Our fifth Lesser Antilles landing on the Saga Caribbean Calypso cruise was Bequia, which is one of the islands in the Grenadines. After a visit to the Bequia Turtle Sanctuary, we returned to the town and wandered along the beach looking for a quieter beach, where we could have a swim.
The main beach was too busy for swimming
In the 19th Century, American whalers used the island for whaling. As a consequence, the International Whaling Commission still allows the islands to kill up to four Humpback Whales every year on the excuse of aboriginal whaling. This is a manipulation of the truth, as there is no evidence of any whaling in the Grenadines until the American whalers arrived. So, the whaling cannot be reasonably described as aboriginal or indigenous whaling. The locals would be much better developing an eco-tourism business which would protect the Whales and use the profits from those businesses to replace any money that the local economy makes from the whaling.
There was no way this beachside bar was going to get any of my money: Not with these whalebone seats
After a twenty minute walk, we found a quieter beach: It was only when we got there, that I realised I had left my small rucksack at the Turtle Sanctuary. After a phone call and a fair bit of chasing, I was finally reunited with it on the quayside at the end of the afternoon. I never got a swim as my swimming bits were in the rucksack. I was relieved to retrieve it, as the rucksack is mainly used as my camera bag
There were some showy Royal Terns feeding along the shoreline.
Royal Tern: Royal Terns were the most obvious Seabird along the coastline
Royal Tern: This is the nominate maximus subspecies which occurs from coastal US to the Caribbean, the Guianas & Brazil. Some winter as far South as Argentina
Little Blue Heron: This monotypic species occurs from the US & the Caribbean to South Brazil & Uruguay
As a typical small island, there were few species of Landbirds behind there beach. But not surprisingly, there were a few Zenaida Doves and Common Ground-doves.
Zenaida Dove: This is the nominate aurita subspecies which occurs throughout the Lesser Antilles
Common Ground-dove: This is the antillarum subspecies which occurs on the Southern Lesser Antilles from St Lucia & Barbados to Grenada
With my swimming cancelled, I spent my time photographing the Carib Grackles and some Grenadine Ameiva Lizards at the back of the beach.
Carib Grackle: This is the luminosus subspecies which occurs on Grenada and the Grenadines. A different subspecies occurs on St Vincent and there are more subspecies in other parts of the Caribbean and from North East Colombia to North Venezuela, the Guianas & North East Brazil
Grenadine Ameiva: This species is restricted to the Grenadines & Grenada
Grenadine Ameiva: They were clearly a common species on Bequia. However, due to introduced Mongooses they are now very rare on St Vincent
Grenadine Ameiva: Some authorities think this is a subspecies of the common & widespread South American Ground Lizard which occurs on a number of Caribbean islands and from Panama to Colombia & Venezuela and as far South as Peru, Bolivia & Argentina
Atlantic Ghost Crab: This is a common species on sandy beaches from the US to Southern Brazil
It was good to see these colourful local Fish in the water: Much better than the piles of plastic bottles we saw in St Lucia
The Spirit of Discovery sitting out in the bay
By early-afternoon, we were back in the town to get some food and to allow me to chase up on the retrieval of my rucksack. A kind local finally transported it back to the tourist information office in Port Elizabeth. We caught a tender back to the ship and almost certainly we would have checked out the coffee and cakes in the lounge, before heading back to the cabins. I had a bit of time to finalise my plans for the next morning's landing, before heading to the deck to survey up to dusk. I will cover that in the next Blog Post.
