Bequia
Maritime Museum |
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The
Bequia Maritime Museum was opened officially, though with little fanfare,
15 November, 2005. Lawson Sargeant, one of three brothers to start the original
model boat shop on the island some 40 years ago, personally organised the
museum in Ocar, just northwest of Port Elizabeth and not fifty yards back
from the harbourfront. The holdings of the museum are chiefly old photographs and model boats, although certain artifacts from life in "de schooner days" are also on display. These include an adz used for turning timbers into frames and keels, a "goose" iron heated by inserting hot coals inside and used for pressing clothes, and the tiered pots used by fishermen to store their day's food. |
The photographs
include a splendid one of Port Elizabeth in the old days chock-a-block
with island schooners and only one tiny yacht to be seen; another of
a crowd of boys in water up to their knees, ready to race their coconut
boats, and in the background one yacht, the ketch belonging to the American
Porter Smith who was the official doctor in the Grenadines during the
1960s; and a photograph of the 1985 launching in Friendship Bay of Five
Nails, a 53-foot sloop that was the last large sailing vessel built
on these shores. The
models, all built by Sargeant, include those of Friendship Rose and
a Bequia whale boat. Another photograph shows Lawson presenting a model
of HMY Britannia to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip in 1985. A letter
of appreciation from the queen compliments the photograph. Visitors are
welcome by appointment (784 457 3685 or 495 8559 cell) or by chance.
A donation of EC$15 is requested for the visit. Bequia has long needed
this worthwhile start-up museum. |
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