Finally visiting the Yacht in the Sky

We set sail for Bequia after breakfast, waving goodbye to the crew on Rhapsody. No sign of the Dutchies! To get the right angle we motored out through the reef below the Tobago Cays, sailing on the windward side of Canouan. It was a great sail and we were safely on our mooring ball at Daffodil’s mid afternoon.

Rowan happy back sailing!

We met a couple, Mikey and Nicola sailing last year at Mayreau gardens, they live on Bequia and Rowan has kept in touch. They invited us to join them at the Firefly bar as Nicola was jamming with a band there. Fatman, the slim taxi man we used last year took us there as it is on the other side of the island, it was an old sugar plantation estate. The cleared grounds are now a mini golf course and lawn tennis court. We enjoyed a couple of hours on the breezy balcony there, listening to the band. It was a great collection of characters, including a lady saxophonist who was slightly older than us and had a very broad northern (UK) accent. The vocalist had a very powerful voice, just a bunch of music lovers enjoying playing and singing. It was nice to see the place slowly filling up with a good crowd. Last year we were the only guests. Weirdly quite a few of us felt like we were rocking in the breeze, maybe it was just the palm leaves moving so much.

Nicola jamming

View from the Firefly Bar balcony

Rowan had organised pizzas to be delivered to Mikey’s home, the Sail House. We spent so much time last year down in the bay at Bequia looking up at this incredible house on the skyline with its huge sail roof, looking like a yacht in the sky. It is the same fabric and structure as the Millennium Dome. Not so reassuring that the Millennium Dome in London has just been shredded by storm Eunice! We were thrilled to be finally visiting it, Mikey and Nicola were so generous inviting all 6 of us up. We had a grand tour of the place, a Main house with three satellite cottages, it took two years of planning and 5 years of building, with some huge frustrations along the way by the sounds of it, but the end result is amazing. There are no windows, just wooden shutters, so it catches all the breezes and the hot air escapes through the top, so clever. Very minimalist, with some great art, everything neatly stowed behind wooden cupboards. The view was fantastic seeing all the twinkling boats in the bay below.

The main sail

Looking across to PolePole in the bay

Master bedroom

The crow’s nest above the pool

All aboard

Delicious pizzas arrived which we devoured. Afterwards we went down to their Pool Room and played pool, not snooker! Nicola used to do a lot of sports tv filming and has obviously played and filmed a lot of pool. She currently spends 6 months a year on horse back, filming people and horses at a ranch in Colorado. They’ve just bought a ranch in Oregon where she will be moving her horses and filming. It was a fascinating evening.

Pizza feast

Pool room

Trying hard!

We were rather relieved Fatman sent a substitute taxi as his gears/brakes were making scary noises and the road down into Bequia was so steep. Not only down from the Sail house, the drive to Dafodil’s pontoon is particularly steep too. A great relief to make it safely back, along these pretty hairy roads.