January 4th (Bequia)
I've heard about Dawn's Creole Kitchen before (probably by perusing other travel blogs) so I stopped in. I ordered a fresh glass of Passion Fruit juice and we shared a table with Marc. Marc was originally from New York, was semi - retired and living in St. Vincent. He and his wife were masseuses and he had lived in the Caribbean (on various islands) for the past 10-15 years. He was eating the lunch special (stewed Creole chicken); it looked delicious so I changed my codfish burger order to the lunch special. The next hour (yes it took that long for my food to come out) we chatted...he told us about the Bequia and the islands and we told him about us, our trip and our engagement. He recommended that we try the Devil's Table but when he heard we had reservations for the Lobster Fest at Moskito Bar/Grill he said that would be an even better dinner but a little pricy. He knew the owners, said they were a Swedish couple, and said it was probably the best restaurant on the island. Good thing I didn't switch our dinner plans to eat at Sugar Hill in Mount Pleasant (although I would have liked to check this place out since i'ts a local hangout)...Moskito Bar/Grill seemed like a terrible name for a fancy restaurant and not the place for someone with mosquito allergies to have an enjoyable dinner. Marc bought us another glass of juice and then took off to make the 2pm ferry back to St. Vincent. He was a nice guy and feed his chicken bones to the local dogs (who were well-trained, loved the bones, and were obedient when we wanted to be left alone).
My lunch arrived when Marc was leaving...it tasted even better than it looked. Stewed tender, tasty chicken (with a side of hot sauce =), pickled beets, salad, rice, and potato salad. I savored every single bite. It was a very comforting homestyle dish...pretty much made my entire afternoon! After feeding the dogs the remaining bones, we wandered around up to the street to see if we could catch a cab or bus. We watched Elvis on pan at Keegan's for a while (quite good...did a good rendition of Madonna even) and within 10 minutes, a local red minivan appeared to take us back to Port Elizabeth for 1 EC each. We arrived to the harbour just in time, 5 minutes before the dingy left back to the ship. We headed back to the ship to shower and nap until taking the dingy back into town at 4:30pm.
On the ride back, we noticed the harbour was even more full of beautiful ships..Kevin was like a little kid at a toy store pointing to the ships he liked best...sticking his whole body out of the boat's window. Kev stopped by Lina's but they were sold out of their sandwiches and I stopped by the Euro Market but there wasn't much Euro about it. So we grabbed a taxi (the girl at the tourism office said it would be a steep, long walk to Friendship Bay if we went by bus) which was 20 EC and headed to the opposite side of the island.
The ride over was less than 10 minutes...the island is pretty narrow...3 miles from one side to the other. Apparently Friendship Bay Resort owns the land around the entire Friendship Bay. The restaurant was very fancy; my favorite part were the wooden swing chairs at the bar. Kevin said he felt like he was sitting in a high chair. We roamed around for about two hours - checking out the facilities, hanging out on the dock with some locals who were fishing, having a drink and watching the sunset. We met a couple from Boston who had sold all their worldly belongings and purchased a boat to retire on. What an adventure! The wife had the boat docked in Boston for two years and she commuted to/from work and lived on it to make sure she was cut out to spend the following years on a boat. They had been sailing for twenty years and suggested we read the Christopher Doyle series as it was somewhat of a sailing bible. We took a picture, they gave us their card, and we headed to dinner. I had reserved table #15, a table for two right next to the ocean. The service wasn't as slow as I expected (thank god because Kevin was very anxious to make it back to watch the USC game). The first dish was amazing...better than Aqua...a lobster cappucino - succelent grilled skewer of lobster on top of a capuccino cup filled with Lobster broth. Probably the most tastly thing i've eaten on the trip! Second was a lobster bruchetta; not bad but could have been better. Third was grilled lobster tail atop mixed veggie, rice, and a side of hollandaise sauce. After dinner, we called for a cab and shared it with the couple we just met. They treated us to the cab fare and we promised to write them. What a sweet couple! We were dropped off at Salty Dog at 8:45pm and there were already two guys waiting for the game. We all know how the game went...not a good experience for Kev but it was cool to meet two new yachters. At first we though they were brothers because they totally looked alike. It turns out one went to UT Austin and was a plumber before "Retirement #1" and the other went to Yale for undergrad, Baylor for med school, and was a children's eye surgeon. He was the one who sold his house and bought the 3bd/3ba boat (probably more like a yacht). They were both really cool (despite rooting for Texas). We also met Randy at the Salty Dog; he said he'd over for us as he left at 11:50pm for the ship. We had to leave 5 minutes later during the middle of the third quarter; Kevin was a wreck. We ran into Alan et al, loaded on to the dingy and were back on ship. We hung out with Randy on the jacuzzi deck as the ship took off from the harbor. He was nice enough to let Kevin use his cell phone to occasionally call home to check the score. He was a jeweler and is probably one of the most well-traveled people i've ever met (Brian probably takes 1st place). Globalgems.com is his shop; great guy. After Kevin heard the bad new/final score, he clammed up and went back to the cabin. It was a silent rest of the night as our boat headed for Grenada.