The kickoff for this blog posting is definitely, big and expensive boats since that's what we're seeing in the harbor today. We are still in Bequia and enjoying being anchored in this beautiful
protected harbor very much. If you’ve seen the earlier blogs perhaps you saw the photos of the harbor and downtown, as well as a few of the beautiful sunsets we’ve been fortunate to see lately.Megacruiser with helicopter pad AND waiting helicopter
And speaking of photos, check out this one here of a 120-foot power luxury yacht that is anchored a few hundred yards from away to our port stern. Now it’s not that unusual to see a few of these expensive crewed “mega yachts” arrive in Bequia, and it’s not even that unusual to see them with a pad on top where a helicopter could land if need be. But what IS unusual is seeing one with a helicopter already on board just sitting there waiting to be deployed. Check out the rotor blades under the white cover on the top aft deck (guess the helicopter is trying to be incognito).
We also had a larger visitor in port today with this six-masted schooner (sort of a modified tall ship/cruise ship combination). I’m not sure how many people this one holds but this morning the tenders began running back and forth to shore bright and early, and when I went ashore to run errands today I noticed more people in town than I’ve seen so far this trip.
I don’t think I have a photo of this one but one of our “boat neighbors” that’s been here for a few days like us is this beautiful Hinckley yacht to our starboard aft. You sailors out there will recognize the Hinckley name (they are beautiful hand built boats which of course makes them
very expensive (as opposed to the more mass produced fiberglass ones like we have which keep the price affordable for “regular people” like us. Hinckleys are built in Maine, and Tim and I hope to tour their workshop and yard someday soon. The couple on the boat is an older couple sailing apparently just the two of them, and I’d guess they are in their 60’s or perhaps even low 70’s. I told Tim that’s how I want to be when I’m there age – still out there doing physical things like sailing. They don’t appear to be cruisers exactly because we don’t see the traditional markings of cruisers like wind generators and passive solar panels; and of course they don’t appear to be working constantly on their boat like most cruisers do (always something or other that needs attention). But then, perhaps there’s less that will need attention when you start with a Hinckley in the first place.It’s interesting how the longer we remain in harbor at Bequia and the more the local boat vendors see us working on our boat, the less they stop to ask if we want to buy something, unless of course we wave them over for some reason. They’re not being impolite, but rather it just seems they know that vacationers have money to spend, and cruisers usually don’t. Most cruisers I know are not independently wealthy, but rather just regular working people like Tim and I who have simply chosen a different way of life. Not to confuse cruisers with "yachties" as they are sometimes called - that's more of the trust fund set who typically have fully crewed "yachts" which the crew delivers to wherever they want it to be, and then the yachties come aboard for a while and then disappear again for months on end -- leaving the crew to once again taken over and deliver it to the next port of call they decide to visit.
Tim and I are fans of Tom Neale, a writer who has also lived aboard and with his wife of course raised two daughters from birth to when they went away to college on their boat the Chez Nous (that’s French for “our house”). I love a snippet he tells of someone who once asked him, “Why do you live on a boat?” And his reply was, “Why do you live in a house”? Good answer.
Dinghy dock nearest to center of town (this is a new dock and it's much nicer than most and even has a "step" for ease in getting in and out of dinghy
Cruisers and “boat people” aren’t really that different than anyone else, except perhaps for our priorities. Rather than houses and cars and clothes and jewelry, most live quite frugally without these things and just put that money toward their “boat life.” And of course boats (like most houses) are not inexpensive to buy and maintain. There’s a joke among sailors, fishermen and other nautical types – that hardware items triple in price when you put the world “marine” in the label somewhere. Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but then again, maybe it’s not. And just like there always seems to be yet another project that needs to be done in a “land based” home, the same is true for a sea-based home.
I’ve also discovered over the years as I’ve met more and more cruisers here and there, that most cruisers are also very resourceful people who learn to tackle all kinds of electrical, carpentry, plumbing and other tasks on their own, because paying hourly rates for someone in a marine yard is often both time-consuming and expensive. That’s what this trip is all about for us – learning as much as we can about how to maintain SJ ourselves.
Hmmmm.... where does that hose go to anyway?
We’ve been in SVG for 10 days now, and I think we’ve been in the water once (twice if you count me jumping in a few minutes ago to cool off after working below with Tim on our freshwater system). And we’ve taken time for one snorkel outing/long swim a couple of days ago. We kept thinking we’d take a few days and swing down to the Tobago Cays or perhaps Mustique which we’ve never seen before, but it just doesn’t seem to fit in with the purpose of this trip, so invariably we seem to find ourselves with the floorboards pulled up below and tracing freshwater lines looking for leaks, visiting the local canvas store to price privacy panels for the cockpit area (my personal splurge since I’ll be here alone for several weeks), or happily working together on some other boat project or another.
Fortunately for me Tim learned much from his dad about how to make things and work with his hands, so he has some experience with mechanical things. I was always amazed at how resourceful Darvin was and how thrifty – he could always seem to do more with less than anyone I know. I’ve always considered that to be a very valuable trait, so I’m fortunate that Tim is picking up those same traits as he gets older. Just the other day he was talking about wanting to find some small pieces of wood for shimming up our cutlery drawer (it’s actually a rather large and heavy unit of three drawers in one housing). And today we were walking down the street in Port Elizabeth to locate a backup snubber line (for the anchor), and as luck would have it, we passed a store that had left pieces of some type of crate on their steps for anyone who might want the leftovers wood scraps. How cool is that? They do that in Maine too – if you have something you can’t use but that’s in good shape, when the weather is good people will put it next to the road with a “free” sign on it, and then if someone wants it they just cart if away;
otherwise, it is picked up by the rubbage collectors the next time around. I like that – the ultimate “reduce, reuse, recycle” (close the loop) way to live. Now that’s a motto I can get excited about (what can I say, I’ve always been a cheap date). :>)
In addition to our delight at finding those wood scraps, our “hunt” for today was for that backup snubber line which we’re probably going to have to do without because it sems no one has those parts, a section of pipe that we can use to extend the throttle handle on the dinghy (that will allow me to sit farther forward when driving the dinghy alone for better visibility and less chance of the wind catching the front end in a big blow), and finally some additional pipe for that pesky freshwater system. We have two freshwater tanks for a total of just under 100 gallons of freshwater aboard – one tank located under the berth in our front cabin, and another down low in the port lazerette (under the cockpit). According to the Jeanneau owner’s manual that we studied last night after having retreated below to escape the howling winds that regularly appear after dark, there are lines that run from those locations to the sinks in the head, galley and forward cabin; and also to the water heater under the salon table, plus a couple of vents for overflow – in short this means the source of our leak could theoretically anywhere along the way in that system. Playing the odds however, we started with the most likely culprits which are the joints and where the hoses connect to the tanks and such, and we found no less than three damaged hoses and/or coupler problems.
Fortunately for me Tim learned much from his dad about how to make things and work with his hands, so he has some experience with mechanical things. I was always amazed at how resourceful Darvin was and how thrifty – he could always seem to do more with less than anyone I know. I’ve always considered that to be a very valuable trait, so I’m fortunate that Tim is picking up those same traits as he gets older. Just the other day he was talking about wanting to find some small pieces of wood for shimming up our cutlery drawer (it’s actually a rather large and heavy unit of three drawers in one housing). And today we were walking down the street in Port Elizabeth to locate a backup snubber line (for the anchor), and as luck would have it, we passed a store that had left pieces of some type of crate on their steps for anyone who might want the leftovers wood scraps. How cool is that? They do that in Maine too – if you have something you can’t use but that’s in good shape, when the weather is good people will put it next to the road with a “free” sign on it, and then if someone wants it they just cart if away;
otherwise, it is picked up by the rubbage collectors the next time around. I like that – the ultimate “reduce, reuse, recycle” (close the loop) way to live. Now that’s a motto I can get excited about (what can I say, I’ve always been a cheap date). :>)In addition to our delight at finding those wood scraps, our “hunt” for today was for that backup snubber line which we’re probably going to have to do without because it sems no one has those parts, a section of pipe that we can use to extend the throttle handle on the dinghy (that will allow me to sit farther forward when driving the dinghy alone for better visibility and less chance of the wind catching the front end in a big blow), and finally some additional pipe for that pesky freshwater system. We have two freshwater tanks for a total of just under 100 gallons of freshwater aboard – one tank located under the berth in our front cabin, and another down low in the port lazerette (under the cockpit). According to the Jeanneau owner’s manual that we studied last night after having retreated below to escape the howling winds that regularly appear after dark, there are lines that run from those locations to the sinks in the head, galley and forward cabin; and also to the water heater under the salon table, plus a couple of vents for overflow – in short this means the source of our leak could theoretically anywhere along the way in that system. Playing the odds however, we started with the most likely culprits which are the joints and where the hoses connect to the tanks and such, and we found no less than three damaged hoses and/or coupler problems.
Bequia hospital (one street above main street and one below Sunshine School)
One of those problem areas is related to the hot water heater which involves electrical, so we’re not tackling that one since we don’t have the know-how yet; and setting the boat on fire can really ruin your week. But after chatting with Winston from TMM via Skypephone yesterday, we’re going to try and bypass the hot water unit all together and therefore avoid that pesky electrical problem for now. The boat will still heat the water when we run the engine to charge the fridge and house batteries, but of course we won’t have a way to keep the water hot for long durations. So that means showers and washing dishes will be with cold water from here on. It’s a choice, and if we can fix enough of the leaks to minimize our freshwater loss, I’m cool with making do with cold water for the next few weeks until I (or we if Tim is able to return) take the boat back to SV before I leave in mid-March. 
Taxi stand under the almond tree in downtown Bequia. The almond tree is a common meeting place in town, so it's natural the taxi stand just evolved in this spot.
As I write this Tim and I just finished crawling around among the opened floorboards in the saloon below as we traced the tubing here and there, and while I replaced and used my handy Phillips screwdriver to replace the boards we no longer need access to, Tim has dinghied ashore again in search of PVC pipe for the dinghy handle extension and couplings for the water system repairs we think are feasible with minimal expense. I’m also staying aboard to monitor the engine as we run it to charge the fridge and house batteries, something we do at least 2 and occasionally 3 times a day as needed.
It’s warmer today, probably about mid-80’s and the winds have thankfully abated a bit to a more tolerable 10-20 knots instead of the 20-35 “blows” we’ve had the last several days. I’m up to in the cockpit under the bimini (sort of an awning over our cockpit to give you some relief from the full onslaught of the sun). As I’m working up here I have a great view of the harbor and I’m continually amazed at what a busy working harbor it is – it reminds me much of our harbor in Portland. Like our harbor, this one is always busy- many people working on their boats just
like us (mostly cruisers and other “liva aboards”), tenders ferrying people to and from the cruise ship in the outer harbor, and water taxis delivering people here and there. Water taxis are single engine open boats ranging from the small dory size (around 10 feet) to 20-foot boats capable of sprinting people to and fro in a hurry. Bequia library
I also see the familiar yellow and blue Daffodill barges gliding among the boats like a floating delivery company -- only here they deliver ice, water and laundry that’s been washed, dried and folded for only about 30 EC a load (less than $12 US). It’s about 3:30pm local time, and that’s prime arrival time for those making later arrivals into the harbor for a night’s stay. We are anchored as are most of the small group of cruisers who are here. Since this is not exactly a “vacation” trip for us, I consider us more of the cruiser or liveaboard visitor this trip – where as typically I’d consider us tourists or vacationers. Cruisers tend to anchor when they can because that is free, while moorings are often $15 US per night, and you can’t always be sure how secure the mooring is in some areas. As less developed countries become “discovered” and local harbors realize the earning potential of a mooring, which is much faster and easier (especially for those uncomfortable with anchoring), the spots left open for anchoring can become harder to find. Fortunately while in Bequia, even though we’ve moved the boat a time or two, we’ve found a
couple of nice “holes’ among the moorings, and with the bottom of nice sand we’ve found the holding to be good so far. That’s pretty important given the gale force blows we’ve had in recent days.Each time I go ashore here I’m reminded of how much I like the people in SVG, but particularly in Bequia. I like the way they smile and call you “my friend” when you deal with them in a respectful and friendly way. I like the way they look you right in the eye when they talk to you. I like the way they mind their business and leave you to mind yours, and the overall “live and let live” attitude they seem to have about life. What a concept. I like the simple and understated way they cook their food, with a great blend of spices and vegetables and legumes to add flavor and “substance” to the taste, and how they waste very little of whatever it is they are using in the dish. Bequia may be a small island in a small island chain that is St. Vincent and the Grenadines, but I think I could get used to living here.
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