Maritime Wood

On a typical day for the Bequia fishermen, they leave the leave the beach at 4:00 am for a 10-mile beat out to the fishing grounds northeast of Mustique, trolling on the way out and handlining on the banks. If the catch is good, they set sail shortly after noon for St. Vincent, a distance of about 15 miles. After the fish are sold, they sail home, about another 15 miles. This means a daily outing of over 40 miles, plus fishing all of it in an open boat, and most of it in the open Caribbean Sea the lee of Portugal. Little more need be said about the seaworthiness and sailing ability of these small boats. And the men who sail them.

The telephone number in the advertisement turned out to he from St. Croix, and a lady answered. Yes, the boat was very much available, but she couldn’t tell me much about it. However, I was in luck. John, her husband, was leaving Christiansted that night on an 80’ trading schooner hound for Road Harbor, Tortola, with cargo. So I said I would look for the LADY BONITA the next morning.

But there was no sign of the schooner, and late in the afternoon I gave up the wait. But mid-morning the next day, I received a message that the BONITA had arrived and I could find John around noon at the waterfront pub.

Tied up at the dinghy dock was a yellow-hulled double- ended sloop with a For Sale sign. He must have brought the boat over as deck cargo on the big schooner. I examined her for over an hour before the owner showed up. She was definitely a Bequia boat, but was rough with considerable wear and tear. Paint was peeling; digs and deep gouges marred the topsides hull and rail. There were some broken frames, a poorly added stern (leek showed rot, and plywood floorboards were delaminating. The solid wood mast was cracked, the boom and sprit were the traditional bamboo, hut both were splitting with band-aid repairs. The sails were old, well stained, with numerous patches and numerous places that needed more patching. The longer I looked at her, the more I felt my enthusiasm ebbing.

Then the owner, John, appeared. He was a stocky man of Dutch ancestry with blond hair, a jolly pink face, and twinkling blue eyes. We talked for a long time about the little boat and about Bequia. I hadn’t been back to Bequia for eight years; he had left there just two months ago after living in Admiralty Bay for three years. It sounded like Bequia had changed, but not a lot. There was still no airport, so the only way to get there was by boat. He said it was still a happy, nice island.

John’s price seemed high, considering the boat’s condition, and the price was firm. He hadn’t given me much of a sales pitch, and I was about to tell him that I would think about it and let him know the next day-which, I knew, meant I wasn’t going to buy her, because I have always been an impulse buyer. (Anytime I ever delayed a buying decision, it meant it was no-go.) Before leaking, I asked how he had shipped the boat from Bequia to St. Croix, a distance of some 500 open-water miles across a usually boisterous Caribbean Sea.

He looked at me for a moment, then said matter-of-factly, “Why, I sailed her up.”

I looked at the boat, and its appearance suddenly changed. This wasn’t only a day-sailer and fishing boat; she was a passage maker.And she was equipped for cruising. There was a long sculling oar, a good anchor with plenty of line, two tillers one of regular length for normal sailing, then a long one for heavy weather to allow sitting amidships on the weather rail. And two water bottles, a canvas awning to provide shade at anchor, a three-step rope swimming ladder, a rolled-up air mattress, a small coal-pot charcoal cooker, and a hammock for palm-grove snoozing. There was a calabash gourd bailer with a copper sheet attached to the deep part of the bilge to absorb chafe-wear. Internal ballast was four large sandbags.