I was going to write a blog about everything that I did (accompanied by pictures, of course) and I would love to write about the people there, the life they live, the general attitude, before I forget, but I don’t know if I could do it justice. I’ll try, though. This first entry will simply be about where we went and what we saw.
I feel like I’m letting my blog (and myself) down by not writing once a week, but I want it to be something I want to do, not something I’m forcing myself to do. Like running. I love running and while I may have to convince myself that, yes, I really do want to go for a run today once I’ve started running I really do want to be there.
To get to St. Vincent, we took planes from Logan to JFK, JFK to Barbados, and Barbados to St. Vincent. After traveling in Europe I have become much better at flying. I was able to watch two movies on the five hour flight to Barbados without feeling ill.
In the airport at Barbados I noticed a woman with a bottle of duty-free rum and a smaller bottle of coke. She was, while attempting to hide it, mixing them together in a small plastic cup in her suitcase. Her name was Irene. She was in her 60’s and heading to St. Vincent for two weeks to dive. We found out we were staying at the same hotel so we saw her a few more times during our trip.
We arrived at St. Vincent, took a van to the hotel and relaxed for the rest of the night. The next day we were picked up by a environmentalist named Fitzroy who was taking us on a hike to their active volcano. The hike was more of a hike than I had been told it would be. I was wearing Converse; hiking boots would have been preferable. Despite the questionable shoes, the hike was a lot of fun. Fitzroy knew a lot about the plants and different bird calls which made the hike much more interesting. I am somewhat sad that I did not take many pictures of the hike (to preserve my data space for later pictures) but the changing terrain and vegetation was completely awesome. The volcano did not disappoint me because I did not go in with expectations. It was not all steamy or smoky, but it was gorgeous.
The roads on St. Vincent were ridiculous. My brother and I agreed that they would be awesome to drive in an Audi if there was no one else around. I don’t think many drivers there get above 30 MPH, the roads were constant u-bends and s-curves which traveled up and down mountainsides.
We arrived in St. Vincent on a Friday (traveling to the volcano on Saturday) and we got our sailboat on Saturday night.
Sunday afternoon we finally left St. Vincent and traveled to an Island called Bequia. We stayed there for the night, snorkeled a bit (my first experience snorkeling and the water was sadly murky), and headed into town the next morning. The town next to Admiralty Bay, where we were anchored, was definitely a tourist town. There were small shops and tables set up all along the main road and there were more visitors than we had seen while driving around St. Vincent.
After visiting the town on Monday, we sailed to a small island off Bequia to snorkel before anchoring in another bay (Friendship bay, perhaps) on Bequia for the night. Snorkeling off the tiny island was wonderful. there were reefs (that were... brown?) and so many different types of fish. Once I got comfortable with the idea that my head could be underwater and I could not drown, it became pretty fun.
Tuesday we travelled from Bequia to a collection of small islands known as the Tobago Cays (pronounced keys). We stayed moored at the Cays till Thursday and spent the time reading, relaxing, and snorkeling. I read three books on the trip (Moll Flanders, The Lovely Bones, and My Sister’s Keeper) and started a fourth (The Lord of the Rings) and most of the reading was done at the Cays.
Thursday we traveled from the Cays farther south to Union Island where we moored and went into town to explore. While the town may not have been as ‘touristy’ as Bequia, it still seemed more angled towards visitors than some towns we had seen in St. Vincent.
One thing I don’t believe I have mentioned is that I get easily motion sick, yet, somehow, I had survived on a sailboat for seven days without being ill. Friday was a fun day. We had to travel from Union all the way back to Bequia (30 miles, I believe) so we could get the sailboat easily to St. Vincent for Saturday morning. When we started out on Friday it was nice and sunny and I was steering; well, until there was a huge gust of wind that had the sailboat heeling ridiculously and me screaming “I don’t want to do it anymore!!”
Anyways, our nice sunny day turned quickly into rain. Then wind; forty mile per hour gusts of wind, mind you. And eight (plus) foot waves. This really was doing nothing for my stomach. We needed to travel directly north-east and the wind was, of course, blowing directly in the opposite direction. You can sail like this, you just need to keep tacking to stay at a 30/45 degree angle to the wind. We were sailing with our main and jib out and when we eventually decided that sailing would take way to long and we would need to motor someone had to go out on the deck of the boat to bring the main down. I got the honor of doing that job. Mind you the boat was constantly heeling and constantly riding up and smashing down the waves. I got myself a harness, clipped it to the lifeline and slowly made my way up to the mast. Once I was there and the main sheet was down, I decided to stay. The fresh air made my stomach feel better and who wouldn’t want to sit on the bow of the boat when the waves crash at just the right point and swirl around you (there were times when I was sitting in a few inches of water that were streaming over the bow of the boat)? Or when the boat mounts a wave that is cresting beneath it and comes down, hard, on the empty swell left (this did hurt sometimes)?
We finally made it back to Bequia in (if I remember correctly) about nine hours. We spent the night in Admiralty Bay again and traveled back to St. Vincent Saturday morning.
After we returned the sailboat and moved all our luggage to the hotel we went on another adventure with Fitzroy. He took us to the botanical gardens (one place he works) and showed us the parrots there in captivity. We then traveled across the island to see one of their water falls. The last trip of the day was to an outlook where Fitzroy often watches for parrots in the wild (his specialty is birds). We saw a few pairs of the bright birds and, boy, do they ever make a racket.
On Sunday we flew back to Boston and that concluded our trip. If I had a better memory or thought people would be interested I could have written about all the things I had seen each day, what exactly we did, who exactly we met, but I think this general overview, along with pictures, will at least somewhat show my experience in a way that won’t bore.
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