fourth part of report coming later
It poured the rest of Saturday night into Sunday morning. We were to sail to Mustique aboard the Pelangi just the three of us for $200 plus $30 head tax. I called them in the morning and they said the captain was getting the boat ready. I think we could have cancelled the trip, but I did not want to mess up his schedule and for all we knew the sun could appear at any moment. It seemed as though it was clearing. We later found out it rained most of the day on Bequia, so our trip was not too bad. We had a few sprinkles and clouds leaving Bequia. The sea had strong currents and a moderate chop. It took about 2hrs and 17 minutes to get to Mustique. The water approaching Brittania Bay was the most gorgeous shade of turquoise, much different even from Bequia. We had mostly sun on Mustique, but a few sprinkles and some large dark clouds blowing over quickly. We immediately headed to Basil’s Boutique for t-shirts. I had spoke with him on Saturday to check their hours. I knew Sunday would be an off day for shopping. They were open until noon, so that gave us a little less than a half hour to find t-shirts. I am going to complain. Why is it so hard to find a size medium adult t-shirt? I was so desperate that I asked for the largest size in a child’s--no luck. I had this problem here and some other places as well. It seems to happen every trip. Anyhow, we headed to Basil’s for lunch. We were the only people dining here our entire visit. We ordered garlic shrimp w/salad and rice, a very good burger with fries and a chicken breast sandwich smothered in mozz. cheese on a slice of bread with fries. We got a large bottled water, coke and 2 Hairouns for $75 including tip. The service here was great, it should have been as we were the only ones to pay attention to. Nice waterfront setting and of all music- a Lionel Richie CD playing. Where was the tropical island music? Never heard any except at the Sunset Shores Restaurant on St. Vincent. And I will make a comment about the garlic shrimp. If you haven’t noticed that item showing up at every one of our dinners yet. We have an extremely picky 10 year old--she loves shrimp scampi, so the garlic shrimp was about as close as we could get and usually one of the most expensive items on the menu. Some of the shrimp dishes were a hit, some not. The one at Basil’s was. After lunch we were planning on walking to the Firefly for a drink and to take some pictures. Thanks to the cab driver who informed us that they were closed for the next two weeks. We decided to have him give us a half hour driving tour. We drove by the homes or saw from a distance Bryan Adams, Shania Twain, Mick Jagger and the Hilfigers. Mustique is a beautiful, well landscaped, litter free island with actual lawns. Everyone here was very friendly. Some of my best pictures are of Mustique (my total for the trip of 20 rolls costing $263 to develop at Ritz). The sail back to Bequia was much smoother and we gave a lift to a lady who worked at the Gingerbread. Captain “Bamo” was great with the good help of his very quiet son. After arriving back to Bequia we headed over to Mac’s and ordered a pizza and two chicken pita sandwiches to go-total of $26. The pizza was great as usual, but the pita sands had too much mayo and a ton of chicken--great for a big eater. But it was good enough to hold us over, and we didn’t have to worry about showering right away and dressing for dinner and paying for another cab.
On Monday I woke up before 6am to find the sun shining through the drapes. Sunshine at last. It rained again overnight--it did every night throughout our stay. One problem with the lack of sunshine--the water at Kingsville is solar heated, which we did not know. We had a nice hot shower on Friday and none on Saturday, Sunday, nor Monday. It is very hard to shave your legs with goose bumps. The girl at the office informed me of the solar situation. My daughter and I decided to walk the entire length of Lower Bay in search of some shells- not pieces of shells, but shells we could take home and add to our collection from all of our other trips. None to be found.-only lots of coral, rocks, broken glass and pieces of ugly shells. We attempted to walk over to Princess Margaret Beach. We walked over lots of rocks missing lots of sea urchins in the water. We felt we were about ¾ of the way to the beach and gave up and turned around. Having later seen the rocky area by water taxi, we weren’t even close to reaching the beach. Our little dog friend Ebony followed us up and over the rocks as if she were leading the way. We headed back to the apartment to load up the beach gear and head to the beach. We had a mostly sunny day with a quick passing shower around 1130am. We headed to Keegan’s to take cover and came back around 1230 when they started serving lunch. We ordered a burger (that my daughter refused to eat--tasted like meatloaf with the same mushy consistency), 2 orders of fries, 2 orders of chicken wings, 2 sodas and 2 Caribs for $20 with tip. The service was good and the bartender entertained us singing Karaoke behind the bar as if she was to be the next American Idol. We tried to keep the laughing back, but it was hard. It was as if she were the only person around in her own little world--singing and dancing. The day was beautiful and full of lots of sun. We decided to eat dinner at Keegan’s as well. They asked that we place our dinner order while we paying for our lunch bill. We figured for the price how could we go wrong and if it were bad, we wouldn’t return again. We cleaned up and headed back out for our 630pm dinner reservation. We sat in the bar area and the gentleman there said that he was just waiting for the waitress to arrive and got us drinks. We were escorted to the dining area. We were the only ones dining there that evening and I felt bad that they had prepared a meal just for us. They did not seem bothered by that and the service was excellent. We were first served homemade potato soup--delicious, but eating soup in a hot non-air-conditioned building certainly made the sweat drip from your face. Our meals were a very good curry chicken, an excellent grilled kingfish steak (a few too many bones) and once again garlic shrimp. Each meal was served with rice or fries and carrots. The garlic shrimp here was a miss in my daughter‘s opinion. There was no garlic butter sauce, but more of a pureed mashed garlic loaded up on top of each shrimp. We were also served some bread and for dessert a choice of pineapple cake or butterscotch ripple ice cream--both delicious. The cake very moist and sweet , but not too sweet and the ice cream very creamy. We were in and out within one hour. This was an extremely good value and one of our best meals. The price for the above along with 2 Caribs and 2 sodas $75 including tip.
Tuesday morning my daughter and I left the apartment at 815am to walk, rather hike to Port Elizabeth. Along the way, I thought we should head down to Friendship Bay. I was planning on spending a beach day at the Friendship Bay Beach Resort for a swim and lunch. Well, on Bequia there are lots of up and down hills. Easy going down, but you know you have to eventually go up it. When we arrived at Friendship Bay the resort was closed, but one of the workers let us roam the grounds and take pictures. I got one of my daughter in the cool bar swing seats. This beach was not as nice as Lower Bay, so I was not disappointed and decided to spend the rest of the beach days on Lower Bay. We walked from Friendship Bay to Port Elizabeth. My poor daughter’s face was sweaty and red cheeked, but she did not complain. We stopped and got some bottled water. We walked around town, bought some more souvenirs, stamps and post cards to mail home. She was well rewarded with one of Marianne’s ice cream cones -vanilla fudge-yum!! The Yankee Clipper was in port so there were lots of people roaming around and we noticed the beach areas more crowded than we had encountered. We decided to take the water taxi back to Lower Bay (African Pride for $15EC). I got some great shots of the shore area and some of Kingsville from the water which was nice. Beautiful scenery. Princess Margaret Beach had about 15 people on it. We walked back to the room and headed back to beach for the rest of the day. We ordered take out from Dawn’s Creole Snackette for dinner- 2 grilled cheese, 2 fries, 2 orders of wings and 4 Caribs for $27. This once again saved on cab fare and we had an early morning departure to meet Passion for our Tobago Cays trip.
The morning started out cloudy and I was hoping the weather would be nice for the trip I had been waiting for years to do. I had always wanted to visit the Tobago Cays, so I wanted the day to be perfect. When I had originally spoke with Heidi ,who I pestered for 6 months about this trip, there were going to be 7 people, but it ended up being 20- two of which we dropped off on Canouan. We were served homemade banana bread, coffee, tea or juice as we headed out. We arrived at Canouan at 11am and dropped off two of the people. Beautiful beach where the Canouan Beach Hotel was. The skies heading out to the Tobago Cays were not looking very cooperative. We had some sun, but mostly cloudy. As we approached and anchored at our snorkel area a big rain cloud drenched us and the wind blew. My daughter and I got geared up to snorkel and entered the water. The water was choppy enough to keep covering her snorkel, so we decided to get out of the water. We watched the others snorkel in the rain and chop. Here I was at my dream spot and mother nature ruined it. The photos I took did not do it justice without the sunlight. As it was time to go, the skies sort of cleared there, but we were headed to Mayreau and within minutes the island was no longer visible due to the rain. It was a bit rainy upon our arrival at Saltwhistle Bay, but after lunch cleared up nicely. We had radioed in our lunch orders to the Saltwhistle Bay Restaurant before snorkeling. We arrived at our stone enclosed thatched dining areas and ordered drinks. Not long after our lunch was served. We ordered a club sandwich, snapper sand with fries and chicken legs with fries and salad, a Pina Colada and 2 cokes for $44 including tip. Food was good, my daughter said her chicken was great. The sand at Saltwhistle Bay was sooo soft. Once again, no shells, but what a beautiful beach and setting. I would consider staying here although he would not due to lack of air-conditioning. Marty the captain of Passion was a great entertaining guy. The only negative things I can say about the boat was that there was no freshwater rinse offered to get rid of the salty skin, no music on the way over and crappy music on the way home. Music on return was the Eagles, Macarena, Mumbo #5, 3rd Eye Blind---once again where was the island music? The crew were very courteous and great at keeping the beverages replenished. After arriving back on Bequia we decided to order dinner to go at the Port Hole. We were not cleaned up enough to look presentable for a meal. It took a long time for our order to be ready -over 30 minutes. We had heard that they had great rotis so we ordered a chicken roti/beef burrito/chicken burrito/chicken legs w/fries. The service was good and the food was a nice change-$29.
Our last full day, we slept a little later. And today my chins were hurting pretty bad, must have been from all of the walking two days earlier. We headed out to the Turtle Sanctuary which my daughter just had to go to. We also got to see that part of the island. My daughter enjoyed the Turtle Sanctuary and talking to Brother King He had just set a turtle free about 5 minutes before we arrived. We headed back to the apartment lathered on the sunscreen and headed off to the beach. For the second time during our stay we were not the only ones on Lower Bay. The locals must have been out of school. The beach was crowded with lots of teenage kids and a large group of younger kids. Lots of splashing and screaming, trying to throw each other into the sea. A big rain cloud was headed our way so we headed over to Dawn’s Creole Snackette for lunch-3 cheeseburgers/3fries/3 sodas $$21 including tip. Every burger we ate except the one at Basil’s tasted mushy with a filler more like a meatloaf. I asked if they put anything in the burgers here other than ground beef and she said no, but they did and my daughter did not eat it once again. That night, not really being hungry, we walked down to Keegan’s and ordered food to go. We saw a sad sight. The beach area where all of the local kids had been earlier was littered with trash--plastic drink containers, glass and paper. Signs all over to keep Bequia clean and in one day the place was trashed. We got to watch the sunset on the way home--not sure if we saw the green flash or not. We did not see green, but saw some flickering before the sun finally disappeared.
