Cruising: Fixing Your Boat in Exotic Places

Bequia St Vincent & the Grenadines

We arrived in Admiralty Bay, Bequia early in the morning and spent the day resting up from the passage and searching for someone to repair the alternator bracket that broke as we motored out of Dominica. We were lucky to find Fix Man, a local welder who was able to do the repair. That evening we caught up with Splendido, another Caribbean 1500 boat from 2007 and 2008.

The anchorage was crowded and the forecast was for large swells, so we picked a spot on the outside, clear of the other boats.

Bracket repaired and other boat chores completed, we were relaxing in the cockpit watching a large ketch sail into the harbor as the sun was going down. The 82′ racing catch tacked behind us with her full mainsail and mizzen sail up and looked like she planned to anchor off our stern. But she kept coming towards us, with her sails full, traveling about 5 knots. After a lot of screaming (by us) the catch headed up barely missing our stern, but unfortunately it was way to close and hit the stainless steel railing (push pit) surrounding the back of Berkeley East. The push pit was bent in from the aft to the first stanchion and the life lines were torn loose to mid ship.
As frightening as the incident was, we feel lucky that there was no hull damage and that no one was hurt.

Our plan to depart Bequia was now delayed because we had to file accident reports with the Bequia harbor master. This sounds like a simple task, but in the islands, all things move slowly. But the wait allowed us time to catch up with two other Hylas 54 boats that came into the anchorage, L’ame Lebre and Blue Pearl. L’ame Libre has been cruising for 12 years and they are on their way back to the states to take up life on land. In contrast, Blue Pearl recently moved aboard and is just beginning their cruising adventure. It was an interesting evening.

Our delay also allowed us to spend time with Pasha, a Caribbean 1500 boat from the 2007 rally. We joined Pasha, along with another boat, Gypsy Blues, for a ferry ride and taxi tour of St. Vincent. St. Vincent is a beautiful, lush island.

We drove a round the island, visited the Botanical Gardens, which were built in 1765. Our tour guide spent two hours walking us through the gardens and explaining the origin of all of the plants.

We also toured a Fort Charlotte above the capital of Kingstown. Here we discovered the first fort we’ve even seen with their cannons faced inland, apparently, fighting off the Carib Indians was more important than fighting off the ships at sea.