Royal Visitors

Bequia as we've not seen it. For the last few days, all the public spaces have been bustling with workers carrying rakes and paint brushes and such. Potted palms line the path to the Belmont Walkway, past Mrs. Taylor's Porthole Restaurant and the entrance to Tommy's Cantina. Major cleanup of all visible trash, including scooping out the drainage channels to the sea that run through town; dump trucks of sand spreading their loads along the water's edge to enhance the beach. Pressure washed immigration building. Suddenly-appearing new plantings along the garden strip between the sidewalk and the street. Cars are parked in an orderly way, and most of the local boats off the beach and in the water. Vendors have been shooed away for the day, I heard. And a red carpet is already spread on the jetty where the motor launch from St. Vincent will appear this afternoon with Prince Edward, Sophie, and their entourage, including St. Vincent Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. There's a big white tarp set up with folding chairs underneath it for what will probably be boring, pontificating, welcoming speeches. We encountered the former Prime Minister, Sir James Mitchell, who lives here, on the path this morning, and I spoke to him. "Big doings today," I said. "Indeed," he replied. Mitchell is a Bequia native, and owns the hotel we're staying in and also the next one down the walkway. He's getting slightly stooped these days, and has a definite little pot belly. After all, he's 80. But he's still an impressive presence to me.

Noel, our cab driver, remembers when the queen visited in 1985. She and Prince Phillip planted a couple of long-gone trees, but the plaques remain half buried in the sand. That time our landlord from our last visit, Lawson Sargeant, presented the queen with a model of the Britannia that he built. He and his brothers make the most amazing, beautiful model boats. Today's event will be the planting of a pair of royal palms in new planters that were built for the purpose just this week.

Lunch in Lower Bay today, at De Reef. The head waiter caught a ride to work in our cab (pickup trucks with padded benches and roofs). It took a full 45 minutes to get our meal. I'm getting a little cranky with that particular Caribbean experience, but when the mahi mahi arrived, along with a melange of aubergine and other vegetables, salad and fries, all was forgiven. Excellent, as every meal has been here. Well, almost. Nine out of ten. But, you know that Las Vegas ad, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? I fear the French fries will follow me home from Bequia.


Okay, it's later and we did see the arrival of the royal personage.

There was a crowd waiting for a good hour past the advertised arrival time. Local people, of course, because St. Vincent is part of the Commonwealth, and Prince Edward is the Queen's baby boy. And probably most of the Brits visiting the island, as well as curiosity seekers like ourselves. Around 3:00 a big frigate came around the point into the harbor and tootled at the island, and then sat way out there for a long, long time before finally the escort boats and the little launch came in. We didn't stay for the speeches, but satisfied our curiosity anyway by watching the arrival. After dinner we sat on our porch with our Londoner neighbor, Jasmine, and watched the baby moon sink into the harbor.

Yesterday we went over to Industry Bay, on the quiet Atlantic side of the island, with  Jasmine. She's a charming, talkative party animal who has been coming here for 35 years or so. She has opinions about everything, usually a little snarky, or as she calls it, scratchy. She takes 25 pills a day because she has kidney transplants. I think she's very brave. The drinking, which she often mentions, probably serves to ward off germs -- she does have an understandably compromised immune system. But I don't think she drinks as much as she claims. In fact, I don't think any of our acquaintances here drink as much as they claim. I did have a couple of excellent Margaritas at Tommy's Cantina last night, but I'm not bragging. We watched the quarter moon sinking into the sea with Venus close behind. Earlier we watched sunset as well, but no green flash this time. Could be I'm bragging about that.

And the previous day we took the bus down to Paget Farm, which is the far end of the island next to the little airport, which can handle only little planes. It's named after the previously mentioned Sir James. We got on the bus because it looked like it was ready to head out -- these are minivans, stuffed as full as possible with folks. After we sat for a while, and the driver's girlfriend went and got him some salt fish and green banana, we made a loop around town looking for more fares, and then right back to where we started, which was the ferry dock, to wait for more riders on the next ferry. Eventually we made it, however, to a place that had been recommended to us by our friend Rick, who is always searching out local places to eat. This time it was the Step Down Bar. Toko, the proprietor, had been doing some construction work on the place but he sent someone to get him a shirt, which he put on and cooked us a delicious fish plate with some shark and some barracuda. And more of those french fries. The bus back was more direct.

We have three more nights here before starting our trek home. I love it here, but I think I'm ready to get back to life as it is in Southern California. I hear the gas prices are atrocious now. Luckily we have a hybrid! And I need to start walking off these french fries anyway.

Written Saturday, posted Sunday

The Bequia Triangle

You've heard of the Bermuda Triangle, of course, where ships disappear? There's a Bequia Triangle too. And it took my brain. But I've found a breezy upstairs spot, and an Internet connection. Uploading pictures takes forever, and I've lost a couple of posts here in the Bequia Triangle also, because of that. And then there's the temptation to just stare off into the beautiful distance, which is mostly what I've been doing. So, these posts are far apart, and I don't know if I'll get another one done before home. Maybe at the hotel in Los Angeles on the way back.

We've moved to our last Bequia accommodation, up the hill behind the Gingerbread Hotel, which is on the water of Admiralty Bay. We'll be here 6 more nights, then start our three day trek home. I didn't plan the transportation for this trip very well. Oh well. Right now in the harbor is David Geffen's yacht, the 8th largest in the world, called Rising Sun. They tell us Prince Edward is aboard -- the British here keep more track of these things -- and he's due to plant a tree on the island at a ceremony on Saturday, I suppose celebrating the age-old St. Vincent & the Grenadines connection with the former British Empire. You know, slavery and all. Some friends said that yesterday the "dinghy" (this one a big catamaran) brought a party to shore at the beach at Lower Bay, tables and lounges, bar and all. Last post I told you about a visit to a yacht, but I suspect my invitation onto this one has been lost in the mail.

Last night we stopped by the Fig Tree for a rum punch and to hear local singer-songwriter Amanda Gooding. I just looked her up so that you can get the flavor, if you go to her MySpace web presence. There's lots of local  music on the island, some of it pan music, some country western, some R&B stuff, some ballads.  Since we're not very much night-time people, we miss most of it unless the bass line is reverberating in our room where we're lying in bed reading. Or trying to sleep.

We've been invited to dinner tonight at Peter and Janet's place, an English couple who now reside in France, and were our neighbors for a while the last time we visited. They've been coming ever since, and they're here for 10 weeks this time. In fact, they came to our Obama inauguration celebration three years ago. We ran into Peter on the street one day and I'm so pleased we're back in touch. It turned out that Peter fishes with George, who was our upstairs neighbor at the Pink House. Everyone is connected, locals and visitors alike.

We're back without a kitchen now, and only have a little electric kettle. So we're going out for meals, and looking for bargains. Yesterday we had lunch at the Fig Tree, and the proprietors Cheryl and Jacqueline were eating their lunch. I noticed they had local food, which is not on the menu, while we were ordering the usual fish plate. So Cheryl told the waitress to have the cook add some "provisions" to our plates. We had breadfruit salad, coconut dumplings, dasheen, and plantain along with the fish and rice -- really good. And a little taste of salt fish. 

While we were at the Pink House we kept up our new habit of cutting up a big bowl of fruit every morning. Bananas here are truly delicious, sweeter than home because they have varieties that don't ship well. It's sometimes puzzling buying citrus fruit. Lemons are orange. Oranges are green. We really notice a difference in availability of good produce this year, just from three years ago. When you walk through town there are probably more than ten little produce stalls, and you can find whatever you're looking for, even nice leaf lettuce that's grown locally. And fresh local carrots. Before, I could only get bagged carrots from California. There's also the big covered produce market, known as the Rasta market because of the large group of dreadlocked vendors that comes over from St. Vincent every day. If you know what you're doing, it's fine shopping there, but a newcomer can be overwhelmed, as I was the first time we came, by some aggressive selling.  

This was a new experience -- I never had soursop before. Maybe it's familiar to others. It's a scary looking fruit, and I might not have tried it if the young man at my favorite produce market hadn't cut a hunk of it for us to taste. 

The flesh is sort of like soggy cotton fiber, and you can eat it, messily. But also you can squeeze all the lovely thick juice out of it and add its tasty tart flavor to other fruit juice, or dilute with water and perhaps add some sugar. I mixed it with orange juice and it was yum. Afterwards I read that if you peel, core and seed it you can use the flesh in blender drinks too. I'll have to check and see if our Mexican market back home carries it.

Well, it's back to Reading Camp. That's my fallback activity when I don't feel like walking in the heat or getting anything written, or cooking. Or else, it's back to staring at beautiful scenery and a huge variety of people. I'd send you lots of pictures if they didn't take so long to load, but I will do an album to link to later. I'm reading a truly fun and giant book by Bill Bryson, called At Home: A Short History of Private Life. I just have to leave off a book or two of ours for trade. Every restaurant and hotel has a shelf of books to trade, on the honor system, so there's a wonderful selection.

And of course I did finally manage to upload my novel as an e-book. It's not setting any sales records, but then all I really wanted was to set it free and get it off my list of undone things.  

Until the next time . . . Barb and Mike in paradise.

How can I be running behind already?

Wrote the post below yesterday, but stayed in because it rained buckets. We finally got the wireless problem sorted this noon, so here's the news from Wed., Feb 8.

Sitting with the first cup of coffee on the roomy covered porch of our downstairs flat at the Pink House, under a cloudy sky that apparently dumped rain last night. It’s been doing that every night, leaving the days mostly dry. It’s our second accommodation, after three nights at the Frangipani. We’re here for about two weeks, and this is the place where I’m supposed to be able to hop on the Internet with “no problem, Mon.” Evie, my upstairs neighbor from London, is trying to get us help with that. She’s long-time friends with our landlady, who is home in chilly Britain. Evie and George stay here four months a year. Until we solve the connection problem, I can walk down the hill to The Fig Tree, where they have free wireless, and I’ll be able to upload my posts from time to time.

Ah, this very moment we hear soft rain sweeping down the hill and passing us by, leaving a cool breeze behind. It’s sweet.

Yesterday we had our first visit to a yacht. We’ve been in a lot of harbors and met many yachties, but this was our first invitation aboard. We met Sue and David about four years ago, on Carriacou, and when we saw them here we shared some pictures we took at a party we were at together then. They sail six months a year, on their smallish boat -- it’s 32’ I think. Those are some close quarters! David picked us up in his dinghy at the jetty, and gave us a thorough tour of the boat, including explaining all the safety features, how compartments can be closed off watertight in case of a hole in the hull, the emergency signal system, stuff like that which I wouldn’t want to have to think about. Which is why I don’t spend a lot of time on the open sea in small boats. Sue made coffee and some yummy almond cake, which she cooks in the pressure cooker, giving it an interesting texture. Sue and David are humorous and genial -- you’d have to be, to spend half the year cooped up together like that. And courageous. And hospitable -- they’ve invited us to visit them in England when we hopefully go next fall. They live near Southhampton.

It would have been fun to stay longer in the old fashioned room upstairs at the Frangipani, the one with the bathroom down the hall, because of the entertaining neighbors. Gerhard, a friendly German about our age, comes every year. We recognized each other from past years. He was part of a literary group that convened each evening around sunset on the common balcony blue benches, where a former British professor of the classics was reading The Aeneid aloud. A gentle bookish couple from Connecticut and the wife of the professor rounded out the group.

Now we are up the hill in our amazingly roomy digs. We have no ocean view, and less breeze than down by the water, which probably accounts for the best price I’ve seen for any accommodation on Bequia. I won’t mention it here in public -- competition for a place to rent can be fierce. Here we have the spacious porch, well outfitted kitchen, comfortable living room furniture, ceiling fans, and the biggest bedroom I’ve ever slept in.

We run into Ricky and Mabel, from Toronto, when we walk around town, and usually stop to chat. We got to know them three years ago, and kept in touch some, through the Trip Advisor forum for Bequia. Rick is a social animal, and organizes parties and trips, and frequent drinking opportunities at the New York Bar, Maria’s French Cafe, The Step Down Bar, and all the other places he’s discovered in his many years coming here. He’s s retired conductor on Via Rail, and I imagine he was one of those gruff joking ones. The Canadian gang he hangs with seems to be in an ongoing congenial competition for alpha male, trading jokes and opinions, loudly. Funny, that’s not the stereotype of Canadians I was exposed to in Washington state. Maybe all those “nice polite” ones live in BC, and the middle of the country is a bit rougher. But they are fun. We’re more likely to visit in the daytime, and avoid the more serious drinking occasions.

Best food mention of the day: Yesterday we braved the endless wait for callaloo soup at The Green Boley.

Usually callaloo is swizzled into a puree, and I have no complaints about that. It’s cooked from the leaves of a taro-like plant (or maybe it's actual taro with a different name) that is a staple here, and it’s served everywhere. Sometimes it includes crab -- I even made it that way myself at home once, with spinach since it’s hard to find callaloo in the states. But at the Green Boley it’s hearty with little dumplings and bits of beef, and just as peppery as you could wish. I don’t know if they still do it, but last time we were here it was cooked over a fire out back of the restaurant. It’s just special. And next time I’ll take a book to while away the time waiting.

A cranky woman came in and asked Liston, the proprietor and bartender, if there was service out front at the picnic tables overlooking the water, and he said, “Yes, but it might take a while.” She harrumphed off, but was beginning to get the picture. Looking for fast service anywhere here is not a good approach, because you’ll be doomed to disappointment. You might even get your food in a timely manner but your next drink is a long time coming, and then the bill never arrives so you have to chase it down. At the Green Boley, when you’re ready to pay you go up to Liston at the bar, so it’s not a problem. That's Liston in the green shirt.

I’ve had a heck of a time settling down to writing. Everything takes a long time and I seem to only be able to do one thing a day. Tomorrow will be laundry, and it’s a desperate situation. Mulette, the housekeeper, said I should wait for a day when the sun comes out in the morning, and this isn’t it. (We had another little downpour while I was writing this.) Mike has been sketching and painting some in his sketchbook, and now he’s working on his one-a-day small painting (though he’s behind by six days).

Shopping when you are going to be cooking is an all day affair, and one of our days was entirely consumed with that sort of errand. Bread one place, wine another, looking everywhere for butter and discovering it’s not carried anywhere any more, for some mysterious reason. Finally finding cheese, the white cheddar from New Zealand. Trying to identify meat in the freezer case that’s not labeled -- I thought I was getting ham to go with the beans, but when I defrosted it I found I had chunks of the leg of a giant chicken. Choosing produce at several different stalls to get what you want. And stopping for lunch and a couple of Hairouns, the St. Vincent & Grenadines beer. One should be enough, but there’s that wait-for-the-food time to fill in.

I'll wait until tomorrow to get farther on this or it will never be posted. Stay tuned.