Our arrival at Barefoot’s
new charter base was met with much fanfare.
Utan, resident bartender and St. Vincent's Minister of Defense, had
a batch of killer rum punch already prepared.
Seth joined me to assist in a little quality
assurance testing of a bottle of Wolf Blass Cabernet
Sauvignon Premium Black Label that I had brought along.
I’m certain he gave two “thumbs up” sometime
between when the last glass of wine was poured, and the fourth batch
of rum punch was delivered. I’ll
never know for certain.
I must say that the bar and
restaurant at Barefoot’s new base was a great place to
spend an evening. Located
on the second floor terrace overlooking the Blue Lagoon, the
soft lighting and wicker furniture created a very cozy
environment, one conducive to settling in with a good
beverage and a good story. A
local entertainer named Raphael Holder played all the
Caribbean favorites, as he does on every Friday night. The ambiance was excellent.
The food was excellent.
They had a pair of baby Amazon
Parrots that created quite a racket as they tried to mimic the
sounds around them. They
carried on quite a conversation between themselves,
frequently breaking out into raucous laughter.
I tried for two days to get them to whistle the theme
song from the “X-Files”, but to no avail.
I’m certain that they started to whistle it five minutes after we left.
Birds. First they crap on our monuments, then
they mess with our minds.
Most everything I had ever heard about St. Vincent was
on the negative side - high
unemployment, crime, poverty, no industry, and virtually no
tourist facilities. Words
that screamed “stay away”.
The capital, Kingstown, was described as this cesspool
of crime with vicious characters lining the streets waiting
to slit your throat. Despite
this, I wanted to see for myself.
We booked a half-day taxi tour with Phyllis, proprietor of
Phyllis Taxi.
When we finally toured the
island, I was pleasantly surprised.
I did not see any residential ghettoes or
“spaghetti western” figures lining the streets.
Instead, we were treated to a very pretty and quaint
island, with lush vegetation and stunning mountain views.
Beautiful villas dotted the landscape.
Kingstown was in fact a very clean town, with some
very interesting colonial architecture.
The Botanical
Gardens were well worth the visit. Our guide,
Christian Daniel was especially entertaining. These
Gardens have nearly every type of plant, tree, spice - you
name it. We saw Breadfruit trees brought there many
years ago by Captain Bligh. Really.
When the tour was over, I said to Phyllis, “this is a very beautiful island, shhh,
don’t you tell anybody!” Most Vincentians agree
that they like the island the way it is.
It
had been raining for one week prior to our arrival.
It rained off and on while we toured St. Vincent.
It really rained during our Sunday passage to
Bequia, so extreme that we
saw numerous waterfalls streaming
down cliffs on the north side of the island as
we approached. It
was spectacular. Instead
of the usual “Bequia Blast” you encounter entering Admiralty
Bay, we were up against the “Bequia Bath”.
By the time we anchored, we were cold, drenched, and not happy.
We needed our mothers. We planned for a roti and a
Rummer, followed by a rest. The Three R’s.
Our
unhappiness grew when we remembered that
it was Sunday, and on that one day a week, The Green Boley is closed. We
had flown for 7 hours to be in this one spot, so that we could enjoy
our favorite
conch roti at our favorite roti establishment, and the damn
place was closed. Is
there no justice in this world? Newly
opened L'Auberge des Grenadines next door was
skeptically pressed into
service. They did, in the end, produce a very decent “backup”
roti.
We were forced to remain there for most of the
afternoon as a result of further meteorological activity.
The bar tab was later sent to the Guinness Book of
Records for verification.
We did indeed record the high score.
The next
morning, we sailed to my favorite anchorage, the Tobago
Cays. As
we approached, the rain, which had been pretty solid all
day, really let loose.
We were faced with several line squalls that
mercilessly dumped buckets of rain on us. There
were 30-knot gusts and zero visibility.
We decided to abort the Tobago Cays for the moment, and head
into Saline Bay. At least
we could hang out with Righteous
at his bar - inside! There
was no point in going to the Cays because snorkeling was not
going to be all that appealing.
The Tobago Cays - I don't think
so . . .
We hung out in Saline Bay
for another two days, hoping for the rain to clear.
Righteous kept telling us that it would end very soon, but
that was not based on any official report. I don't
think anybody on that island had ever listened to a weather
report. We
finally aborted all hopes of spending any time on The Tobago
Cays and decided to move
on to Union, although the weather there
appeared to be even worse. What else were we going to do?
The
official word on the weather was this:
The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (something like
the jet stream) was directly over us in the southern
Grenadines, far north of its
normal position. It
was responsible for the bands of rain clouds that were the
source of our great irritation. A huge low-pressure system was also lingering
over the Atlantic, just to the east of us.
All this resulted in an endless pattern of wash and rinse cycles.
It is not comfortable being on a boat when it is
raining all the time. You,
the floor, the walls, your clothes, your bedding, all become
permanently soaked. There
is no place to go and nothing to do.
It is not my idea of paradise.
