Home page

Several days later we took a taxi tour of Bequia.  Instead of a car or van, small pickup trucks with benches along the bed and a canvas canopy to protect from the sun were the mode of transportation.  September Song (the couple from Decatur, TN), Cop Out (two retired law enforcement officers from Canada), and Free Radical joined us.  We explored the entire island going all the way from one end to the other.  At the far northern end, there was an air strip and most unusual gravel yard.  One man would hang off a rock cliff and hack away until a huge boulder fell to the ground.  A man with a pick worked at the boulder until it became a six-foot-by-six-foot mound of two-inch-square gravel, trap rock according to Bob, used as a base for concrete or to mix with concrete.  Four posts supported a tarp awning to give the man some shade.  Six men were working on their respective piles to produce relatively uniform-sized rock.  One wheelbarrow was worth $5 EC.  The exchange rate was $2.67 EC per $1 US.

We stopped at the whale fishing museum in the fishing village of Paget Farm.  Two jawbones of a whale set vertically in concrete pads served as an archway to the entrance of the small house where photos and relics were housed.  Athneal Olivierre was the island's head whale harpooner.  His boat, Why Ask, was the subject of the island's model ship builders.  Born in 1921, he was 79 on his birthday Sunday, June 25, 2000.  His nephew gave us the tour. 

Although whale fishing is prohibited, Bequia is allowed to take up to two whales a year by the old fishing methods.  The season is February to April.  Whales are generally sighted from land and signals are sent by mirror or smoke to the six fishermen in each of two small open boats.  While cruising, the boat has a sail out, but when the boat approaches the whale, the sail and all loose parts are secured to the side of the boat.

The boat comes up behind the whale and the person specially selected for the honor of harpooning the whale tries to harpoon it in the heart as it arches for a dive.  Line tied to the harpoon is wound and stored in a barrel secured to the boat's bottom.  Of course, if the harpoon does not kill the whale, the whale dives and takes the boat down with him.  Someone has to cut the rope connecting the harpoon to the boat to free the boat from the diving whale.  An oil painting depicts such a scene with Athneal under water in a boat being dragged to the depths.  Not an occupation OSHA would sanction in the US!  If the whale is killed by the harpoon, someone swims down and sews the mouth shut so it won't take on water and sink.  The whale is secured and towed to the nearby island of Petit Nevis to butcher.   All parts of the whale are used, meat, oil, and bones.  The harpooner is allowed to take a souvenir and, on one occasion, Athneal selected the jaw bones which were subsequently used for the archway to his house/museum.  Tom Cruise and Clint Eastwood have visited the museum which displays their framed publicity photos with signed notes.

Entrance to whale museum

We made several stops at little beach bars and boutiques along the way.  The distance was not great, but the roadway went up and down, the ups providing spectacular views of the bays.  The road was paved in the center two thirds of the island but not at each end.  Although paved, hurricane Lenny's waves had smashed part of the pavement on the way from town to Fort Hamilton.  Elson, our driver and guide, took a detour straight up a one-lane street with steps in between the two paved strips for the tires!  Fort Hamilton had cannons mounted by the French but never used.  The British came up the other side and the useless cannons could not be turned!