Cruise Ships

Visiting cruise ships presented a challenge to Bequia in many ways, and I was one of the business owners who locked the bathroom doors when the passengers were belched ashore!  There were no public facilities on the Island, and it seemed that the cruise visitors forgot to visit the bathroom before getting onto the ship’s tender.  Water was (and still is) precious on Bequia, and every flush of a toilet was literally money down the drain once a tank ran dry. Businesses had to buy water when they ran out, hence the locked doors on cruise ship days.

Some cruise ships liked to feed their passengers on the beach, and would set up at Tony Gibbons.  The crews would organize barbecues and the passengers would be brought ashore for lunch.  On days when the beach was filled with visitors many children skipped school so that they could sell strange things like crocheted doilies their mothers had made.  Not only were children missing classes – who in the world goes on a Caribbean cruise to buy doilies!!??

As tourism “progressed” on Bequia, merchants started arriving from as far away as Guyana to sell souvenirs.  I recall one year when four ships called at the same time on Thursdays, and all hell broke loose in the harbour.  There was no control over the vendors under the Almond Tree, and I wish I had taken pictures of some of the dreadful things that were being hawked to the tourists. I saw bright fuzzy rugs draped over tree branches, huge ugly ceramic cats and even baby stuffed alligators, none of which had anything to do with St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

I heard one fellow (who had set up his display on the wall in front of Son Mitchell’s house) curse an elderly visitor in the foulest manner because she declined the chance to buy one of his conch shells.  It was ugly, really ugly.

One of the worst things on cruise ship days was the lack of taxis and vans for Islanders.  Before 7:00 in the morning taxis would jockey for position under the Almond Tree for their chance to carry eight people to the beach.  At times they would wait there until mid-day, and Bequians had to walk from Friendship and Paget Farm because the taxis didn’t want to lose their place in line.  Once a taxi dropped “his people” at the beach he would wait for them, making sure they didn’t use another taxi to go back into the harbour.  This caused some pretty bad scenes on the beach, especially if the passengers started to get into a water taxi.

The land taxi driver would jump in to claim “his people”, and it was obvious the poor visitors didn’t understand what the problem was.  Taxi drivers were very possessive; once you rode with them you were THEIRS, and the cruise ship passengers didn’t realize that they had to be loyal to the driver they had come with. The language I heard made me glad the poor visitors couldn’t understand what was being said -it was ear-scorching!

Cruise ship visits and their impact on Bequia, at Son Mitchell’s request, would be the first thing on my agenda as chairman of the Bequia Tourist Committee.  I was in for a hell of a ride!