Merry Christmas from Bequia in the Grenadines 🎄

We decided to spend Christmas in Bequia (pronounced Bekway), which is just south of St Vincent and north of Mustique.  End to end, Bequia is about 5 miles long and only 1/2 mile wide, with about 5000 inhabitants. 

Bequia has a beautiful anchorage called Admiralty Bay.  After an eventful 10 days of prepping the boat and sailing northbound, we were happy to land in Bequia for some down time, and peace and quiet.  Or so we thought ....

The people of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) celebrate Nine Mornings, a festival associated with the Christmas season.  Nine Mornings before Christmas, the islanders wake at 3 in the morning and partake in various activities many of which include musical concerts and dancing.  Celebrations continue for several hours and then they head to work and during this time, it is perfectly acceptable to be quite late for your morning shift.  On our first night in the harbour, it was a bit of a surprise to hear loud music over the speakers at 3 a.m.  Let's just say that we now wear ear plugs to bed each night.

One of our more important tasks in Bequia was to get the Christmas lights up.  Roger had packed some extra strands in his luggage so that this year, we were able to put lights all the way up the mast and across the boom.  Needless to say, it makes it quite easy to find the boat at night in a large mooring field.

One thing we love to do wherever we go is to immerse ourselves in local culture. On our second night in Bequia, we went to see the SVG Police Band, who perform throughout the islands during the holidays.  It was fun to hear their Caribbean take on traditional Christmas music. 

There are a number of cruisers who celebrate Christmas in Bequia each year, so there seems to constantly be something going on.  Everyone is able to connect through the Cruiser Net, on Channel 68 at 8 am on the radio.  There is also a Salty Dawg What's App group which Roger participates in.  Being the social kind of guy he is, Roger quickly organized a Salty Dawg get together at Jack's, one of the local beach-side establishments.  

The next day we participated in a dinghy drift for happy hour.   The plan was to serenade the anchorage with Christmas carols. Everyone met in their dinghy at the same location, and tied their dinghies together.  People brought several instruments including guitars, a clarinet and a squeeze box.  The organizer even handed out song sheets.  We had about 20 dinghies which created quite a large sized raft which we then had to navigate between the anchored boats.  We got lots of smiles and laughs.  A fun way to spread Christmas cheer. 

Roger went for an 11:00 AM dive on Christmas Eve and said it was the best coral he has seen in years.  He also saw 3 seahorses, a lobster, barracuda and a small shark. 

On Christmas morning, Santa and his reindeer were spotted spreading cheer around the anchorage.

We also had presents from Santa, so I guess he found us with all the lights on our mast.  

For Christmas Day, the owner of Fig Tree, one of the local restaurants, loaned out her premises to the cruisers in the bay.  Through the cruiser net, all the cruisers were invited to come for a pot luck Christmas feast starting at 1 pm.  There were at least 100 people there.  I made the Caribbean cornbread recipe that my friend Judy Lange shared with me, and as usual, it was a huge hit.  

For Christmas dinner, even though it was just the two of us, I cooked up a traditional turkey dinner.  I was pleasantly surprised with how well it worked out given our limited cooking facilities 😉 

Roger turned on some Caribbean Christmas tunes, and I got to work.  The small boneless turkey just fit into our little propane boat oven.  Everything else was done on the stovetop, including mashed potatoes, peas and gravy.  I even found a recipe for homemade stove top dressing, which I finished up in the oven for a few minutes while I got everything else ready to go.  We rounded out the meal with fresh cranberry sauce using the cranberries I found in Grenada.  It was delicious.  And the best part is we have lots of leftovers for the days ahead! 

Bequia gave us the opportunity to relax, meet some new friends, watch some sunsets, make some fresh water and get refueled, literally and figuratively.

And we got to meet a few of the local characters.

On Boxing Day, we were just getting ready to leave when "African", the owner of the mooring, stopped by.  He wished us Merry Christmas and gave us a traditional fruit cake that had been soaked in rum over the past several months.  A special touch.  He also said he would line us up with one of his buddies in the Tobago Cays, our next destination.  Maybe there will be some lobster or BBQ ribs in our future.....