Liquid Mountains Wave Pumba Goodbye

6-11^th Feb 2016 (St Vincent & The Grenadines)

Photo Above: Memories of Pumba in Prickly Bay Marina, Grenada attempting to board the boat

Keen to push on as Pumba only had a few more days left before heading back to the UK, we departed Mayreau for Bequia. There were still strong winds and it was a little choppy with the swell making the 27mile trip hot and uncomfortable. I found it difficult trying to get comfy and hold on to Scrumpington, as it was giving me backache. God knows what it will be like when I have a baby bump.

After a lot of gallivanting about we decided to spend 3 nights in Bequia and enjoyed exploring the relaxed and welcoming little town. The boys enjoyed the ridiculously sized rums in the waterfront bars during the evenings while I watched and ate cake. A perfect sunny Sunday was spent chilling out in a gorgeous restaurant garden all to ourselves, overlooking the bay while we scoffed pizza and watched Scrumpy playing joyfully with one of the local stray bitches.

Photo Above: Admiralty Bay Bequia, The view from the restaurant (my crap phone doesn’t do it justice) & Scrumpy playing with yet another naughty stray bitch.

Then it was time to move on to St Vincent ready for Pumba’s internal flight back to Grenada so he could catch his international flight back to London … sad times. This sail was only 8-9 miles so I was anticipating a relatively painless and quick journey, I really never learn. The pilot book had stated ‘this is fine in calm weather, but on rough days you can sail straight into a range of liquid mountains near Bequia Head’. Now I figured I’d seen my fair share of liquid mountains coming in and out of English Harbours and getting caught in the infamous Portland Race (thanks to Simon’s impeccable planning!) …. But F#@! Me this was something else!!!!!!

Enormous waves were hitting the starboard side bow, so I avoided all eye contact concentrating on the much calmer looking Port side while clutching on to Scrump Dog for dear life. That was of course until I saw a Monumentous Mountain rear up higher than I wish to recall and literally consume the entire bow of the boat, breaching the spray hood awning and goffering the lot of us. Well I guess that’s one way to keep us cool in the scorching Caribbean sun ….Thanks!

I’m surprised I wasn’t panicking but 7 months as a seafarer has made me immune, plus its not like we were caught in a Force 10. This baby is going to have one hell of a ride in my uterus when it starts growing, lucky it is only the size of a grain of rice for this journey. We made it safely through the very shallow entrance between the reefs to get into Blue Lagoon, St Vincent and headed for the marina where the next ordeal was trying to berth up to the stern to mooring. The marina pilot disappeared twice in the middle of getting tied up, leaving us going around in circles and then swinging around on bowline buoy having to avoid hitting the pontoon. He made us change all the lines even though we told him they others weren’t long enough, so then he made us change them back again, all during the most critical point of berthing. Then he kept ordering Simon to move the boat sideways which is actually an impossible manoeuvre in a boat and even more impossible when your bow is tied to an anchored buoy. After an hour of pain, a number of expletives and Simon on the verge of jumping onto his dingy to punch his lights out we were finally secured to the pontoon.

Photo Below: Blue Lagoon Marina & Anchorage

blue lagoon

Whilst here we bumped into Mark, Tina and May the dog again who we’d seen on Union Island and Bequia. They were absolutely lovely and friendly, inviting us all on their amazing 54 foot Hanser yacht for a nightcap, it was huge and luxurious compared to Tudor Rose with white leather chairs, a fridge, freezer, proper double bed, hydraulic flat screen TV, a button that flushed the heads…. At this point Pumba realised that he’d picked the wrong boat to spend his holiday! We had a great time laughing and joking and what a great way to spend our last evening before waving goodbye to our good friend Mr Felstead. He was gutted to be going home and we hoped he had enjoyed his time as a boat hobo, experiencing the highs and lows of life on board…..but he was even more gutted the following night when Tina and Mark invited us aboard again while he was sat back at home in grey, dull, drizzly England.