Monday December 31

Big day today. Old Year’s Night in Bequia. Yachts and sailboats come from all over the Caribbean and farther to be in the bay for the celebration tonight. I had been looking forward to tonight ever since I arrived, so I wanted to pass the daytime as quickly as possible. Isn’t it funny how sitting at a desk for 8 hours (or, in my case, 4-5 hours, who are we kidding here……) can fly by if you are busy, yet if you have the day off you realize how long 8 hours actually is? Today was kind of like that. I wanted to get out of the house early since the maid was coming, and we managed to do a good job of getting people motivated and out of the house by 10 a.m. so we could head to town to see if we could buy any fresh fish and grab a bunch of other stuff for the dinner Brian was going to prepare for us. As you can imagine, fishing is a very important part of life in Bequia and every morning, the restaurant owners, locals and tourists wait to hear the blow of the conch shell in the harbor which signals that the fishermen have arrived in with their catches of the day. This is why I said before that the menus here are “guidelines” as there are no guarantees of food supply. We weren’t sure if we missed it or if they never arrived, but the only thing Brian was able to get was conch, which was from a restaurant owner that he had befriended the night before, not from the fish market.

We decided to head to Lower Bay, as I expected that today it would be the place to be rather than Princess Margaret, but there weren’t too many people there. We had some nice sun time at the beach before it started raining, which is when we ran for cover at DaReef and thought it was a great opportunity to have another tuna melt. Still not on the menu. So sad.

Brian prepared a 3-course gourmet dinner for us before we headed to my favorite place to partake in the Old Year’s festivities. We were smart and called a taxi, but it started raining just as he was pulling up. When it rains, the taxis have covers that they put on the back so that the passengers don’t get (too) wet riding in the back of the pickup truck. The driver put them all down for us and Jill made the greatest comment: “This is just like being on M*A*S*H!”. Maybe it isn’t funny the second time around, particularly if you weren’t there, but we all found it quite hilarious.

Anyway, we made it to the Frangi safe, sound and dry just in time for the rain to stop. For those of you who have not been here, let me set the scene: an outdoor bar on the beachfront with white sparkling Christmas lights, a steel drum band playing on the beach with a sand dance floor, lots of white Adirondack chairs and picnic tables filled with people enjoying a front row seat for the decorated sailboats in the harbor and the sound of the surf in the background.

And tonight the atmosphere was packed with fun in anticipation of the midnight fireworks. Shortly before midnight, everyone crowded the beachfront, the pier and the shallow water and we were all treated to a great fireworks display accompanied by the horns of the boats in the harbor. Can you beat it? I don’t think so.

Our perfect evening was topped off by a funny event that made me feel a little better about the events of Saturday night – our taxi driver couldn’t get up the hill to our villa. Stuck on the same gravel patch where things went south for us 2 nights ago, which ended up being quite the bummer because walking up to the house on a long steep incline after our festivities was not easy! But it sure beats trying to find a cab in freezing cold Chicago on New Year’s!