wednesday to visit to the turtle sanctuary. The ‘Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary’ has been protecting the Hawksbill Turtles for a long time – they regularly check the beaches for nests, protecting mother and eggs from poachers and once the eggs hatch, they collect the babies and keep them in sea water ponds feeding them until they are three years old. At that time, they release them back into the ocean where they have a better chance of surviving than they did as hatchlings. According to our guide Josh, only 3 out of 1000 hatchlings survive. If they make it from the next to the water without being bird food, they become food for predators in the ocean. Since they began, they have released over 2000 turtles into the ocean – all marked – and divers see them often.  

 

  

Thursday we finished up our visit with a trip to the Grenadines Salt Co., Bequia Threadworks then packed ready for our ferry trip in the morning.

  

Valentine’s Day was spend on the ferry – first back to St. Vincent, then to Mayreau and Union Island. The ferry is actually quite nice – nice seats, air conditioned, concession and one still had Christmas decorations up. Our ferry trip in total was about 4 hours on the water – but the cost was right - $100 EC for both of us – less than $50 CAD.

    
We arrived on Union Island and happened to run into Rob from the Netherlands who we met on our last trip with his wife Jolanda (nothing like our Jolanda!). We caught up with him, enjoyed dinner and a chocolate lava cake for two J Headed to bed early as we had  a full day ahead – we had to go through customs to leave St.Vincent and the Grenadines before the water taxi could take us to Carriacou before customs closes.

 

Still adventuring on! Excited to share Carriacou with you next week!

 











Thursday, February 20, 2020

Bequia - Week One! February 2 - February 9th 2020

I|t was an interesting week for sure!

We were saddened by Peter's passing and it was hard to balance feeling happy to be in a new place with our feelings of missing our opportunity to say goodbye to him in Armstrong and be there to support Joli, friends and family.

But we did try to find him in the experiences we had - including our 'sundowners' - local verb for happy hour lol. And there were a few times when we knew he was present telling us to 'adventure on' as one of our favourite people said!

We arrived in Bequia at Princess Elizabeth Harbour via ferry - smooth ride, lots of locals and inexpensive for a ferry! Barry felt right at home when an ice cream truck pulled off the ferry ahead of us and started playing that familiar 'ice cream truck' music.





Tony picked us up at the ferry and took us up to our 'home away from home' at Mt. Pleasant.We found a great Air BnB that could actually house our whole family - but works for the two of us - two bedrooms means that if I snore Barry can move to a different bed hahahaha.

                 

Nice kitchen, beautiful deck and it came with a dog lol. Although the dog lives somewhere else, he visits us almost every morning.

Our first full day in Bequia was spent getting our bearings - visited our grocery store (Knights), the only bank and ATM (St.Vincent & the Grenadines Credit Union), fruit and veggie vendors ( I paid waaaaaay too much for a tomato) then a walk down to Port Elizabeth for our first 'sundowner' (watch the sun go do with a drink lol) and dinner at Mac's along with some music provided by a couple who said they were a hit on several cruise ships - you know what Barry said about that lol.



Barry said the pizza was good - not sure if it was worth $40 for an extra large - I said he should have got the conch fritters and the grilled tuna salad (fresh that day) - pretty sure I didn't see a Helmut's Sausage kitchen anywhere here.

Tuesday we pretty much hung out at our Air BnB - the deck is amazing! Perfect spot to watch the kids going to school and the expats doing their morning walk - Barry has his own route he walks every morning.



We ate dinner at Sugar Hill - again we were the 'surf and turf couple' - I had tasty grilled Barracuda and Barry had steak :) We walked home which was nice - although all uphill! And a bit of excitement - a grass fire up around the corner from us - I started packing a 'go bag' but when Barry walked up, he said no one was to concerned. So we watched it until it went out - no fire department close by - no fire hydrants either. The locals said they don't usually come.

Wednesday we picked up a car so we could explore the island - nothing is too far away - but the hills are a killer! We explored the island tip to tip and side to side making note of places we wanted to come back to - especially the nice beaches!





We ended the day with another sundowner at Jack's at Princess Margaret Beach - beautiful evening!



Thursday we had a late start - that darn deck is pretty nice! We headed back down to Admiralty Bay to walk the boardwalk and check out some of the local shops and street vendors. We had a sundowner at Bequia Beach Restaurant - and then headed down to the Frangipani for a BBQ dinner and steelband music - not Barry's favourite - but he humoured me!

  



Friday was a beach day! We headed down to Lower Bay for some sand, surf and snorkeling! It was a good day - nice breeze, beautiful water and no crowd.



  



Saturday we had a rainstorm - it lasted about 10 minutes - but was nice to see. There is no water reservoir on Bequia so homes have cisterns to collect rain water. Rainstorm = water in the house :)
We went back down to Lower Bay to check out the end we didn't get to on Friday and had a lovely lunch at Dawn's Cafe.

    

We also visited Firefly Plantation for a tour of the gardens - which was a highlight for me. Barry was excited to see the 6 hole Par 3 'cross country golf course' - a membership is $200 EC per year - less than $100 CAD - and they have a 'members tournament' on Sundays. Only thing we saw on the golf course was the goats that wandered from the pool area to the golf course - and the cow that damaged the banana grove.





It was a full week - and we are already planning more experiences for week 2! Stay tuned!