A visit to Wallilabou where Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed

We had the morning to kill before Phoebe had to get to the airport. We decided to give Kelvin a miss and get our taxi who took us to dinner last night as he was a lot more knowledgeable. As he was 10 minutes late Rowan called him as we knew it was about a 45 minute drive to Wallillabou, and we were on a tight schedule. Turned out he wasn’t feeling well so sent his sidekick, Joe. Joe was very chatty and assured us he could answer any questions about the island. He claimed he was an ex policeman who wanted a change in career! He drove at a snails pace, obviously under strict instructions from the boss. We had hoped we might make it to the Botanical Gardens on the way back as we drove right past it. They are the oldest Botanical Gardens (started in 1765) in the Western Hemisphere. Captain Bligh who made his ill-fated voyage on the Bounty to Tahiti to collect breadfruit and other useful plants for the West Indies, completed his mission by bringing breadfruit here. You can see the success of all his efforts by the huge amount of breadfruit trees everywhere, supposedly the most useful food plant throughout the West Indies.

We finally made it to the black sand beach of Wallilabou. It is the least populated bay after leaving Kingstown the capital, there was a big motor boat but not a single yacht, and just a few local fisherman, one on a paddle board, which made us wonder where he got it from. There is a restaurant that has tried to cash in on the movie but with nobody visiting it was looking pretty sad, but rather intriguing thinking of the film being made here. We were very glad not to have sailed up here.

Wallilabou bay

Sea is an amazing colour

Props

The restaurant

We found a room unlocked with these phones in it, the ceiling was alive with hanging bats!

This lady on the derelict jetty was catching the prettiest little fish, they looked far too beautiful and tiny to eat!

Time rushed by and we had to get home at a faster pace, which Joe managed no problem. So we never made it to the gardens….. next time.

While we still had Phoebs on hand we decided to leave PolePole’s rather tight berth and move to the fuel dock where we needed to fill her up. After a squeaky, start all went to plan thank goodness.

Very sad to say good bye to Phoebs but thrilled she has such an adventure in front of her for the rest of lockdown. Six weeks is a long time to be sharing with your parents in such a confined space, she coped no problem and we will miss her……although we may eat a bit more chocolate now!

We set sail for Bequia to our usual spot off Princess Margaret’s beach. We have two DHL packages to pick up tomorrow morning. We also arranged for the mobile boat laundry to pick up our bedding and towels to wash, which is very efficient and a great treat not to have to do it on board.