LORD'S PRAYER LOG, Part 199:
Saturday, February 16, 2002 Continued
Underway in the Windward Islands, bound for Bequia
2343 We pass into the lee of Saint Vincent (we are 4 nm from the coast) on a port beam reach with the wind E 19-20 kts.

Sunday, February 17, 2002
Underway in the Windward Islands, bound for Bequia
0030 We pass a northbound tug & tow 700 yards to starboard.
0326 We pass out from under the lee of Saint Vincent into the windswept Bequia Channel. We turn left toward Admiralty Bay at Bequia Island; this brings us too close to the wind to sail without help of the engine. As a result we are motorsailing in winds ESE 16-18 kts under single reefed mainsail and a deeply reefed genoa. We expect it will take slightly more than an hour to reach a suitable anchoring spot within the shelter the Bay. There we intend to remain at least until daybreak. Later in the day we will move the boat in closer to Port Elizabeth.
0355 We get sail off the boat with about 2 nm to go to the Bay. While we are doing this, an outbound sailing vessel passes to starboard; this is one of maybe a half dozen northbound sailboats we have passed since sunset.
0442 Lord's Prayer is anchored in Admiralty Bay, Bequia Island at position: 13 00.579 N 61 14.710 W. We are on a shoal spot in 21 feet of water with 100 feet of chain rode deployed. Engine time: 188.0.
0627 Sunrise.
1100 We hoist the dinghy over the side, load its equipment aboard, put the "Q" flag at the starboard spreader, and rig the rain canvas over the skylights.
1315 We move the boat closer in to Port Elizabeth. Like so many places these days, local entrepreneurs have put moorings in the best anchorage areas within the harbor. Whenever we can we prefer to go on the anchor rather than to use a mooring, as we thereby know what is on the bottom holding the boat. We are unable to find an anchoring spot in close to the dinghy docks, but we do find one on the edge of the mooring field. Here we anchor the boat at position: 13 00.505 N 61 14.428 W. We are in 56 feet of water with 150 feet of chain rode deployed.
1400 We go ashore and tie to the dinghy dock. We have our papers with us to clear through customs in the event that is possible to do today; it turns out it is not! We walk about the Port Elizabeth waterfront. We come upon an open-air market for fresh fruits and vegetables and are beset upon by 3 Rastafarian salesmen each aggressively attempting to sell us his particular stuff. Since we do need some fruits, we purchase a pineapple form one, 5 mangoes from another and a papaya from the third. This way everyone seems to be quite pleased - us included.
1810 Sunset.

Monday, February 18, 2002
Admiralty Bay, Bequia Island
Today is my grandson, Dalton Kidd's 3rd birthday. Happy birthday, Dalton!
0830 Fresh tropical fruits & coffee for breakfast, and we are off again to see about clearing in to the island nation Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
0930 We find the customs office open and we clear in.
1030 We investigate Dive Bequia to see if we can complete our dive certification here (we started the process in the pool in Annapolis, MD). It turns out that we can so we make arrangements to start the process this afternoon.
1315 We return to Dive Bequia for the first of five certification dives (since we are NAUI trained we need one more certification dive than the PADI trained people). We will do two more dives tomorrow and two final dives on Wednesday.
1455 We start our first dive. Everything goes great. We spend 55 minutes underwater. We descend to 40 feet and see all kinds of cool undersea life: spotted moray eels, a chain moray eel, boulder coral, branching coral, sea fans, seaurchins, a barracuda, coral that looks like fairy houses, fishes of every color and description and a lobster. The sights are far more beautiful than I expected even after all the aquariums I have seen. On the way back from the dive site in the dive boat we see a frigate bird. Wow what a day!
1730 We strike the "Q" flag from the starboard spreader and replace it with a flag of Saint Vincent & the Grenadines. This small flag is commonly called a "courtesy flag". It is both a custom and a courtesy (and in some places, the law) that foreign vessels fly the flag of their host nation after being cleared to visit within that nation.
END OF LORD'S PRAYER LOG, Part 199


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