Arriving in Bequia

Ranchi was right on time. He navigated the Monday morning rush through Kingstown with the easy competence of someone who has done it a thousand times. There is something universal about city traffic at that hour — the same density of purpose, the same careful aggression, whether you are in New York or on a small Caribbean island making its way through the working day. We made it to The Wharf at Kingstown Harbour with time to spare. I had expected birds at the ferry terminal. Laughing Gulls at minimum — the kind of opportunists you find around any busy waterfront. There were none. Not even a Frigatebird hanging on a thermal above the dock. We stowed our bags on the Bequia Fast Ferry, bought something to drink at the concession stand, and settled on the upper deck. The ferry left on time. For most of the crossing, the sea was empty of birds — nothing tracking the wake, nothing working the water ahead. Then, somewhere in the Bequia Channel, I spotted Magnificent Frigatebirds. I had the Fujinon XF150-600mmF5.6-8 R LM OIS WR out before they got close. But they did not follow the ferry. They drifted over and off, indifferent to us, gone in a few minutes. The lens, however, had not gone unnoticed. Four British men sitting nearby had been watching me. One of them asked about it — what was I looking for, why that particular lens? I explained birding, the need for reach, the unpredictability of what might cross your path on a short open-water crossing. We got talking. It turned out one of the four had been born in England but raised in Bequia as a boy. He had not been back in more than 45 years. This was a guys’ trip — years in the planning — and he was showing his friends the island. He told wonderful stories of what Bequia had been like when he was young: the pace, the community, the particular textures of island life in those years. I welcomed him home. Hamilton as seen from Port Elizabeth Cove, Bequia · Monday 4 May 2026FujiFilm X-T5 · ISO 125 · 1/550 secXF27mmF2.8 R WR · 27 mm · f/5.6 The ferry moved through the cove toward the dock and arriving in Bequia revealed itself in pieces. First the hills above Hamilton — colourful houses stacked up the slope, white sailboats at anchor in the turquoise water below. Then the dock came into view and Port Elizabeth opened up around us. Off to the left, boats were clustered at the waterfront. The building that had been The Cocktail Lab — now operating as BlueLife Yacht Charters — sat on the shore, its teal façade familiar against the hillside. To the right, I spotted Friendship Rose at anchor alongside the Happy Cat catamaran. Port Elizabeth Cove, Bequia · Monday 4 May 2026FujiFilm X-T5 · ISO 125 · 1/680 secXF27mmF2.8 R WR · 27 mm · f/5.6 Friendship Rose is a wooden schooner built on Bequia in 1966 — the same year I was born, as it happens, a few months after her launch. She carried passengers and cargo between the Grenadines for decades before becoming a charter vessel, and has long since become one of the most recognised boats in the Eastern Caribbean. Seeing her at anchor in Admiralty Bay is one of those reliable Bequia pleasures. Port Elizabeth Cove, Bequia · Monday 4 May 2026FujiFilm X-T5 · ISO 125 · 1/680 secXF27mmF2.8 R WR · 27 mm · f/5.6 We disembarked and I messaged Amecia at Challenger Taxi. The rental car — a Suzuki Escudo, booked for six days at $60 a day — was supposed to be waiting. That car was not just transport. It was the whole week. Without it, nothing on my list was reachable: Firefly Plantation, Spring View, Industry Bay, Grenadine Sea Salt, Princess Margaret Beach, the south coast road. And on Saturday, Global Big Day — a systematic sweep of the island for eBird. Everything depended on the handoff going smoothly. The Almond Trees, Port Elizabeth Beach, Bequia · Monday 4 May 2026FujiFilm X-T5 · ISO 125 · 1/240 secXF27mmF2.8 R WR · 27 mm · f/5.6 While I waited, I wandered toward the waterfront. The almond trees along Port Elizabeth Beach provide the kind of shade that makes a Caribbean afternoon bearable. Local men sat on the “We Love Bequia” benches in the dappled light, watching the harbour, in no particular hurry. I had my own mental checklist running: collect the car, drive to Mac’s for lunch, stop at Doris’s Fresh Food before they closed at four, then check in at Jamdown. Straightforward enough. Under the almond trees, Port Elizabeth Beach, Bequia · Monday 4 May 2026FujiFilm X-T5 · ISO 125 · 1/125 secXF27mmF2.8 R WR · 27 mm · f/4.0 Island time had other ideas. While I was photographing near the jetty, Bhavna called out to me. A taxi driver had appeared claiming that someone had sent him to take us to Jamdown. With multiple messages in the air — Amecia’s father supposedly on his way, Uncle Eric supposedly coming after him, a 29-second voice call that had resolved nothing — the story was just plausible enough. We got in. Port Elizabeth Beach, Bequia · Monday 4 May 2026FujiFilm X-T5 · ISO 125 · 1/450 secXF27mmF2.8 R WR · 27 mm · f/5.6 In retrospect, a local taxi driver had almost certainly seen Bhavna standing near the ferry terminal, overheard the word “Jamdown,” and made a business decision. Whether it was genuine miscommunication or straightforward opportunism, the result was the same: we arrived at Jamdown before the house was ready, before the car had been handed over, and well before any of us had eaten. Doris’s Fresh Food, open only until four, quietly fell off the day’s list entirely. Murline, the house manager, was still completing the final preparations when we turned up at the door. She was gracious about it — surprised, but gracious. As we waited and talked, the conversation turned to family. I mentioned that my mother was from Bequia, that her parents had lived in La Pompe. Murline asked for their names. Louis Ollivierre. Celine Ollivierre. And — I added — Athneal Ollivierre was my great-uncle. Her face changed. Her grandfather, she told me, had been the brother of Uncle Athneal. We were family. The practical business of checking in paused entirely. We swapped stories and photographs, trading fragments of Bequia family history back and forth across the years, filling in the gaps that time and distance had opened up. It was one of those conversations that arrives unexpectedly and matters more than anything you had planned for the day. I found myself thinking of Petit Nevis — my family’s land, where Louis and Athneal had worked the whaling quay — and how much of that history still lived here, in people, not just in photographs. Eventually Bhavna reminded us — gently, then less gently — that the rental car situation was still unresolved and that none of us had eaten since leaving Dorsetshire Hill that morning. Murline pivoted seamlessly into practical host mode: house rules, shopping recommendations, a personal list of trusted taxi contacts, and a taxi arranged to take us to Mac’s Pizza for what had become a very late lunch. Mac’s sits behind the TradeWinds Experience building, a short walk from the waterfront. We arrived at almost exactly the same moment as Amecia’s father, who pulled up with the Escudo looking flustered. I took the blame without hesitation, told him the confusion was entirely my doing, and we signed the paperwork while comparing family connections. The car was finally ours. He seemed relieved. So was I. Carib Blue 75th anniversary lager · Monday 4 May 2026Apple iPhone 17 Pro · ISO 50 · 1/150 seciPhone 17 Pro back camera 16.891mm f/2.8 · 16.8906 mm · f/2.8 I ordered fish tacos. Bhavna had the vegetarian tacos. I opened a Carib Blue — the brewery’s 75th anniversary edition, in its deep cobalt bottle — and let the afternoon decompress. Mac’s had been on my list as one of the few places I could rely on for Bhavna. After months of pre-trip anxiety about feeding her properly on an island where “vegetarian” frequently means “we removed the chicken,” it was a relief to sit down to a meal that simply worked. Vela, Port Elizabeth Cove, Bequia · Monday 4 May 2026FujiFilm X-T5 · ISO 250 · 1/2000 secXF150-600mmF5.6-8 R LM OIS WR · 284.2 mm · f/7.1 With the long end of the Fujinon XF150-600mmF5.6-8 R LM OIS WR trained across the water, I could pick out Vela at anchor in Port Elizabeth Cove — a beautiful wooden-hulled vessel sitting quietly in the bay. Near Hamilton, another wooden sailboat — unmarked, dark-hulled — sat at anchor against the hillside. Hamilton, Port Elizabeth Cove, Bequia · Monday 4 May 2026FujiFilm X-T5 · ISO 500 · 1/2000 secXF150-600mmF5.6-8 R LM OIS WR · 150 mm · f/5.6 The drive to Jamdown was an education. Bequia’s roads are narrow, steep, unsigned, and full of blind corners. Traffic moves on the left. To exit the car park behind TradeWinds I had to climb a steep incline on a road too narrow to stay fully in lane, then make a sharp turn onto Belmont Road. Some local men talked me through the turn when traffic cleared. I was grateful. After that it was Belmont Road through the busy middle of Port Elizabeth, then east toward the far end of the island. Bhavna was tense. There are no road signs. I made a wrong turn and ended up in a dead end at the top of a hill in a residential neighbourhood. Turning around, I was informed I had nearly hit a dog. I clipped the kerb. I found another unmarked side road and got back onto Belmont Road. I drove at 40–48 km/h and honked before every blind corner. We passed the entrance to Grenadine Sea Salt. Closed. The entrance to Firefly Estate. Also closed — not for the day, I would later learn, but for the week entirely. The ten-minute drive felt considerably longer. The Jamdown driveway is steep. I pushed the Escudo up it carefully and turned around in the garage area. Putting it into park felt like genuine relief. We had chosen Jamdown for good reasons. The terrace faced the sea, catching the trade wind off the ocean all day. The kitchen was fully equipped — a necessity when you are travelling with a vegetarian on a small island where restaurant options are limited. There was a pool tucked behind the house, and the property sat in quiet seclusion above Crescent Beach, which lay at the foot of the bluff just below. After the day we had just had, all of that felt exactly right. Crescent Beach, Bequia · Monday 4 May 2026FujiFilm X-T5 · ISO 125 · 1/450 secXF27mmF2.8 R WR · 27 mm · f/5.6 The sargassum had already arrived. The beach was dark red-brown with it — a dense bloom coating the shoreline from the water’s edge inland. Dozens of Laughing Gulls were scattered through it, picking at the weed, and Magnificent Frigatebirds coasted high overhead on those impossibly long, angled wings. Magnificent Frigatebird · Monday 4 May 2026FujiFilm X-T5 · ISO 500 · 1/2000 secXF150-600mmF5.6-8 R LM OIS WR · 600 mm · f/8.0 Where the beach curved I could make out a stand of mangrove trees. I had spent months trying to get reliable intelligence on Mangrove Cuckoo on Bequia — messages to local contacts that went unanswered, eBird records too sparse to be useful. Seeing that fringe of mangrove from the terrace on day one meant the habitat was there. The bird might be too. Crescent Beach, Bequia · Monday 4 May 2026FujiFilm X-T5 · ISO 3200 · 30.0 secXF27mmF2.8 R WR · 27 mm · f/16 Later, after the sun went down, I set up the X-T5 on the terrace. Lights from the properties on the hillside above the bay reflected in the dark water below, star-burst and warm. Stars overhead. The trade wind in the trees. It had been a long day. A good one.