Capt almost goes to the slammer

Tue April 1 st 8 am Bequia Here we are in Bequia...was 1st here 27 yrs ago. Yes I was the evening night and morning entertainment. I was one of the charter boats that did not know how to anchor. The town here has grown.

Bequia is part of St Vincent and the Grenadines, which includes the Tobago Cays. To me this is the best cruising area in the Caribbean. The boat boys have gotten their act together...they used to row out and try to sell you a coconut boat....now they have fresh bread ,ice, diesel, water, laundry service and mooring balls for the charter boats. Very organized bunch.

Ashore there are numerous stores ....fruit, vegetables, of course the t-shirts: anything a cruiser could want. They have a nice dink dock...with security..the streets are clean, the people courteous.

We went in to check in about 9:30. Of course our shotgun caused a ruckus. They have to come out to the boat to check the serial number and count the rounds of ammo. Joyce tells me the ammo is in the locker above the gun. I pull out the shells only to realize that they are 12ga not 20ga. These are the shells Joyce suggested I get rid of so she would not get confused when we might really need the use of the gun.

I had declared 15 rounds of 20 ga on my customs declaration. I open the case and there are the 15 rounds of 20 ga. Customs guy not happy. Takes the 19 rounds and we head back in to see the boss guy. He reads me the riot act...false declaration is a 10,000 EC fine. They think I have another gun onboard. They checked my paperwork from last yr that did declare the 12 ga. rounds. That seemed to calm them down....I got off with a warning. Once again a free man, we head over to the dive shop where I'm going to finish my certification. On the way we stop at a new Amel 54.

We had seen this boat in Guadeloupe. The owner , a Brit had owned a boat like mine for 4 yrs. Has had his share of engine problems on this 6 month old boat. Seems Amel has gone back to Volvo diesels instead of the Yanmar that we have on the Lady H. Not sure I would have his patience after spending $1.5 mil US on a new boat.


Set everything up with the dive shop lady for tomorrow. Joyce is going for 2 dives while I do my schoolwork.

Back at the boat we do a load of laundry while we charge the batteries and run the dishwasher. Graboid is on hyperspeed downloading our movies and TV programs. The 320 gig Hard Drive Joyce bought before we left is almost full. We will discontinue Graboid till we get back to the States. With this connection speed we can us Skype to call home and more importantly I can listen to Rush live. Sounds like the Dems have a real pissing match going on....too cool. Cruise ship coming in...more later.