Beach Bars oi Bequia

The Beach Bars of Bequia

In consolation with the

Bequia Bar Researcher Committee.

An edited version of this story was published

in Cruising World's Caribbean May 2024 Newsletter.

There are more than a dozen reasons to drop the hook on the small island of Bequia in the Windward Islands. Surrounded by hills and a welcoming community ashore, it’s a safe place to linger for a few weeks. Did I mention there are more than a dozen bars and restaurants lining the shore? If you count those on the hillside, the knock-up beach stands, and the local dives, the count could reach two dozen.

This would need some serious research.

I’d just arrived in Bequia to help a fellow Mainer, Richard Thomas, sail his 44-foot Pierre Munier-designed cutter, Strider, north to Antigua so he could crew in the annual Classic Yacht Regatta. Our plan was to island-hop up the chain, exploring dozens of anchorages on different islands as we went. We had three weeks.

But before we could get underway, there were boat projects to do, provisions to buy, and water and fuel to take on, to say nothing of our research into the bar scene along the beach. Richard had already been here for a month and was far along in that research. I would now get to tag along.

This would take us nearly a week.

Our research began the day after I arrived: lunch at Da Reef, an open restaurant on the beach at the southern end of Lower Bay. I’d arranged to meet two old friends from Maine who have been wintering here for 20 years, John and Chrissy. They built a house on the hill overlooking the bay and are now residents of Bequia. They still return to Maine’s cooler climate each summer, but are now deeply involved here. Chrissy introduced me to tables full of women expats of mixed nationalities, all deep in political conversation. Chrissy is the chair of the Committee for Democrats Abroad in the Caribbean Islands. John, not ready to retire, is writing, continues to act, and, with Chrissy, produces an annual Bequia Theater Festival at the Da Reef.

From Da Reef, it’s a mile walk along the beach back into town. Along the way, you’ll pass a dozen bars, restaurants, hotels, and shops. Keegan’s Beachside Pub is at the opposite end of the beach from Da Reef.

It’s a short climb up over a hill to decent on to Prince’s Margret’s Beach—one of the great Caribbean beaches. In the middle is the Bamboo Beach Bar, followed by Jack’s Beach Bar at the far end. A nifty promenade takes you around a cliff at the water's edge to The Plantation, a sprawling complex that is a throwback to forgotten colonial times.

Fifteen years ago, we were living on our Bowman 57, Searcher, anchored in Bequia, boat-schooling our two kids. Ashore, this estate had been abandoned and forgotten for years. Today, the Great House, with its shaded veranda, has been restored to its original grandeur. The lawns are immaculate, the trees are pruned, and the cottages and outbuildings are all painted white. There's a meandering swimming pool, and drinks are on the porch by the beach.

A few steps along the walk-way, you’ll find Chery’s Fig Tree, a famous restaurant with a bar in an outdoor setting, but then, everything down here is “outdoors.”

It’s evening. Richard and I dinghy ashore and tie up to the dock at Mac’s Pizza and Kitchen; it’s next to Dive Adventures on the beach walk-way. Mac’s is more than the name reveals. Hidden behind a concrete wall along the harbor walk is a flagstone patio shaded by umbrellas, where rum and a fair meal can be had. We were there for a quick dinner but stayed for three hours. A quartet was playing when we arrived, and the place was crowded. The group playing was good—very good. I asked an English chap sitting next to us who the couple was singing. A story began to unravel. The chap telling the story, “Miky, just Miky,” was how he introduced himself; he was himself an accomplished pianist, composer, and record producer with more than two dozen albums to his credit. He even has a full recording studio in his hilltop house above the anchorage. He knew the group. His wife was the drummer.

The couple singing, Julian and Vanita, he told me, had come together a few years ago. She was on a circumnavigation when her husband fell ill and died. Not to be detoured, she hired a skipper to help her continue the adventure. That skipper was also a musician. The two hit it off and found a life together, singing and sailing. I’ve heard that story a dozen times down here.

If you continue on along the promenade, you’ll find The Whaleboner, Bequias' oldest family-run restaurant, where you sit on whalebone stools. Next door is The Frangipani, where you can order up the local rum, infused with cannabis.

On the main drag in town is Marin’s Cafe, where the second-floor bar and dining room offer a breeze and free WiFi for the price of an iced tea. Nearby, across from the dinghy dock, is Bougainvillea, a less than casual pub for locals and those in search of a 5EC rum.

Floating in the middle of the anchorage is BarOne, the creation of Kerry Ollivierre, whose family goes back 200 years to Bequia’s history of whaling and boat building. Tie up the dinghy and come aboard. Seat yourself in a swing, suspended from the afters, around a central bar. Sometimes there’s music and a beautiful sunset.

It’s Tuesday. After a day of scrubbing the boat’s bottom, it’s time for a rum punch ashore. We join a local boat crowd Richard has fallen in with and assemble on Princess Margret’s Beach to observe sunset. We gather at Bamboo, that sort of informal beach bar I mentioned earlier. The place has no floor, no roof, no electricity, and, in fact, no rum; you bring your own. Our hostess, Kim, does have cold beer, and she’ll supply ice (maybe) and mixes for your rum punch. Kim and her husband, both from St. Vincent, have knocked together a bar of sorts right there on the beach. They’ve assembled an odd selection of well-used and mended tables, a few dozen chairs of mixed lineage, and a bench. It's more like the lemonade stand the neighborhood kids set up.

Soon, there were eight dinghies lined up on the beach, and the Bamboo had reached critical mass. Everyone seems to know each other. Even newcomers, like me, fit right in. After all, we are rag-sailors down here, living on our boats, chasing a dream. My skipper, Richard, a gregarious house builder from Blue Hill, Maine, is right at home talking cutless bearing and prop-shaft alignment with the other boat owners. It’s my nature to be the observant one, the listener. It goes with my profession.

I sit on a short bench next to Jacqui, an attractive Aussie filmmaker, and soon find myself listening to a story of an island romance—her’s.

“It began,” she tells me, “right here, well, out there, in the middle of the anchorage. A chance meeting on the floating BarOne a year ago. It changed my life. There was Bob, this Scottish marine engineer chap,” she begins. “He’s from Aberdeen. Has worked all over the world. Even in the Falkland Islands during the war. Well, he’d just sailed across the Atlantic on a yacht and was here. I was crewing on another man’s boat. All of us would meet in the evenings at BarOne, and it was there that I got to hear about Bob’s life. Both of us are adventurers. We found we had a lot in common. I snuck aboard his boat one night, and we have been traveling the world together ever since.”

The couple were back in Bequia this winter, boat-sitting on a friend’s 12-year-old 45-foot Neel Trimaran named Ça y est. The owner, Jake, a quiet, mysterious chap, was an American deep-sea diver in the oil and gas industry. As a lad of 18 after joining the army, he found himself knee deep in the Congo fighting in a bloody, clandestine war. Later in his career, he was the managing director of a company in Qatar.

The three of them, Jacqui, Bob, and Jake, like Richard and I, were planning to sail up to Antigua to join a crew on one of the old yachts in the Classic Regatta. (We’ll meet them again in future stories.)

As I listened to Jacqui’s story unfold, I found I was making diagrams in the sand with my toes. This, I thought, was what you are supposed to do at a Caribbean beach bar while listening to stories.

It’s Wednesday. The dinghy dock at the Yacht Club Dock is packed as Richard and I wedged in among a dozen other RIBS. We make our way to The Cocktail Lab, a bar famous for its imaginative concoctions of spirits and fruit mixtures. (See side bar.)

The bar area and open deck were packed with a mostly white crowd: local expats in flowery print dresses and colorful Hawaiian shirts; and the boat crowd in faded shorts, tops, and tans. It was definitely an upscale gathering. Not a tourist among ‘em. Last night’s gathering of yachty friends at the Bamboo was already there, well ahead of us in the drink department. Not wanting to get myself in trouble so early in the evening, I ordered a simple rum in a tall glass with ice and tonic. No lime. The waiter’s shock and surprise told me I’d made an unforgivable error in local protocol.

I wedged in at a table beside an attractive Canadian woman, was introduced to her equally handsome New Zealand mate, and got to chatting. Both on second or third relationships, they’d met a few years ago while working for an NGO in Haiti. They were here in Bequia, searching for a place to hide.

Gabby, a German expat in her 70s, squeezed in next to me and began to fill me in on the local expat community that has evolved here. Trained as an architect in Germany, she arrived here thirty years ago, first to escape the Northern Winters, then to fall in love with local Rasta. She moved in, and for a time, the couple ran a restaurant in Bequia. It was not enough for this energetic German expat. She opened her own architect’s office and wound up designing and building many of the larger villas and vacation homes on the island.

This bar-hopping committee of six then moved next door to Coco’s Place for a fine dinner. Jacqui ordered a lobster, which took more than an hour as someone had to run across town to buy one.

Dinner over, we move to the Sailor’s Cafe, just across the alley. It was open mic night, and we got to listen to some fine local voices and instrumentalists. Bequia, I was discovering, had attracted a very creative and accomplished collection of expats and boat people.

There is a smattering of drinking places, mostly for locals, scattered along the beach road. But at the end is the Open Deck Restaurant, a well-put-together operation by Daffodil, a Bequina woman. This entrepreneur has been growing her enterprise for more than 20 years. When we were here 15 years ago, she and her son ran the only fuel and water ferry service in the Bay. She still does, but has added laundry, rental apartments, a bar, and a restaurant.

By the end of the week, the Research Committee had agreed, the best and only true, authentic beach bar was The Bomboo on Princes Margret’s Beach. This is the place we sailors dream of as we suffer through gales and angry seas on our way to these tropical islands.

Here's the link to the Cruising World version:

https://www.cruisingworld.com/destinations/beach-bars-of-bequia/?oly_enc_id=2560I0048934C5G

David, a marine photojournalist, has spent more than 20 seasons covering the Caribbean. He just spent five weeks this past season sailing and visiting islands, interviewing people, and gathering stories for Cruising World’s monthly newsletters.