Bequia – Part 1 of 4

I dedicate four whole blog posts to this stop because emotionally it was significant for several reasons which I will get to shortly.  Bequia – Part 1 is the first.  It is hard to bring myself back there because it was so long ago, before Christmas in fact, sometime in early December.

As far as cruising grounds go, St. Vincent and the Grenadines was not a new one for Neil and me.  About twelve years ago Neil and I had chartered a boat here for a month so the islands and waters felt very familiar to us.  The last time we were here we were young(er), kid-less and carefree.  During our spare time we befriended two locals.  ‘Skipper’, a boat boy on Union Island (see photo on a previous post) and  Noel, a craftsman on Bequia.  Since we had been so lucky to have run into Skipper again, we were holding out hope that we might also find Noel, all these years later, when we reached Bequia.  But, would we recognise him?  Would he remember us?  Luckily, we had a photo with us of him, twelve years ago, chilling on our chartered boat when we gave him a ride from Bequia to St. Vincent.

On our first day on shore we set out to look for him.  Well, we weren’t on shore more than ten minutes before we saw what we thought was a familiar face and as soon as I introduced myself and saw his big genuine smile, I knew it was him.  After a few stories to jog his memory, he remember us (I don’t think it is every day that a local catches a ride to another island with ‘yachties’).  He was keen to meet our kids and we enjoyed hearing about his family as well.

Nathan and he hit it off right off the bat when they started talking about, you guessed it, fishing.  Since Noel was an avid fisherman too, he offered to take Nathan out (in our dinghy) one afternoon to where the locals catch fish.  Nathan was elated so we took him up on the offer.    We invited Noel over for dinner that night for “the catch of the day”…or chicken if there was no catch.  When they got back, they were both so excited.  With the number of fish they caught that afternoon, each trying to outdo the other, we weren’t going to be having chicken!  As we feasted on the day’s catch, Noel continued to fish off the back transom.  He pulled in two other biggies!  It was too much for us to eat so he took a nice one home to his family (who were in St. Vincent so unable join us).

Although it had been many years since our last meeting, Noel was never far from our minds because  since twelve years ago until the day we packed up our house, Noel’s wooden carved mask had been hung on our dining room wall.  Also, Neil had bought a bracelet from him all those years ago which had only fallen off about a week before our return to Bequia.  Some things must just be meant to be.

These guys are having way too much fun!!!

Fishing buddies – These guys are having way too much fun!!!