2024-12-01 Thanksgiving at Bequia, then up to St. Lucia

We stayed on the boat all day Sunday, it was rainy, and we enjoyed watching our neighbor shuttle guests back and forth to town.

Yes, you can charter this fine vessel starting at 2.2 million per week.   It has 149 suites and 246 crew to serve you.

Monday we went to town and signed up for a Thanksgiving buffet to be held at the Plantation Hotel restaurant.  Took a short walk around before the rain came again.

View of Bequia harbor, we are anchored about mid photo

Walkway along water in Bequia, part of the Princess Margaret Trail

Nice dinghy dock at Plantation Hotel restaurant

Kris went for a nice little snorkel on Wednesday, she swam from the boat to shore to snorkel around a rocky area.  It was a bit of a swim in an area where boats and dinghy's can zoom around which is always concerning as it can be hard to see a snorkeler, and even harder to get out of the way of a boat when snorkeling, but luckily we had found a yellow pool noodle drifting by the boat the other day.  Did not find an owner so Kris wrapped it around her and had two bright yellow ends sticking up out of the water making her quite visible and safer to make the swim.

She saw a new animal while snorkeling, in fact three of them.  A sharp-tail eel.  Happy to see that there was more live coral than further south.  Bequia was not as hard hit by hurricane Beryl.  

Just a few photos of the snorkel.

Sharp-tail Eel

Wednesday we went for a nice walk; headed over the hill to the bay on the south side.  Only a couple of miles, but good to stretch the legs.  The hill from the dinghy dock to the main road was a killer at a 45 degree slope,  but after that it was all good.  

We are always amazed at some driveways and how steep they are. The photo doesn't do it credit, but you can see the steps on the side to help walkers navigate the drive

Nice retaining wall

Nice old wood doorway

South side beach

Nice view of island and of island to south Petit Nevis 

Near the top of hill looking southwest

Thursday we went to town and picked up some sodas at a local distributor, and then got cinnamon rolls at the local bakery.  Yes, we know - sugar sugar sugar - but it is soooo yummy. 😁

Picture doesn't show well, but this road goes to top of hill in straight line.  It is very very steep.

Thursday we joined a group of other folks for the Thanksgiving buffet dinner put on by the Plantation Hotel restaurant.   They did a great job, and we had a wonderful time.

Sat next to Alex and Lisa off of Hahalua.  You can see our plates are quite loaded with food.

Around 62 cruisers showed up for the buffet.

Early Friday morning at 4:00 a.m. we hoisted anchor and set sail.  A week of strong winds is coming, and we didn't not want to stay in Bequia for another two weeks, so we headed out before the seas got bigger.  With the week of winds hoping for a more pleasant trip north to St. Lucia which was our next stop.

The winds were more variable than we had hoped, but we made it to St. Lucia in time to check in before the overtime fees at customs were enacted.   

We enjoyed watching the brown booby's while sailing.   They have learned that boats will disturb the small fish near the surface, causing them to jump out, which makes it great for the booby's to catch a meal.  So they follow the boats, flying close to them ready to dive down and get a fish.

Looking for any disturbed fish.  The brown booby is very acrobatic, and fun to watch dive for fish

Saturday we got a nice surprise.  The St. Lucia yacht club was having the annual Mango Bowl Regatta.  We got to sit and have a nice ringside view of the around 30 J24 and similar boats racing around the harbor.  They did at least 8 races on Saturday, and more to follow today.

Small boats racing in the anchorage.

There were also 4 larger boats racing a longer course.

We took advantage of the nice sunny day to do some laundry.   We found running a line back and forth under our bimini works well to hang the laundry.  It gets less wind, but no worries about the laundry flying off the lifelines in the strong winds.

Laundry drying in the heat, but in the shade so no sun fading.

Today is more racing, and relaxing on the boat.