Better night than last; complete with squall around 23:30.  Up around 06:30, nature channel presented a brown booby using our pulpit as a perch for a good ten minutes.  Photos and video obtained, though quality is unknown given the age of the camera.

We have a JPEG from Kenmore Henville of the three of us crossing the Bequia channel; going ashore later today to e-mail it to various people.

Wandered around Bequia looking for a small reel of whipping twine, and a windscoop, but no luck.  Ended up with a small bit of waxed twine for free from a sailmaker, and two cheap bits of rectangular awning canvas (2′ x 2.5′, 22 EC).  Dad also bought some heavy cord to attach the cloth to the boat, and hopefully stitch the cloth.

Spent lunch outside the Gingerbread, watching life go by.  Observed what we assumed to be a garbage barge going sideways in the wind, despite the best efforts of the accompanying tug; a brown booby dive-bombing the same shoal of fish over and over (he caught a few); the Bequia to St. Vincent ferries going back and forth, and several boats coming in to the bay, with some tying up to moorings deep inside the bay (and based on a set of gesticulations, being sold a mooring belonging to someone else).

Lunch itself was fresh-caught kingfish at the Gingerbread.  Unfortunately, both Mum and Dad had to send theirs back; the fish was undercooked.  As Dad (rightly) remarked, the Gingerbread have been preparing fish for donkey’s years, there was no reason to serve partially raw fish.

Since I had received the only properly cooked piece of fish, I wandered down to an Internet Cafe to post the account of the first two days of the holiday, delete some e-mail and send the JPEG off to a few people we know.  From there to the supermarket to get 4 gallons of water (we kill a 1.5 L bottle in a few hours), some Shirley biscuits and some more tea.

Back to the boat, and we contemplated the design of our windscoops.  Our initial design called for a bent length of plastic pipe, so we fired up the gas stove, and I set to work bending the pipe into the curve that we wanted.  Once bent, it was time to stitch the canvas to hold the pipe at the top, and two corner pieces to tie the scoop to the hatch.

And thus the first problem; the cord Dad bought to tie the scoop is too large in diameter to sew with.  ‘Back to shore!’ we cry, and Mum and I set off at a rate of knots (even got the dinghy up on a plane) to get to Wallace’s before they shut at 4 PM.  Found some nice waxed twine (great for whipping, not so great for stitching, but it was the right diameter), and then meandered back to the boat.

30 minutes later, with the cloth stitched, problem number two arrived; how to keep the bent pipe in the right orientation when hanging the scoop?  In the end, we reverted to the straight pipe, and a guy ‘wire’ to keep the scoop aligned properly.  With the mechanics solved, the second scoop was built and rigged in the fading light of the day.

Around this time, we watched some excellent seamanship on the ‘Sailing’ channel.  A French-registered metal hull came into the bay under full sail, furled his jib, backed his main and dropped anchor (no sign of engine exhaust at all).  He then dropped the main, and there was a slight zinging noise as the entire main dropped, pretty as you please, into the lazy jacks in about a second.

Dinner was ham and cheese sub rolls, washed down with orange juice.  The TV channel was set to ‘Discovery’ with some fantastic lightning playing in the distance (too far to hear the thunder unfortunately).  I have always thought that the shots shown on TV, where the lightning strikes repeatedly and dances across the sky, was done with editing ‘magic’ and speeding up the playback; not so, just nature at its best.