hikiing in Bequia

Yesterday we grabbed Paula and Brian from Magique (from Saint John, NB) and headed for the hills at high noon! Seems we can't organize a walk at a respectable early hour in the morning because it interferes with coffee, morning net, reading and so on! Our destination this time was a little place called Spring along with Spring Bay. We had heard that there was a little restaurant along the way for lunch, but our luck ran out when we discovered that it had been destroyed by fire a couple of years back. So, we kept on walking until we finally found a nice little eating spot a couple miles further right on the ocean. After looking over the menu, we opted to have a cold beer and decided to head back to Admiralty Bay where we could get our favourite roti at the Green Boley. The alternate restaurant offered only sandwiches at quite a high price (14.00 EC - which is about 7 dollars Canadian) We began our hike at 11:00 am and arrived back in our own bay at around 2:30, so we were well exercised! Laurie and I went aboard Magique for sundowners and a tour of their 44 foot C&C before heading back to our boat for our evening bath in the ocean.

The wind has kicked up here and will persist until at least Thursday, so we'll stay put until it all calms down before heading south to Salt Whistle Bay in Mayreau (in the Grenadines).

Bequia has their great end-of-season "hurrah" on Easter weekend, and we have seen this great harbour slowly empty from near 200 boats to about 60. Many yachts as well, have said their goodbyes to the crowd on the morning Coconut Telegraph net on SSB.

I am sending all blogs and checking all email via Ham Radio these days while here in Bequia because of the weak wifi connections. I was a little spoiled while up in Rodney Bay! The other day, I had 4 emails 99 percent sent when I suddenly got disconnected. It took me 1 and a half hours to get a connection again and finally get the check marks required to let me know that they went. The average speed was 500 bytes a minute! Oh, you know, "the hell here never ends"!

Laurie is again immersed in a book. Last week he read "The Poisonwood Bible" in only 3 days. It's an Opra recommended book that I had read a few years back - at the time, he thought it to be a "girlie book". Presently, he's on the last few pages of "Master And Commander" which he picked up 3 days ago at a book swap! Needless to say, chores around the boat are being neglected, but oh well...

Because we're nearer the equator, there is little fluctuation for sunrise and sunset. The sun sets here at around 6:20 (6:00 in Jan and Feb) so darkness falls quickly, followed by reading and bedtime usually before 9:00! Last night was an extremely hot one, even with a continuous breeze over us.