Day 79, Year 1: Friendship Bay, Bequia ( The Lazy Man’s Way)
Date: Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Weather: Beautiful Day in Paradise
Location: Admiralty Bay, Port Elizabeth, Bequia

I know this is beginning to sound repetitive, but it was another beautiful day here in paradise. We had planned to pull up anchor and move around to the other side of the island to Friendship Bay this morning. But somehow, we ended up going to town to do the last minute chores, staying longer than we had planned, and deciding that it would just be easier to walk to Friendship Bay. So that is what we did.

We made a couple of trips into town today to get provisions for the next leg of our voyage. On our last trip out, a young man from Customs asked us is he could have a ride to his tender just off the dinghy dock. We took him to his boat and then headed back to Windbird. When we came back to a different dock to leave our dinghy for the evening, the same young man was there on duty. We ask him for more specific directions for our walk to Friendship Bay, and all he could say is that it was a VERY long walk and that we might want to take a taxi. We assured him we wanted to walk and he gave us directions. As we walked away, he called us back telling us that we could get a bus for $1 US rather than walk or pay the higher taxi fees, but again, we assured him that we really wanted to walk. It was a mile and half up and down hill, but a lovely walk. Not too long at all. When we reached the other side of the island, we realized that it is truly like another world. The waves lap on the shore constantly and there is virtually no commerce, just homes. Only five boats were in the anchorage versus the 75-100 in our neck of the woods.

We found the Friendship Bay Resort with its infamous Mosquito Beach Bar. Each bar chair is an individual swing with the ocean as your view. While sitting at the bar, we met Melanie and Kevin, a young couple from San Francisco. Melanie is an IT and Kevin a CPA. They are on one of the cruise ships docked in Admiralty Bay, but had done their research and knew that Wednesday night is lobster bake night in Friendship Bay. Dinner was phenomenal. We had the 3 X lobster special—Lobster Cappuccino Soup, Lobster Bruchetta, and Broiled Lobster Tail. It was very, very good, and the service and atmosphere were fantastic. There was live music provided by a local group—eclectic group with eclectic music. Everything from middle aged white guy to young black guy playing djembe, mandolin, some sort of cross between a guitar and a ukulele, bass guitar, and lead guitar. After dinner, Kevin, Melanie, Mark, and I shared a cab ride back to town. We learned that Kevin and Melanie got engaged on New Year’s Day in Barbados. When we parted in Port Elizabeth, we gave them our most sincere wishes for a wonderful future together. They promised to check in with the website and send us an e-mail at some point. Hopefully we will hear more from them.

Tomorrow morning we are off to Tobago Cays. We could spend forever here exploring each and every island, but if we are going to get to the South Pacific this year, we must move on. Everyplace we have been here in the Caribbean is magical, so we know we will return here. But we don’t want to cut our stay in the Pacific short. It will not be easy to get back there, and we need to give ourselves plenty of time to enjoy it. So on we push.

060104 Day 79 Caribbean, Bequia–Friendship Harbor