traveldiary.stracke.us

We are back on St.Vincent and Carsten showed us his school campus. Everything looks very nice and the view from here to Bequia is breathtaking. I hope he finds time to study here!
We spent 2 more lazy days at the “Beachcomber Hotel” and the torrential tropical downpours made the garden in front of our cottage look like a rain forest.
We take the small ferry across Young Island Cut and spent the afternoon on this private resort island. Hanging out in the hammocks at the beach is a tough job!
On our last day I went snorkeling right off our hotel’s beach. I was surprised about all the creatures I discovered : a very big porcupine fish, a group of surgeon fish, needle fish, a peacock flounder, trigger fish as well as nice yellow tube sponges and a few healthy brain coral. Even the planks of a ship wreck.
The highlight was a large octopus, sitting on the sandy bottom, waiting for food to swim by.
I dove down to this guy, who blew himself up, but did not take off. I watched him for a while, but I took off when a group of translucent “4-eyed” jellyfish came floating around the corner of the reef.

We want to go diving with “Dive Bequia” and the owner informs us that they do not offer any 2-tank dives. He states that they are too laid back here and only do a 1- tank dive. We sign up and the boat picks us up, basically at our doorstep, at 10 AM. Not the usual 7AM pick up, we have been accustomed to from other dive destinations. We do a morning dive at “Bequia Boulders” and an afternoon dive at “Devil’s Table”.
The diving is nice with a good variety of soft coral, but the fishes are on the small side. We can tell that this is not a protected marine park. The only special creature, we saw, was a winged scorpion fish.
The days fly by and on Thursday we celebrate our last night on Bequia with a bottle of German champagne. It was a very relaxing week!

Life is a little slower on Bequia. The whole island is only about 7 miles long and 1.5 miles wide. We usually have breakfast outside on our porch and the people say hello to us, as they walk by our “House Casablanca”. We spend our days reading, swimming or exploring the island on foot. It is an easy 45 minute walk to Friendship Bay on the eastern shore of the island. We find a long sandy beach, populated by one(!) family with 2 children. This is high season here.
On Monday, we call Rudi to drive us to the Capital, Port Elizabeth. It is a small town with a few streets on Admiralty Bay. Most people come here by boat and there must be over 50 yachts moored or anchored in the bay.

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It is Sunday and we slept through the regular breakfast hours. We hiked up the hill and we are having a nice Caribbean lunch buffet at Coco’s. Great view of Lower Bay from here. It is a very relaxing day, except for a pushy German lady who is annoying me, pushing herself in front of me at the buffet line! Later it is off to the beach right across from “our” House Casablanca and Gabi and I go for a snorkel excursion. Shortly thereafter my fins are stolen right behind my back! Fortunately the thief left me my prescription scuba mask! We consider it a donation to the poor island people.
At night we have an overpriced lobster dinner for Carsten at the “L’Auberge des Grenadines” and the staff is very unattentive. On top of that, we get billed for an extra lobster which we did not have. Somebody tried to get an extra $40 tip. After our first day we are not impressed by the honesty of the local population!

Downtown Kingstown in St.Vincent could use a fresh layer of paint, but it is only a few minutes to the ferry pier. We are leaving St.Vincent on the Bequia I Express and Carsten is coming along for the weekend. The 1 hour crossing goes by quickly. We have not seen Carsten since early January and we have lots to talk about. We see our first Caribbean sunset of this journey and there are plenty of photo ops. The first Bequian we meet is Rudi, who is driving us to our vacation house. The taxi reminds me of similar ones we had encountered in Thailand : a Nissan pick-up truck, where we sit on the benches, placed lengthwise in the open cargo area. Rudi is very slow and cautious, so he becomes our mode of transportation for the rest of our stay on Bequia. We are checking into our apartment: House Casablanca, with our front porch and dining area right across from the beach of Lower Bay. Luck is with us again and we take possession of our little place in paradise.
A brief stroll down the beach and dinner is being prepared on the outdoor grill at Keegan’s. We have a great first night on Bequia and are devouring (remember: no food all day in Economy) anything and everything from the grill, accompanied by the local brew “Hairoun,” aka “Heroin,” according to the medical students!
Incidentally, the Carib Indians called St. Vincent “Hairoun,” meaning “Island Of The Blessed.”
Walking back to our house under a star-studded tropical sky, we certainly feel blessed to be here on the island of Bequia.

Our Sabbatical last year allowed us to travel for an entire year and now we have 8 days to enjoy the warm climate of the Caribbean! Quite a different time frame, requiring a different frame of mind!
The alarm goes off at 3:30 AM on February 18th. I had to book a 5:30 AM flight out of Hartford, in order to get us to our destination on the same day. We are headed for the Hartford,CT Airport, but our airplane, an Embraer 170, has computer trouble and we leave 45 minutes late. Our luck in Philadelphia is not any better. US Airways had to change our plane from a wide-body B767 (with mechanical problems) to a smaller B757. It is the beginning of President’s week school vacation and there is total chaos at the gate. There is no food (we are traveling in Economy now) for the 4 hour flight from PHL to San Juan, Puerto Rico. At least we get to see ” Walk The Line,” a pretty good movie about the singer Johnny Cash. More chaos in the totally overcrowded San Juan airport and the only food we can find are 2 overpriced tuna rolls with a very thin layer of plain tuna, nothing else. Gabi finds some relish to give it a little more taste.
Our next flight is a great sightseeing tour of the Caribbean island chain.

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