St. Vincent & the Grenadines

We actually first got to St. Vincent at the beginning of August but we basically got checked in and then headed further South.  It was quite the ordeal getting the dogs checked in.  First they could only check them in at the southern end of the island so we had to sail from St. Lucia which was only about 23 miles but then we had to go an additional 18 miles to the southern end of St. Vincent.  After all I heard about how difficult it was to check the dogs in, I decided to start early to get the permit started so about 10 days before we were expecting to check in I emailed the vet all of our paperwork.  I didn't hear anything for several days so I called the vet to see what the status was (I was glad that Dr. Brian in Guadeloupe was able to give me her cell phone number)  When I called it happened to be a Friday and she was home sick. but she told me to make sure to get an export permit from the last island we visited, which I did.  She hadn't even looked at the paperwork yet.  So we ended up staying in St. Lucia a couple extra days waiting for her to review the paperwork.  We decided to head to St. Vincent on Monday thinking that she would be able to review everything by the end of the day.  But we never heard anything.  So I tried calling her while we were sailing and she informed me that I would need to redo the permit application.  Well, we pulled into Blue Lagoon on Monday afternoon and the dogs could not go to land, which she strictly informed me.  We finally got everything completed correctly and she met us on Tuesday afternoon.  The dogs were very happy to finally get to land, but they did exceptionally well and were so very patient through the whole ordeal and having to stay on the boat when they were so close to a beautiful beach.
This is the main reason we decided to not go to Grenada unless we absolutely have to because it is very difficult to bring the dogs back into St. Vincent once you visit Grenada because St. Vincent is rabies free where Grenada is not.  We would have to find a vet in Grenada, have the dogs examined, test for rabies, which would also mean obtaining a titer test.  SO, please pray that a hurricane doesn't come this way to chase us down to Grenada.
At least now that the dogs are checked in we are able to visit all the islands throughout the grenadines and there are quite a few.  We spent some time in Bequai, Union Island, Mayreau and Tabago Cays.  They are all so beautiful and so very different.  We've been to Union Island and Tabago Cays before  on a bareboat about 3 years ago but it is nice to visit them again and being able to spend as much time as we want to on each one.
We are currently back in St. Vincent.  We came back mainly so we could do some serious provisioning.  The other islands have small markets but St. Vincent has some really large supermarkets and the prices are quite a bit better.  It is just a real pain to cross over from Bequai to St. Vincent.  It's not so bad when your going south but coming back north crossing the Bequai channel can be quite bumpy and the current is unbelievable.  While it only took us about an hour and a half to go south from St. Vincent to Bequai, it took us close to 3 hours to go back.  We've spent about 5 days here back in Blue Lagoon, which is a pretty nice place with a beautiful beach and convenient to catch a bus to Kingstown, which is the capital and a fairly large town.  I wasn't really sure what to expect from St. Vincent because we always heard that there was a lot of theft here and not a really great place for cruisers but we have not seen anything like that.  All of the people have been incredibly nice and helpful and the island is beautiful.  I am really enjoying St. Vincent but we are going to head back over to Bequai tomorrow and cruise around more of the Grenadines.  We should have plenty of time to see the majority because we will probably be around here until the middle of October.  But I will take you along on our visits to the islands so you can enjoy them along with us.

St. Vincent:

The reef just outside Blue Lagoon

Max & Lexie's beach that they get to walk on 3 times a day while in Blue Lagoon

A sunset in Blue Lagoon

Union Island:

This is Happy Island which is a bar on its own island in Clifton Harbour

The square in downtown

Tabago Cays:

Sydney the boat boy who sells T-shirts and sarongs

Bequai:

Main Street

The walkway around Admiralty Bay

One of the restaurants in the bay-Gingerbread House

Mayreau:

Salt Whistle Bay