Decided that this is a great way to end 2014 which has been troubling, sad, horrific, joyful, enlightened, opportunistic, and full of hope. Although it’s been a great year, I will happily wave goodbye and welcome in the new year in all its glory. I am confident that this will be a memorable year full of laughter and surprises.

We woke up slowly and Matt dove into the Starboard engine to give her a scrub down, check the fluids and belts, and do other manly stuff I care not to learn about. Meanwhile, I finished putting teak oil/stain on the rest of the teak on the boat – there are only 3 places I did not teak and that was because I would have gotten more on the boat than on the teak and why waste hard to find teak stain. Who knew there was so much teak on our boat? Jeesh. After our burst of energy Matt made some yummy home fries, eggs, and finished up the bacon. Feeling refueled, Matt jumped in to see what was under our boat while I did a wee bit of work (I mean “wee”). After he informed me of the delightful creatures playing under our boat, I jumped in with him and we snorkeled the reef near by – some cool flirty swimmers, a few puffer fish, and such. Now I know why nobody could anchor near us – it is all coral/rocks.

Rinsed off, tried to make ourselves more presentable and headed ashore to clear customs. Normally not a big deal, but the island is shut off to yachties–only live ins or people staying in houses are allowed beyond certain points to protect the resident’s privacy evidently. Anyway, Matt thought they had to let us clear out-so we forged ahead and low and behold the security guard must have been in siesta as walked right past his vehicle and made it the short mile up and down hills to the airport to clear out. Easy breezey.

Matt stopped to have a beer while I wrapped up some last minute shopping, bread was on my must have list from Sweetie Pie Bakery, bought Matt a new hat and managed to find a small bag for $12 U.S. (Yes, they have things that are inexpensive on Mustique). Found Matt at the bar, paid our tab for his 2 beers for $10 U.S. (mind you we bought an entire case for $100 EC or $35 U.S.) They know where to get the yachties

Back to the boat for some R&R (Matt hid from the sun in his cool hammock while I read my Kindle). Dinner is on the grill, plan on a short nap, then off to our private party – who shall we be…Ginger and Giligan, Fred and Wilma, the Underhills? We get to make up persona’s…how did we get invited to the Mustique employee/resident party???

Happy New Year…. See you on the flip side.

Tho could really grow accustomed to this life style. Could never afford it, but then again, who can.

Not sure where the day went.

Christine played with teak, re-oiled / stained the whole boat. I played with some electronics, almost felt like work, IP addresses and net masks and routing, never getting all the seatalk stuff I wanted to work.

Fresh fruit for breakfast, and some boat projects in the AM, we had lunch plans at Basil’s at 12:30. Watched most of the charter boats leave, everyone behind us left. Perfect time to run the honda generator, I had started it in Chatham bay last week, to make sure it’d run, hadn’t started in 2+ years. Fired up on the 7th pull, not bad.

Today fired on the first time I remembered to turn the ON switch ON, plugged it into the boat 220 volt circuit, its a 220v honda. Switched on the 220V chargers, and nothing. Uh.. its supposed to charge. Tweaked some things, flipped some switches, then finally idled up the honda, and now we are cooking with gas, litterally. 60amps going into the house bank in bulk mode. Helped the batteries out greatly. Dropped a bit more gas into the generator, and it was lunch time. Planned on the generator running out of gas while we had lunch, hopefully.

Ashore earlish, walked town. Found a produce guy on the waterfront, had great selection, told him we’d be back after lunch.

Met up with some friends from previous visits, great lunch, conversation, all around excellent visit. They informed us of 2 parties on Mustique. Basil’s where most of the tourist and yachties will be and The Cotton House for Mustique Employees. We dade plans to join the employees, locals, house residents, its a 60’s theme from england, complete with bangers and mash. Now my boat attire,is flips and tshirts, not sure how that’s 70s, course some of the tshirts might be from the 70s. Since we are new here, we can claim to be anyone we want to be, Maybe the underhills, from caddyshack, or the folks from the huge yacht in the harbor, Might have good stories to tell. At least about the one New Year spent on the island of Mustique.

After lunch, back to the market, no bread – sold out, but some awesome, fresh green beans, couple of tatters and leisure walk back to the boat. We were going to go back ashore, but the chaos on the water was pure entertainment.

So yesterday, it was busy. Normally you must use a mooring ball here unless you are over 60 feet. Tonight there are just as many at anchor as on balls, and tomorrow is supposed to be even busier.

Our ball, is right next to a pretty solid bottom. No one seems to get an anchor to stick, the catamaran last night found out. I set up the lido deck chairs and watched the show. Boat after boat, try after try. Nothing stuck, I tried to help, saying “no one has made it stick yet”, language barrier, or bravado, I always got the last chuckle, as they picked up and reset somewhere else.

An american monohull came in, they waved, I waved back, english our first language, I suggested they “make sure it sticks” they tried once, it was close, but kept rolling up on the big boat in the back. Said it wasn’t good enough and left, sweet, 1 try and understood. Told them they shouldn’t be discouraged as there would be plenty more to try, tonight.

Oh my, a floatilla, 4 boats wanted to raft up in the non-holding area. Quick, I need a fresh drink for this. One sets an anchor and invites his friends to do the same and raft up. The others get nothing to set, I question if he really set, but the wind / waves were calm at the moment. The others tried both sides, ended up back in boonies before thinking they had a bit of a hold.

The beautiful big mono, who would have been the recipient of a dragged anchor, called out on the VHF about his discontent to the harbor master, in no time, Slick and the boys were on it. They told em the holding sucks, yet the french charter captains thought thew knew better and still tried to raft up. They got 2 of the 4 together, then it got rolley, and then one anchor wasn’t holding, that was the end of the raft up. Its now well after dark and I hadn’t even started cooking cause the show was entertaining.

A few more resets, and we have 1 of the 4 thinking they may make it through the night.

Behind us action is okay, I won’t talk about the 2 infront of us, who dropped anchor and immediately left the boat for shore. I hope they stay hooked. We are happy we arrived early when we had a choice.

Now that we have an open bar for new years tho, we are contemplating our early departure new years morning at sun up. Stay tuned, as all plans like that can / and will change.

Beautiful sunsets, despite all the boats, beautiful steamer looking thing came in late, we have our own constellation in the mooring field.

Excellent connection from the boat. (Chuckle)

Part of the sunset

Chaos of boats going on.

Somehow Admiralty bay Bequia was a beautiful night. Cool breeze, late anchor, on the second attempt, the hook was set, we cursed the windless, but damn if I didn’t sleep like a baby at the better anchorage location, only getting up twice to check on the world around. Well actually a few more times, but re-assured myself by looking out the window and spotting our neighbors, and consulting the gps, whose batteries were ‘low’, but a great nights sleep.

Didn’t even notice the ferry’s leaving that send rollers through the anchorage, almost cold, used the sheet as a winter parka to stay warm.

Woke up a bit hungy, so breakfast was in order. Diet coke it was. We still needed beer, and had plans to get going sometime today, not very far, but around the island and further east, to Mustique.

Made some bacon and scrambled eggs with home fries, getting pretty good at my home fries. Course bacon always rules.

Christine cleaned up my mess, and it was time to go ashore, beer beckoned.

Holy dingy dock, not a spot one. However, we found a pseudo spot on the corner, we came with 3 cases of empties to recycle, a bit of trash, and in search of a tater, green pepper, and any fruit, we could come by. The fruit stand is next to the trash, so we headed there first, left the empties in the dingy. Some new lady has setup her own stand 1/2 between the dingy dock and the real veggie/fruit market. Lots of action there. Felt sorry for our regulars in the fruit market. We dropped off trash and were heading back to the new lady, but fruit market guy recognized me, I’m stuck. He had Fresh tomatos, awesome ones too, we picked up a a few and a papaya, my favorite. RESPECT the locals and they remember you. Tho we did visit the new lady cause she had the avocados that looked good. Hard but good, talked her out of the 3 minimum requirement and our veggie fruit shopping bag was full.
Just adult beverages left.

The closest grocery store had what we wanted, but wanted to charge deposit, but hey, I had 3 cases of empties in the dingy, and they were of the same brand “Carib”. Ran, er, walked, to get them. Wrong, the carib from Grenada is different from carib from SVG, the glass bottles are different colors, brown vs clear, so its pointless to recycle.

Christine negotiates her Shandy’s down 30% off the initial price, to make em closer to my beer price, now if she can do that with the Vodka drinks we’d retire early.

Back to the boat, a few mins of internet, and we are off. Well as fast as our finicky windless will allow us, motoring around the corner directly into the wind. Up the coast, we drop the fishing lines, make water, and turn on the inverter to charge laptops, etc. Its getting rough, big waves as we clear the north east coast of Bequia. We head out into the atlantic bare poles, with out sails. We see our course, we head to wind, raise the main, 2 reefs its blowing 26 knots, fall off and pull 2 reefs on the jib, leave the motors running, making water and charging laptops. Not making enough electric to cover what we are burning, but top off both tanks with water.

Damn birds keep following our lures, then finally it happens. The big seagull picks up the line, with lure and tries to fly away, WTF? I thought fish were stupid but birds too? Looked harmless enough, kind of like we were flying a kite. Fishing line in the air, bird flying, but then the line wrapped around its wings. Into the water it fell, and now drug behind the boat. Doh. We slow the boat, reel in the line, and damn bird has a 4 inch beak and bitting anything close to it. Get it on the transom without it biting me, and it bites the swim ladder. I’m convinced the swim later now has the bird flue. I notice the fish hook hasn’t actually stuck the bird yet. So there is hope. Gently pulling the line, and swinging it over one wing at a time, I was able to get the bird untangled, and it fell into the water behind the boat. And then it flew, slowly, with difficultly at first, but it gained flight, and its buddies all clapped and high-fived his efforts.

A little while later the other reel started to sing, something small. Slowed the boat, something silver this time. A fish. Got closer it was a cuda, a quick action with the pliers and he was swimming again too. Done with fishing for the day, we are almost to the Rich and Famous.

We got here, a few moorings available, 3 or 40ish. We chose our favorite location, not easy to pick up the mooring, we had 3 options, but before we could execute either of them the harbor master showed up and plan 4 was executed and done much easier, we are hooked. For the next 3 nights.

Now, if you get here late in a ‘small boat’, under 60 feet you are allowed to anchor if the balls are all full or if you are over 60′ you are required to anchor. This is where the comedy starts, the 70+ beautiful sail boat, tries umpteen times to anchor all over the bay. Finally 1.5 hours later they get hooked. An Ex-charter boat, anchors next to us, little scope, it looks good, they dive on the anchor, 2 of the 4 crew think its good. 30 mins later we look up, they are 300 feet from us, oblivious that they are dragging back to venezuela. Finally they realize as I’m about to drop the dingy and tell em, and the harbor master see’s em trying to re-set the anchor next to us, takes them to the ‘rolley’ side of the anchorage, maybe they’ll set the hook there.

Cold beverages and good wifi, we are part of the rich and famous. Pesto chicken and pasta for dinner. Cold north wind, and by cold I mean 79 degrees, but we are sporting long sleeves on the foredeck.

Tomorrow, maybe some boat projects, a snorkel, a hike, who knows…..

Working hard has its meanings. Paddling out delivering bread and fruit in the morning.

Snack. Don’t mind the empties in tags sink.

Yes. The water is that color.

Boat that anchored next to us. About to realize they are not anchored at all.

Fun