The boatbuilders' island of the Grenadines — handmade wooden sloops, a whaling tradition carried from colonial times, and a main harbour that fills with blue-water sailors from every country
Bequia (pronounced Beck-way) is the largest island of the Grenadines and the most characterful — a boatbuilding tradition going back to Scottish and New England whalers in the 18th century produced master shipwrights who still build wooden sailing vessels entirely by eye and hand. The Admiralty Bay anchorage at Port Elizabeth is one of the Caribbean's great yachting harbours — a beautiful natural bay ringed with palm trees and the town's waterfront bars that fills with blue-water sailors, live-aboards, and passage-makers. Bequia also holds a rare IWC exemption permitting indigenous whaling —…
Bequia was settled by the Garifuna (Black Caribs) — a community of mixed African and Carib descent — before British colonisation. New England whalers working the Caribbean grounds in the 18th and 19th centuries established a permanent whaling station here, and the skills they brought — boat construction, navigation, harpoon technique — were absorbed into the local population and are still maintained. The island voted to remain with the Grenadines rather than seeking independence, part of the federation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines since 1979.