Checking in and out

We're all used to Immigration and Customs controls in airports and ferry ports. You arrive into a country and there's usually one or two lots of officialdom you've to pass through, the guy that looks at your passport, (sometimes he stamps it and others he just nods vacantly as you hold it up as you pass him by), and then there's the “green” or “red” zones of “anything to declare”. We sometimes deal with the port authorities slightly more subtly in the “taxes” added to our air fares, but sometimes they collect a fee from you as well. But whichever the system, crossing an international borders has become a fairly streamlined, and the ports are set up to deal with arrivals by the boatload or planeload..

But supposing you are arriving in your own little boat, and your first port of call can theoretically be anywhere, as you can drop anchor off any piece of coastline. So there's a process.

Certain ports are designated as ports of entry, and you must make one of these your first port of call. On arrival you hoist a yellow flag. This flag represents the letter Q, for quarantine. Strictly speaking you then wait for officialdom to contact you, and traditionally they made sure you weren't bringing disease into the country. These days most places let the skipper come ashore, with passports and boat papers, and they check you in in the comfort of their office. Some places are even more flexible. However, friends of ours arriving in Morocco had to stay on their boat until a guy in a space suit came and checked them for swine flu, once passed, they were warmly welcomed into Morocco.

Within the EU, we didn't have to bother with checking in. Frequently, if and when you arrived at a marina the office passed on your details to whatever branches of officialdom required them, otherwise you were subject to random checks, which averaged for us about once every six months. However, the situation for non EU boats is probably different.

Outside of the EU the situation can vary. In Rodney Bay, St Lucia, the Immigration, Port, and Customs each had a desk in a tiny little office that you squeezed into. You filled out a form with three carbon copies, and then visited each desk in turn, leaving one copy and a little money with each official, keeping the last copy for yourself. In other places the offices are in different buildings, or even different towns, and it can be quite a run around. Even after you have gone through all of this in some countries, they require that you check in and out of every subsequent port you visit. In the Cape Verdes they even hold onto your boat papers while you're there. Most places only require that you check out when you are leaving the country.

Martinique was the simplest, where I just went into the customs office, sat at a PC and filled out an on-screen form, printed it, and brought it to the counter where it and our passports were stamped. The only odd thing there was that Martinique, as you may have read recently, is part of France (well a Department of France), and thus in the EU, where I as I previously implied they don't seem overly bothered with your papers at all.

One other document that they require when you arrive is your check out papers from the last country you've been to, so if you try to sneak in without paying the taxes and visas, you will have an unaccounted gap in your paperwork, so don't try it!

Beware though, if you think these little inconveniences tiresome with a mindset of countries like Ireland, Britain, France, etc., because when you get to the Caribbean most of the countries are smaller than a small Irish county, and crossing international frontiers is a routine event.

Caribbean Geography

The Antilles is the collective name for the Islands of the Caribbean, the Lesser Antilles being the smaller islands, that means excluding Cuba, Jamaica, and the single island that accommodates the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.


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The Lesser Antilles are subdivided into the Leeward Islands, running as far south as Dominica, and the Windward Islands stretching from Martinique down to Grenada. I should point out, Dominica the island is a country onto itself, and is nothing to do with the Dominican Republic, except of course that they are both fellow Antilles.

St Vincent and the Grenadines is a country made up of one big Island, called “St Vincent” and a cartload of smaller ones, collectively known as the Grenadines.

Now to get all the confusing stuff out of the way, the Grenadines includes a group of islands and reefs called the Tobago Cays (pronounced “keys”), but does not include either the islands of Grenada or Tobago. If this is only a little confusing, fear not, tips of icebergs come to mind. Let's deal with the easy stuff first, Tobago the island is part of the country “Trinidad and Tobago” as opposed to the Tobago Cays (pronounced “keys”), which is still part of the Grenadines, and hence part of the country of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The southernmost island in the Grenadines is Petit St Vincent, which is part of the Grenadines and therefore part of the country of St Vincent and the Grenadines, but nevertheless is quite distinct from St Vincent, which, though part of the same country, is not a Grenadine.

Now if you are Gaelic like me you might be inclined to think the Grenadines are like a collection of little Grenadas. Well, they are similar in climate, but Grenada, the island, is part of the country of Granada, which includes the islands of Grenada, Carriacou, and Petit Martinique. This last of course being completely separate to the island of Martinique a hundred miles or so further north, which is of course, part of France.

Hear the wind blow, love, hear the wind blow

So having given serious consideration to returning to the eastern side of the Atlantic, we have decided to stay in the Americas one more year, and press south, to exit the hurricane zone before the hurricane season. Now I should explain here the concepts of “hurricane zone” and “hurricane season”. Even if your name is not Michael Fish, you probably know that hurricanes, or at least hurricane strength storms, can occur anywhere and at any time of year. Indeed even Eliza Dolittle was at least partly aware of this. The hurricane zone is generally considered to be most of the Caribbean, except the very south bit of it (where we're going), and up to the Southern United States, I don't know exactly where the northern boundary actually lies. The “hurricane season” is officially 1^st June through to the 30^th November, and what that means is you are more likely to have a hurricane in that area at that time of year.

Grenada, just south of the Grenadines, used to be considered out of the zone until 2004 when it was pretty well devastated by hurricane Ivan, and then hit again the following year by the less destructive Emily. However the fact is, global warming or not, Grenada gets hit by a hurricane on average every fifty years, further South in Trinidad, the batting average is more like once every hundred years. Either way, I don't think much of them odds boss, at least not at first sight, but then, as no doubt the aforementioned Met man can tell you, didn't we have a visit in Ireland from one H. Charlie about 20 odd years ago. And then, I remember a book when I was at school called “the Big Wind” which described what must have been about as nasty as a pretty nasty hurricane, and then how often do we hear of hurricane force winds battering the coast (thankfully for us dubs that's usually the coast of Donegal, sorry Daniel!). So even if you stay under the bed you can still get a rude meteorological awakening.

So then, let's accept that we are slightly more at risk of being hit by a hurricane here than at home in the bosom of the cosy shire, there's the question of what we're going to do in the event.

Well we have a choice (usually) of whether to dig in or run. There is a very very very slight possibility of a hurricane forming on our doorstep too rapidly for the Met people to give enough warning for us to have time to run, in which case digging in is your only man. With all the met info, computer models, and satellite data that they have these days though, they can watch the hurricanes forming and predict where it's going to go with a good deal of accuracy. Unfortunately though, predicting the route of a hurricane is a bit like predicting the course of a spinning top. A butterfly flaps its wings and the whole thing goes off in another direction.

This unpredictability is the main problem with running, because there's always the chance that your engine will fail and the wind will die and then the big destructive spinning top will come after you, and catch you up at sea, and that would be that for a little boat like ours!

So dig in. Still we have choices. One I haven't made yet is whether to stay on board to protect the boat, or go to a hotel or land based shelter and leave the boat to fend for itself having secured it as best we can. Given that I'm essentially a wuss, and that there's danger to life and limb, I am inclined to opt for the run for the hills option, and patch up any damage to the boat later, but then, since the chances of the 'urricane hactually 'appening or so slim, I'm just going to cross that bridge if and when I have to.

Picture shows a Church in Granada's capital St George, missing some essential weatherproofing after Ivan's vis.it in 2004

St Lucia

Rodney Bay Marina, famous in the yachting press as the arrival point of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC), is now a quite a large, 600ish berth, marina. It is our first port of call in St Lucia, having gotten here in early May.

We only stayed in the marina for a few nights, marinas are the exception rather than the rule. They are handy because you can just step ashore, unlimited supplies of water and shower power (like normal 220V electricity rather than the 12V we normally have which we can run through an inverter and get maybe half a kilowatt – but drains the batteries, and wouldn’t boil an egg!), however we still prefer to anchor, because it’s cheaper (like free) and you’re not squeezed together with other boats like sardines, it’s cheaper, more private, and cooler cause you’re that little bit further away from land, oh yeah, and did I mention it’s cheaper!

Anyway Rodney Bay is more like a lake, you enter it through a narrow channel, so it’s very protected. Around the shoreline there are houses, boatyards and various other marine related businesses, and bars and restaurants. There’s a supermarket which has its own dinghy dock, so you can wheel your trolly right up to your dinghy when you do the shopping (we had one of those in Martinique too). The houses vary from the affluent looking (if twee) terraced town houses with parking in the front garden for the car(s) and private dock in the back for the boat(s), to the ostentatious (and very twee) detached 6+ bed roomed yolks with a mini marina at the water’s edge for a private fleet of shiny fifty foot sailing boat, fifty foot stinky (stinky = motor boat, stand downwind of one when engines are running & you’ll know why), and the inevitable speedboat. I didn’t see anyone actually using these particular houses or boats, but presumably they are owned for trophy purposes.

I was initially impressed on our arrival at the marina, two well dressed polite young men addressed me as “Sir” and helped with our lines. However once I'd handed over the money in the marina office the young lady behind the counter quickly became bored with my tedious questions about the location of showers, shops, laundry, etc. The kind of thing that we'd gotten used to being given in a data sheet on arrival. No such thing here, more like “we've got your money, go fend for yourself. It didn't get any better in the chandlers, when I bought a few items. Prices advertised in US dollars, so it wasn't immediately obvious on my receipt in local currency that I had been overcharged (by up to 50% on some items), when I went back to see what the error was I met with shrugged shoulders from the younger shop assistants, who eventually directed me to a sign that wasn't completely hidden behind the cash register, to the effect that the price is what we charge you, not what we advertise!!! All this was explained to me while an older gentleman stood behind the counter chuckling quietly to himself.

OK, so I'll stop there before I descend into a rant about all the negative things we've encountered, because there's lots of good stuff too, and let's face it, I'd rather talk about that.

Like when we took a stroll outside the marina compound, and there was a few young guys with a truck full of young coconuts. These are coconuts cut from the trees before their shells have hardened and the “meat” has formed, and they are full of juice. One of the guys has a machete and with three strikes he has chopped off one end of the coconut and then nicks a hole with the pointy end, sticks in a straw, and there you have it, nature-fresh. Add rum, ice, or anything else you want. In our case we drank it neat there and then, through the straw.

Outside of Rodney Bay is Admiral Bay, which is open to the west, but sheltered by Pigeon Island to the north, and the curve of the bay to the east and south where it is punctuated by (I kid you not) by Barrel of Beef rock. While there we shared the anchorage with none other than the "Pearl" of "Pirates of the Caribbean" fame. We were planning on staying there for a couple of nights after leaving the marina. The first night was a bit of a trial, during daylight you are irritated by the wallies whizzing around on their jetskies and speedboats knocking you about with their wake, and when the sun goes down the various holiday hotels around the bay who equate sound volume with music quality. We wanted to visit Pigeon Island, which is a park, but when we went there yesterday morning we were told that the park was closed for the Jazz, although apparently if you bought tickets to the jazz you were allowed look over the fence into the park!

So we left Admiral bay and went to the more sedate (am I getting old?) Marigot bay. This is a tiny place by comparison, and the marina village and small peninsula beach is equally twee. There are steep cliffs on either side as you come in, with a dozen or so very affluent looking houses perched on the top. The occasional tourist boats are not much of a nuisance, one of them came through earlier today & I heard the guide tell his passengers that George Foreman owned one of them. Well George, you might own the fancy pad, but I’m the guy on the yacht!

An interesting thing about Marigot Bay is that it's a kind of a double bay, in that you come in to the first bay and then, right at the end, it narrows, and then opens out again into another bay. This is supposed to be good in a hurricane, because the shelter is doubled. However the best place to be in a hurricane is somewhere else, make that anywhere else.

From there we continued on South to Soufriere and the Pitons. While we were checking in at Rodney Bay, one of the officials (Customs, Immigration, Port Authority, I can't remember which), told me that there was a tax we'd have to pay to visit this area, and offered to take it from me there and then, telling me that our boat would be confiscated if we breached regulations. However, at the time I wasn't able to predict the date that we'd be there I was unable to pay the tax. Later we checked the guide book, but that just confused me, so we eventually decided that, since Soufriere is a port of entry we should be able to pay whatever tax there. But when we got there the local officials had never heard of the tax! Maybe I mis-understood what I was being told in Rodney Bay!

The “Pitons” are two volcanic steep cone shaped mountains, covered in greenery, and quite spectacular. They are across the bay from the town of Soufriere. The entire area is a national park and anchoring in the park is not permitted to protect the delicate coral. Instead they provide moorings, for which Park rangers collect a modest fee ($40 EC for us, or about 12 Euros), and for this we could stay up to two nights. The snorkeling in among the coral made it well worth it. We took the dinghy along the coast to a recommended dive spot, where we were able to snorkel along the remote and totally isolated coast. Between the fish and the coral it was like swimming in our own giant aquarium, and was really quite spectacular. Before we left Ireland we bought a cheap waterproof camera (in LIDL) and we gave it its first outing here. Regrettably it's not digital, so it'll be a while before we have the film developed, and before we'll be able to see if the pics are any good.

This was to be our last stop in St Lucia, but we had a decision to make. By now it was the middle of May, the hurricane season begins officially on 1^st June, although in reality, the chances of any tropical storm before July this far south are pretty slim. Nevertheless, if you want to sail the return trip to the east side of the Atlantic, the best route to Europe is via the Azores, and the time to do it is Mid May.

It really only occurred to us while we were in Soufriere, but it would only take us a day to sail back to Martinique, where we could prepare and provision for an Atlantic crossing in a few days and be on our way by the 20^th.

This idea had quite a bit going for it. First of all, it gets us out of the hurricane zone. Another thing is we are having difficulty getting our insurance sorted out, then there is the culture shock, things like the aforementioned consumer rights focus (or lack of), and the fact that in most of the harbours we come into we are “greeted” by an army of “Boat boys” in small boats offering “goods” and “services”. The goods are excessively overpriced, e.g., a “baguette” for $12EC (4 Euros) – the baguette more resembling the roll that you'd get with your soup at lunch time than the Cuisine de France thing we're used to. The “services” like “protecting” your boat or dinghy, or maybe just going away and leaving you anchor in peace without being harassed onto the rocks. Then there's the heat, the humidity, and the mosquitoes.

However, we had seen very little of the Caribbean to date, and all those negatives only add up to a minor hassle, the boat boys back off when you talk firmly to them, we are well stocked with essentials, Catherine recently learned to bake bread in the pressure cooker, and we have no need to buy at their excessive prices. The heat and humidity are tolerable when you can jump over the side and swim with the fishes through the coral to cool off, and well, having come this far, we're not going to be stopped by some insects!

So after two nights in Soufriere we dropped the mooring and continued south. Next stop St Vincent and the Grenadines, and then on to Grenada. If truth be told, at time of posting we've already reached Grenada, so I've a bit of catching up to do on the blog writing. I'll try to get it done over the next few days. We weren't that long in St V & the Gs, but theres plenty to tell.

Until then, fair winds and safe harbours to you all.

Margot Bay

The view back to Admiralty bay

Twee houses in Rodney Bay

The Pearl