Bequia, Peggy’s Rock

While anchored in Admiralty Bay, scan the hill line that leads down to West Cay. Take your binoculars and focus around the highest point. In that area (a bit to the east) you will see a big bare rock stick up clear of the vegetation. That is Peggy’s Rock, it is named after Ma Peggy (Peggy Kydd) who had spectacular eyesight and would perch up on the rock and point out to the fishermen where the shoals of fish were.

A hike to this point offers a spectacular panorama of Admiralty Bay. And while you might be able to get there from here, it is not the easiest or smartest way, so the best place to start is on the other side of the island at the Bequia Whaling and Maritime Museum, which is on the airport road. The hike takes two or three hours there and back. The going is just challenging enough to be interesting. Towards the top are many patches of saw-edged, and sword-pointed yucca. They are sharp but fairly thin leaved; a small cutlass or even a good big pair of scissors would enable to remove the tips those that encroached onto the path. If not, long trousers help.

If you start with your back to the museum you turn left and take the first concrete road on your left it climbs up hill and has a three-barred white wooden fence along the right hand side. If you take a taxi ask the driver to put you off on the road where Johnny Olivierre lives; same place.

Walk to the top of this road, it turns to dirt after a while. You will see a house at the top on your right. Turn left here up the hill you will see some utility poles and wires ahead. Go in their general direction and you will come to another, rather hidden house. Leave it on your left and pass round the back and head uphill. Sometimes there is a trail, sometimes just goat tracks, but when you get into the prickly stuff at the top you need to find the path; it is not hard. The path takes you through a stony thicket to a rounded grassy plain, head straight up the middle. There is a well marked trail that goes off to the left, pass that by and keep on upwards. As you climb you will see a little hill right ahead. The path starts a little to the left of the hill then climbs right into it. From here it is hard to go wrong; just follow the trail upwards. Towards the top you start getting into the yucca, but by way of compensation the path is delightful; like a wild rock garden. You will be scrambling up rocks from time to time. You get a couple of views of Admiralty bay before you reach the top, but don’t take too much notice, the view is to come. Finally you climb up to a peak with some big rocks. This is Peggy’s rock. You can sit here and see the whole of Admiralty bay below without a tree in the way. Lower Bay and Tony Gibbons Bay are right below, no other view in Bequia that beats this.

If you are smart you will return the same way, but if you want a round trip, I am told there are three trails down to Lower Bay. I can only tell you about the one we used. We headed back the way we came and took the first fairly major path on the left. It was a good path but petered out a couple of hundred yards down, so don’t take that one. Quite a bit further back there is another trail on your left, it is recognizable because it looks like it is heading out to an open view point. If you are lucky the red logging tape someone marked it with will still be there. There really is no good view but there is a fair trail off to the right. This seems to end in a big patch of yucca, but if you stand on the edge of the yucca you can see the good trail just a few thousand razor-sharp prickles away on your right. Take a few steps back and find your way over. The trail after that is quite clear and the first part is marked here and there with red tape (this may be the only time I have been thankful for red tape). At first it is clearly a cut trail then tt turns into a dry stream bed. It is very steep and full of slippery dead leaves, so take it slow. Down, down, down, slipping, scrambling, grabbing for trees, (thinking all the time I am glad I did not try to come up this way) and eventually you come out on a road that will lead you to the beach in Lower Bay; a good place to stop for long refreshing drink.