15 JANUARY 2006
Happy New Year! I will start 2006 in an easier manner to check updates – in reverse chronological order!
I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays…mid-December brought the arrival of my first visitors – dad & Dollie came for a
two week stay. We were still working away on the apartments in preparation for the container delivery, so their first
week was probably not what they had in mind for their vacation – painting and ‘fix it’ projects! We did a few little tours of
the island and they did get a couple games of tennis in, thanks to my dear friend, Andre. With only one apartment
scarcely furnished, Jeremy and I headed back to the boat every night while dad & Dollie stayed at ‘home’.
The container finally arrived in St Vincent the Saturday before Christmas, was delivered via ferry to Bequia Monday
afternoon and was delivered to the base of my drive on Tuesday morning. We rounded up the Customs officials and a
handful of guys to “unload”. Fortunately, the container was brought to the house ‘just’ before a fire broke out in town
which prevented through traffic from passing!! This was quite the coincidence, seeing the fire was very unprecedented
and attracted everybody in town to watch!! Finally, just after 10am, Customs opened the container and the unpacking
began, with the guys, including Jeremy, working at an amazing pace loading the Landrover at the base of the drive and
driving it up to be unloaded at the top for review by Customs. A mere 4 hours later (a record, even according to
Customs!!) the container was empty and Customs headed on their way.
The next several days were full of unpacking, furniture set up and major organization. There is limited storage in these
apartments so finding homes for all my “stuff” has been quite the challenge. Any of you that ever saw my garage in
Hermosa Beach can only imagine – and I have no garage here to hide everything!!
A pre-Christmas trek over to St Vincent provided dad & Dollie with a taste of the shopping / stocking process involved
with island living. It was a bit chaotic, even by local standards, as it appeared that “everyone” was in Kingstown the
same day we went! Christmas weekend brought a little reprieve and we spent some time on Saturday at Lower Bay.
Sunday, Christmas, Chef Jeremy started dinner preparations in time for us to spend a few hours back on Lower Bay
then back home for the amazing feast he prepared. With Monday & Tuesday declared holidays, we opted to have dad
& Dollie take the late Monday ferry to St Vincent, where they spent the night before catching their morning flight to San
Juan, then home. It was great having them here and I have promised their next trip will not include any painting or
house chores! Strictly vacation!!
Only minor damage was had to all my things, not bad considering there were 89 boxes, not to mention all the unboxed
furniture, art boxes, etal. The one rather humorous (sorry, Chris!!) mishap was as I opened one of the (16+) boxes
Dee had sent to my shipping agent in Florida (since Dee’s move to Fla never happened…). As I opened the box, it
sounded as though there was something broken within. I thought it VERY odd, as I unpacked the first layer, that this
glassware was wrapped with only single layer paper towels. This was definitely not how I had packed my things and
although Dee had repacked some of my things I left with her, I know she packs even MORE carefully than I had. I then
realized that these loosely packed and VERY broken items were not even mine, but again, there is NO WAY Dee would
have packed HER things for her pending move so haphazardly, either. All in all, very odd, and only a small portion of
the contents survived in tact. A couple days later Dee and I finally had a long over due catch up session on the phone,
at which time, I told her that she must have inadvertently sent one of HER boxes along with all MY boxes. Well, turns
out, she had not mailed one of her boxes, but she HAD mailed one of her roommate, Chris Hassapis’ boxes, from his
recent move in to her apartment! Chris, let me know if you want the surviving (8) “greece” shot glasses, (2) glass beer
mugs, (5 of 6) multicolored mugs and (1) cocktail glass…otherwise they will be here to make you feel at home when
you come visit! (And, yes, this does mean that one of my boxes is still at their apartment in Hermosa!!
The holidays here seemed to go on forever, with New Years following the next weekend. J & I were invited to a great
NYE happy hour at a wonderful home in Spring; we then joined Jim & Sheena for a casual dinner at Mac’s pizza, before
wondering along the waterfront bars, ending up in front of the Frangi to watch the midnight fireworks display sponsored
by the local business association – they were very impressive and ever so perfect viewed over the water, from the
beach across the bay.
Sunday, of course brought us back down to the weekly gathering at Lower Bay. Monday, yet another holiday…then
Tuesday was Gabi’s birthday, so an afternoon beach barbeque to celebrate. Jeremy took a quick overnight charter
down to Tobago Cays Wednesday –Thursday then we left before dawn on Friday morning to sail up to St Lucia, me for
the weekend, J for (10) days to include a spattering of golf days and catching up with his buddies. After a beautiful 11
hour sail, we arrived in time for happy hour and dinner out with a group of friends. Saturday, J had a golf tournament
(his team placed 2nd place) so I walked around Rodney Bay, shopping then to the beach & swimming, eventually
ending up at the yacht club for a late lunch until J picked me up to return to the golf club for the awards and happy
hour. Back to the boat to shower & change for another dinner with friends then Sunday we tracked down a friend who
was heading up island to catch a ride to the airport. We had lunch at a nearby beach where they have windsurfing &
kite surfing, then back to the airport where I met up with our friend, “dive Bob”, said my good byes to J and jumped in
Bob’s 4-seater plane – ironically parked there on the tarmac between all the jumbo jets heading out to England,
Canada, etc! I was back on Bequia before Jeremy had even reached back to Rodney Bay. A bit of a change from
weekend trips to Mammoth, but fun none the less! Although I do desperately miss all my friends!
Do drop me emails when you can, I love hearing what you all are up to – sounds like lots of new babies!! : )
I did receive a piece of mail last week; the envelope WILL be framed! My friend, Bill, who has been kind enough to
allow some of my critical mail to be sent via his PO Box, handed me an envelope on Tuesday morning. I read the
envelope – it was from Shannon & Jody Rath – what a nice surprise. But then I read how they addressed it and had to
laugh!!
Lisa Hunnicutt
c/o The New York Bar
Bequia Island, Grenadines
The Caribbean
…and to think (2) critical and valuable boxes that were sent to me in August via a “real” address are yet to arrive, if
ever!!
The past week has been back to the grind, finishing up one of the guest apartments and starting to work on the last
one, with on going organization of my own apartment. Things are looking good though and there has been a growing
awareness of the apartments’ availability, so hopefully now that the one is ready and the other ready by the end of the
week, business will start to trickle in.
Many fun activities are on the calendar over the next couple months:
Jan 20-22 Annual Bequia Music Festival (a spin off of the Mustique Blues fest Jan 18 – Feb 1)
Feb 3-4 St Vincent Music Festival
Feb 11 “Governor General’s” event in St Lucia
April 13-17 Bequia Easter Regatta
May 5-14 St Lucia Jazz Festival
June 30 –July 1 Vincy Mas (St Vincent Carnival)
(…and these are only the ones close by that I will be attending!)
As soon as I can find all the parts and pieces of my computer, printer, photo software, etc I will be revamping the
website and listing it with a search engine placement company…then you can see the finished apartments and current
photos! In the mean time, here is an ‘early’ photo when I was just negotiating the purchase…
© 2006 AQUA on Bequia