Tag Archives: Bequia

I Finally Did It! – Frigate Island Bay, Union Island, April 6, 2024

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I Finally Did It! – Frigate Island Bay, Union Island, April 6, 2024

Ron has been a scuba instructor for over 10 years yet somehow, I never got certified.  Put this in perspective, my sister is certified, my nephew is certified, and 3 of the 4 daughters are certified.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it I just never really had the opportunity to with the girls.  So, we decided to rent a couple of tanks in Bequia while we were there and try it out.  It is better to have a private lesson anyways, am I right?  I got two dives in since it took me most of the first 20-minute dive to figure out how to clear my ears then I got to do another 40-minute dive.  We just went off the beach, but man was it fun!  I felt like I was swimming in a fish tank!  So cool and I will definitely try it again but likely not till next season.

Let’s try this.

Once we finished up in Bequia we hopped down and spent the next four days in Tobago Cays.  This is probably one of our favorite spots in the whole Caribbean to snorkel.  It is shallow and we were lucky to have the low west winds which made it ideal to see the outer reefs.  It was out first time seeing the outer stuff and I have to say I was a bit disappointed with the state of the coral and I think that compared to the inner reef much of it was in poor health.  Tobago Marine Park was insanely busy (being the week of Easter we should have known all the charter boats would be there) and we had anchored in Mayreau Island instead.  This ended up being much better with only a few neighbors and closer to the healthier reefs.  We snorkeled the inner reef for a few days and saw turtles, starfish, rays, sharks, and the coral was in much better health.  Such a pretty place.

Up close and personal
Eating lunch
Green coral for acres

Once the winds changed and started to increase, we had to leave and jump over to Union Island.  It was a short 4-hour sail south and we are now only 6 miles from Carricou where we plan to haul out mid-April.  We picked up a free mooring in Frigate Island Bay and had decided to wait out the upcoming blow here and start some of our boat work.  Last year we killed ourselves in the heat doing much of our boat work after we were hauled out.  This year we were going to be much smarter and do much of the work while we were still in the water where it was significantly cooler, and we could snorkel every afternoon!  This entire week has been dedicated to cleaning and vinegaring the whole boat, engine work, cleaning out all our provisions, and in the next few days taking down the sails and any outside windage in case of a hurricane. 

This sucks X2! (There are two engines)

Ron is a follower of Colorado University’s Hurricane prediction for the year, and it’s supposed to be a doosy!  They have predicted this to be an extremely active season due to the warmer than normal ocean temperatures combined with La Nina.  They predict 23 storms, 11 hurricanes, and 5 major hurricanes so we will see.  I think we are both relieved to be hauling out a bit early even though our timing was based on a totally different factor – 2 of our daughter’s college graduation is May 1st.  Although Grenada is technically out of the hurricane zone, hurricanes have hit there in the past. Thankfully they tend to bend northward before making a direct hit.  They end up with some residual effect but unless we go south to Trinidad (which is not as safe), it is the best we are going to get.  So we are finishing up the year and getting ready to put her to bed!

Are We Better Off Now Than 4 Years Ago? – Bequia, The Grenadines, March 26, 2024

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Are We Better Off Now Than 4 Years Ago? – Bequia, The Grenadines, March 26, 2024

First off, Happy Anniversary to my beautiful husband!  We have now been married for 11 years and boy, have we covered a lot of ground in that time!  Raised 4 daughters, lived and worked in suburbia, retired, sold our house 3 times, travelled to at least 20 countries (many multiple times) together (with and without the children), moved countless times, become nomads and minimalists, and so much more.  You have been a gift and saved my soul!

A brief recap on where we were 4 years ago and how much has changed.  4 years ago, we were both working fulltime in corporate America, had 1 kid still in the house in high school, 3 kids in college, a house in suburbia and 6 cars, 2 motorcycles, and a house full of stuff.  Wow our lives look so much different now.  We now have 2 kids getting ready to graduate here in 6 weeks from college, two kids already graduated from college and adulting, no house, no car, 2 motorcycles, 1 boat, 1 parttime consulting gig, 1 blog, a storage unit full of stuff, and spend 6 months a year living in the Caribbean.  Quite a big difference I would say.  I think we are so much better off now than we were 4 years ago. 

A key part of the journey has been trying to arrange all of this and our strategic tools, finance all of this, and carry healthcare in the process of all of that in the states and internationally.   I did a post last year on our finances and I wanted to give a brief update there.  We still use the empower app to track our budget (which used to be personal capital) and I have the say I still love it.  Let’s look at last year vs. this year and I work best with a picture so here goes.  The blue is 2022 and the orange is 2023.

Now what does this say to me?  Well here goes:

  • Overall, we spent about 20% more in 2023 vs. 2022. However that is offset by also saving 20% of our income for 2023 as opposed to about 5% in 2022.
  • Boat Maintenance went down in 2023 quite a bit since not only did Ron do most of the work but any work we did hire out was done in Grenada (which is significantly cheaper than what we had done in the states). We felt like we worked a lot harder on the boat in 2023 (mainly because of the bottom job) even though we spent less.
  • Restaurants are still embarrassingly large in 2022, then actually went up in 2023!  Yikes.  I guess we still have some work to do.  It went up because we sat in Columbus for the whole off season, and it was our main form of entertainment.  I am hoping the new magic grill will chance this category significantly in 2024 since we have started to eat a lot more on the boat and plan to buy the same grill for the RV.
  • Travel went down significantly mainly because in 2022 we spent way more on hotels driving out west.  In 2023 we flew more but used points so there was not much cost.
  • If I add together the Housing and Travel categories, they are about the same for both years.  It doesn’t matter if we rent an apartment or stay in corporate housing/hotels.  At the end of the day, it really all equals out.  I am glad to know this as I think it gives us more flexibility during the off season.  It will be interesting to see how this changes when we get the RV and the costs there. 
  • Groceries didn’t change even though we are spending more on restaurants.  Not sure why this is but I think it is because we are giving/throwing away more groceries when we change locations for the season.  We are unable to store any uneaten food in the boat or storage unit and must rebuy when we get to our new location.  Maybe?
  • Boat Storage was cut nearly in half since we moved the boat from the USA to Grenada.  This was a large part of why we are storing the boat in Grenada again.  Hard to deny this.
  • Our Automotive cost was down significantly since we rode the motorcycle and did not rent a car for most of our off season. 
  • Our Gas/Diesel costs were about the same both years even though we have sailed much more this year and spent more time in a marina this year since we went home for Christmas.  This may be partially due to where we bought the diesel vs. how much though?  As you will notice our dockage doubled in 2023.
  • Telephone was the same.
  • Bike upgrades went down in 2023, mainly because this covers the cost of us adding the trunk for our trip out west in 2022.
  • Th Insurance category includes not only our motorcycle insurance but also insurance for the boat and daughter #4’s car.  Our insurance cost has gone down 4% in 2023, however the way the billing works out we pay for it in December so it is prepaid a year in advance.  I still don’t fully understand this one yet.
  • Our healthcare went up 1% since we changed daughter #4’s healthcare to the University plan which is more expensive than having her on our Obamacare plan this year.  Our insurance went down in 2023 and will drop again when she starts adulting post-graduation.
  • Electronics was up since Ron had to buy a new phone in 2023 because he threw his old one into the ocean.
  • We spent more in the Everything Else Category by far again as an entertainment mostly during our off season.  We certainly could get this back in check this coming off season.

Being a budget nerd and an early retiree, I think it is important we keep a pretty short leash on our budget.  Ron and I have reviewed this together and are looking at this coming off season with some major changes.  Initially we will have an investment in the RV but we should be able to get an ROI on this compared to our housing & travel costs in a maximum of 7 years.  Exploring the southern Caribbean the next few years will certainly pay off in the boat storage if nothing else.  With 2 more kids graduating college here soon they will drop off our support ticket which will reduce the healthcare, insurance, and everything else categories by a nice chunk.  I am excited to see what our 2024 comparison looks like in January!  More to come!

Have You Hiked Your Volcano Today? – Bequia, The Grenedines, March 22, 2024

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Have You Hiked Your Volcano Today? – Bequia, The Grenedines, March 22, 2024

We left off our story in Portsmouth, Dominica and I have to say we have changed our mind about this island, so we were eager to give Martinique another try as well.  It is a French Island but also one of the richer ones.  Things had not been difficult enough lately, so we decided to start off by climbing the active volcano of the island – Mount Pelee.  The elevation gain in the hike is nearly 2158 feet but the trail is supposed to be well traveled.  We had rented a car for the day and drove the 2 hours to the northwest side of the island. 

It last erupted in 1932 but the worst eruption destroying the town of St. Pierre (which we had just stopped to visit).  It killed 28,000 people there and the only known survivor was an inmate in the jail.  He was badly burned but once he recovered, he was immediately hired by Barnum & Bailey’s circus!?!  The museum there was cool along with the ruins from the eruption.

Artifact collected after the eruption
Various metals melted together
Amazing what survived

We drove the 2 hours from the anchorage of Le Merin part way up to the volcano to where the trail started (after it had stopped raining that morning).  As we started the hike it was VERY muddy with a lot of standing water on the trail.  We weren’t the only idiots out there but after about half a mile, we decided to jump ship on the trail and go somewhere else for our hike due to all the mud.  It was still worth the drive there and even the top of the hill where the trail starts has beautiful views of the town and the rainforest. 

How do you get to the top
This is 8 feet high. Not a trail
Steps up I guess.

Our next stop was a quick 5-hour sail to Marigot Bay, St. Lucia for a quick overnight.  We had been here before and thought it was a bit shady then but this time it was actually worse.  We were approached several times by the locals trying to sell us stuff.  This was expected but the final approach was after dark, two guys in a dinghy called “Tip-Sex” came and basically tried to get us to take them with us to St. Vincent.  That when it got uncomfortable and while Ron was trying to be cordial, by asking “what do you do?”…his answer was “I hustle.” We did finally get them to leave by assuring them we would discuss this with them in the morning (knowing we had a 5:00am departure date) and when they were planning to show up at 9:00am, we would be long gone.  It’s amazing how quickly forget how poor this island is regardless of how nice and what a vacation hotspot Marigot Bay is. 

We did head out at 5:00am without issue and once again decided to skip St. Vincent.  This is based not only on the recent incident in Grenada where a yacht was boarded but also on our recent experience in Marigot Bay and head straight to Bequia.  It really is the major downside on these southern islands.  The upside is the waters in Bequia are beautiful and Ron was planning to teach me a few scuba diving skills while we are here the next couple of days.  Yeah! 

Bequia sunset

Stupid Activity of the Week – Admirality Bay, Bequia, May 21, 2023

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Stupid Activity of the Week – Admirality Bay, Bequia, May 21, 2023

We spent a long 12 hour day sailing, or should I say surfing down some pretty sporty waves, 71 miles to Bequia.  It’s an island I have never heard of but is part of the Grenadines and their “claim to fame” is that whaling is still legal here.  It’s pronounced “Beckway,” and used to be a British Colonial Island.  It’s pretty cool here  (despite the whaling laws), and it’s the best anchorage we have had for several weeks.  We have spent the last few days here snorkeling and relaxing.  We had decided to skip St. Vincent since there have been a rash of cruisers being boarded, held at gun or knife point, and robbed.  This has been a great alternative as it feels very safe, they have good food and some interesting hiking.

The first cool thing we saw when snorkeling was “Moonhole.”  It’s another old hotel which was built by a couple back in the 60’s and is still partially used today.  It‘s supposedly a very close to nature type experience but since it’s private, we were not able to go and see for ourselves.  Normally this would not stop us from taking a peek, however, this looked a bit too unstable for us to just jump ashore and poke around. 

Appears the lower parts are unused.

Moonhole is now a protected area and the elkhorn coral here was stunning.  We spent a bit of time cutting fishing trash off of some of the mature ones so they could continue to grow.  Then after a few days of snorkeling, we decided to try the hike which goes from here over the volcano to Friendship Bay – 5.5 miles.  Well, this is where the stupid activity comes in.  First off, we got a bit lost as the path wasn’t terribly well marked.  Then, we knew it was rated as hard on All Trails app and how much the last moderately difficult hike had kicked our butts.  Lastly, it had rained the night before and it was still muddy. 

By the time we were done, we had walked over 15,000 steps, climbed the equivalent of 52 flights of stairs, an elevation of 1200 feet, and over just 6 miles. 

Straight up the muddy path
Cool views from the top

To make matters worse, after finally making it to the top, it started to rain making our decent just that much more challenging than it otherwise may have been.  The decent was basically an old riverbed and we could not make it down without touching the trees.  This is something we try not to do after learning what poisonwood and manchineel trees are.  Half of the climb down we had to do going backwards much like climbing down a ladder since it was so steep.  I figured this would fulfill our stupid activity requirement of the week.

Muddy wet and slipped leaves made the decent interesting

If it wasn’t for this little guy, I would say it wasn’t worth it.

We both seemed confused
Sally petting the turtles seemed like a good idea.

We spent the rest of the post shower, doing absolutely nothing!!!  It’s a good thing beer got delivered to the boat and we enjoyed the local taste of the island.

Happy ending to a tough day.
Hmmmm