Sunday in the Islands,

On Sunday, Sue and I decided to go for a long walk on the island. Bequia is not very big so you can walk nearly the whole island over the course of a few days. Well, it’s not very big but it is damn high! We don't know if it's the time of year or this island but there were TONS of pretty flowers. Here's some yellow ones.

But first, Sunday in the islands is my favorite day. Just like when I was a kid, EVERYTHING is closed on Sunday. Streets are quiet. People are not around or they’re just lounging on the beach. Maybe taking a kid for a walk. What a concept - a day off for everyone! I don’t think it’s possible to have a real day off in America any longer. Maybe Christmas day but even then the 7-11, etc are open. Can’t miss a day with no buying nor selling I guess. Here, nobody has much anyway so when everyone takes a day off not much changes.

We happened by a Cricket Match. A real one. Uniforms, nice equipment, stands and a scoreboard (it was 123 - 104 when we arrived). Now baseball is a slow paced game but this game looks like it is stuck in Jell-O! The bowler (pitcher) gets a pretty good workout like in baseball as he runs about 20 yards before unleashing the googlie (ball). Everyone else is standing around like right fielders in little league! When they hit the ball (googlie) it often goes by all the fielders and over the scrum for a wicket. . . Or something like that. I guess depending on the rules they start out with a game can go on for days. One GUY can bat for days as you are only out of you hit the ball, accidently let go of the bat (loggerdrop), trip over the wicket, and say something unkind about the umpire’s heritage. Yeah, an out is tough to come by. Oh, catching a fly ball works too.

After being told by a local that we were walking uphill to a dead end (we only realized the uphill part) we went another way and found ourselves on the road UP to Mount Pleasant. This is not a walk but rather a CLIMB. (about 700 feet which is over 100 fathoms!) Switch back road all the way to the top. What a great view though and well worth the climb. Going down, of course, much easier.





On Monday I had a canvas guy (well, he’s not made of canvas but rather, does canvas work.) come out to the boat to give an estimate for making a new sun/rain cover for the boat. As many of you know we like to sail with an open cockpit and so have no permanent bimini. Instead we have a small bimini that zips onto the dodger and is then brought back over the cockpit and fastened to the backstay. This is nearly 4 years old and was never properly designed. It doesn’t really cover all of the cockpit as it is too narrow allowing rain in. Now that it is old it is more of a rain catcher than a tent so we have to scurry below when it rains. Well, I scurry. If it rains when we are underway, well that’s why I sail in my bathing suit!

We’re looking for an over the boom shade that would be held up by a halyard and then lashed to mast, stays, and rail. We’ll see about the prices later today. I have another canvas guy coming out today so we’ll have to estimates/designs to compare.

While taking yesterday’s canvas guy back ashore I was describing our climb up to Mount Pleasant. He asked me who I thought designed the road. The English? No. French? No. He tells me that donkeys designed it! According to him a donkey will only walk uphill at a certain rate of climb and will keep that rate constant. He asked if I noticed that even though the road switched back and forth it is a constant incline to the top. Once the donkey’s had worn a path the road builders just followed this to build the permanent road. Nice
story but then later I started wondering what keeps the donkeys from just walking all the way around the hill in a spiral shape? What made them turn and do a switch-back? Well, there I go ruining a perfectly nice little fable. I do that a lot! Here's a donkey checking out the new road.