Shortly after my arrival on Bequia I had sailed with an American fellow named Chris Bowman on Just Now, a lovely wooden schooner he had built on Bequia’s waterfront. It was the first time I had ever sailed, and I disgraced myself by getting seasick all over the cabin floor during our rough trip back from the PSV Regatta. Chris was a good friend of Mac’s so I got to know him well, and my first daughter is named after his Australian wife Vanessa.
I can’t recall the details of how Chris ended up building a schooner for Bob Dylan, I think his manager saw Just Now and told Bob about it. Anyway, Chris and Mac’s brother Nolly were commissioned to build a classic Island Schooner for the famous singer/poet, an undertaking Bequians watched with interest from start to finish.
The name of the schooner would be Water Pearl. She would be bigger than Just Now (68 feet) but built in the same traditional manner. Her ribs would be made of white cedar and her planking Guyanese hardwood. She was going to be a splendid vessel if Chris’s Just Now was anything to go by, and the fact that money would not be lacking for the project would certainly help.
Bequia is a sea-faring Island that produced many fine shipwrights, and Chris had an excellent team working with him on the project. The Water Pearl was built on the waterfront at Belmont, between where Dive Bequia and the Gingerbread complex would later be constructed. This part of Belmont was called the “coconut wharf” and I often went with Mac to chat with Chris and check on his progress. It was fascinating to watch, everything was done by hand and the attention to detail was meticulous.
It would take Chris three years to complete Water Pearl, it was painstaking work that could not be rushed. She would be launched on December 9, 1980 and I will have to write a separate story to describe that all-day event!