Christmas in Bequia

We had left Darwin's Passage in the hands of Crews Inn Boatyard for new paintwork from top to bottom. When we arrived, the work was just being completed. She was a boat without a name, which had to be rectified quickly. We had Richard of SignLab set up the new lettering for our "new" Darwin's Passage... as seen on our home page. After a few coats of nice new bottom paint, she was ready to move out to the yard and to be re-assembled. This was by no means an easy task, and we were greatful to have taken plenty of digital pictures prior to her dismantling.
We were not the only Trintella in the yard. At the end of our previous trip, we had met Mel and Jackie Cohen and their 53 foot fiberglass Trintella, Feisty. As we were moved out into the main yard, we were placed next to Feisty but one. It seemed that since we had all missed the Trintella owner's meet in Newport earlier in the spring, we would have to have our own!!
The workers at Crews Inn worked extra hard to get us together in time to meet family in Bequia. After a few adventures we managed to get DP floating and ready to go... Barry did his usual excellent job of provisioning... we had spices for any style of ethnic food imaginable... and then some...
December 21, 700 hours we headed North to Bequia. The going was rather lumpy - against thecurrent, waves 6-8 feet, and confused seas. I learned the fine out of "foot steering" until I felt that I could trust the Autopilot once again (bad experience with an Autohelm on the previous boat has left me suspicious...).
We reached Admiralty Bay, Bequia at 1300 hours thefollowing day. Our hydraulic backstay had been leaking about 4 hours out of Trinidad and by the evening we hadlost it completely. We managed to maintain pressure on the mast by cranking down the running backstays (thankful for cutter rig) and lashing down the backstay using one of the aft cleats, a snatch block and the staysail winch. Needless to say, sailing was out of the question... it was motoring all the way.
We met up with family and our friends Jack and Vera of the Blue Tropic Resort. We had arranged to have family come and stay at the Blue Tropic with the intent of anchoring DP in Friendship Cove. We knew it to be a rolling anchorage, but had stayed their before. We would first repair the NavTech backstay cylinder and then move DP around after taking the family to Mustique first. This proved to be a fun trip, although it was rather choppy. Wereturned to Friendship Cove and enjoyed a relaxing evening.
While at Bequia, we managed to get several dives in and had a marvellous time with our dive guide, Jorge of Friendship Divers. We finally got a chance to test our new equipment and Jorge showed us some beautiful reefs. The variety of fish, invertebrates, and corals that we saw were far too numerous to list but one of the highlights was a group of small squid that hung just off of one of the walls we were exploring.
We had the great fortune of visiting Moonhole, a most amazing structure built into the middle of an arch near the southern end of the island of Bequia.
New Years on Bequia proved to be a wild party. We were all getting pretty exhausted by this point, but we still managed to have a pile of fun. The family split up just after New Years and went their separate ways. Meanwhile, the voyages of DP for 2001 had only just begun....