Bequia, island of clouds

From St. Lucia the next island south is St. Vincent. We decided to skip it and continue to Bequia, which is also part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. (Yeah, yet another week, yet another young nation, with the usual history of alternating British and French ruling you’ve heard before).

More precisely, Bequia is part of the Grenadines part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the Grenadines being a chain of twenty-odd islands between St. Vincent and Grenada. Confusingly, Bequia is the largest of the Grenadines within St. Vincent, but it’s not the largest of the Grenadines. That’s because Caribbean geopolitics is complicated: some of the Grenadines belong to Grenada. I contend that for the sake of consistency Grenada should therefore be called Grenada and the Grenadines.

To skip St. Vincent meant we had to cross two channels open to the Atlantic ocean in one day. We expected conditions were going to be as bad as our memorable crossing of the Martinique Channel. We prepared the boat and ourselves accordingly, but things turned out to be much mellower. Except for the current. We had an opposing current that got increasingly strong as we made progress on the west side of St. Vincent. Since the island blocked part of the wind, at some point we registered 0.0 knots of speed over the ground: the sails pushed us only enough to counteract the current. Still, I refused to turn the engines on. It would have been a shame given that we started sailing straight out of the anchorage, burning not a single carbon-based molecule. There were two problems with that strategy, though: one, the risk of not making it to Bequia before sunset. Two—and much worse—the monohull we had gloriously passed in the St. Vincent Channel was rapidly shortening the four miles we had gained on them! They had their sails up, but they were using their engine as well, or at least that’s what I want to believe. The wind gradually picked up as we entered the Bequia Channel, but so did the current, registering up to 3.5 knots. To my chagrin, the monohull got to within half a mile of us, but my patience paid off: once in fully open waters the wind came back with the whole force of 20+ knots. We took off and the half-boat, er, sorry, monohull disappeared again in the distance. One hour later we entered Admiralty Bay in Bequia, and soon after that we were safely anchored and enjoying a drink on the deck as the sun went down—a most proper sundowner.

Bequia and boats get along very well. The island is small, somewhat isolated and lively, with ample and easy anchorage. It offers an inviting town, Port Elizabeth, with two beaches and a beautiful pedestrian walkway by the water. With seafarers among the early settlers, Bequia has a strong boatbuilding tradition, which you can appreciate still today almost anywhere there’s some shade on the beach. Bequians have perfected the art of building model boats as well. They also have youth sailing programs and an international annual regatta.

Bequia means “island of clouds” in Arawak, but we are not sure why the early inhabitants named it like that.