The Pinnacle isn't the highest point on Union Island, but its sharp contours are irresistably appealing to ex-rock-climbers like us. Especially since the simple map in the guidebook suggested (but didn't guarantee) the existence of a trail to the summit. Patrick and Theresa of Kasja foolishly agreed to accompany us -- obviously they hadn't read about our deathmarch up Loma Isabel de Torres back in the DR! True to form, we wandered around roadways, followed faint goatpaths, scraped our way through thorny brambles, and knocked a few rocks down onto each others' heads before making it to the top. But make it we did.
The
steep summit ridge was a 4th class scramble reminiscent of Arizona or
Colorado, and once we attained the summit the view was magnificent. A
little graffiti and a little trash attested that we were not the
first, but at that moment we were the only ones there. Bits of steel
drum music drifted upwards on the breeze from a high school band
practice somewhere below us. We saw sailboats and cargo ships, and a
rain squall lashing the ocean just west of Carriacou.
I'm the first to roll my eyes when someone whips out a cell phone on a mountaintop. But we happened to have our handheld VHF with us, and it wasn't exactly wilderness...so I pulled it out and hailed Simplicity, a boat we and Kasja have been socializing with lately. Our handheld's pretty wimpy, so I was surprised when they responded -- guess the 740-foot peak we were on made a good antenna! They were down in Carriacou, eight miles south, so we told them to look back up at Union Island and they'd see us waving. Well, they could have seen us, if they had really good binoculars!
We opted for a steep and loose gully descent rather than the bramble bushwack we'd ascended. It turned out to be pretty nasty, and we slid on fallen leaves and tenously-attached rocks as we slowly picked our way down. But we made it back in time for happy hour, and a few beers went a long way toward soothing our aching quadriceps and our scratched-up shins.
When we formally checked out of St. Vincent and the Grenadines at Union Island, the immigration officer asked us if we'd experienced any "harassment" while in their country. What do you say to that?
We commented that we'd been annoyed by the boat vendors who frequently zoomed up to us while we were busy anchoring or looking for a spot to anchor, getting in the way and distracting us while we were trying to get settled. "Well, you can't call that harassment," he told us. "They're just anxious to let you know what they have to offer." I guess that standards of polite salesmanship vary!
Maybe we're just culturally insensitive, and we should be supportive of the locals' attempts to participate in the tourist economy. Certainly what we've experienced doesn't even come close to the real harassment we've heard about in other places. I guess it makes sense for a boat vendor hawking moorings to approach boats while they're still underway -- but once the people aboard say "no, thank you," the vendor should go away, rather than following alongside getting in the way while they're trying to anchor (as one did to us at Union Island). In the Tobago Cays and in Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou, if we sat out in the cockpit reading or talking, the vendors would descend like vultures: "Want to buy some fish? You need ice? Buy some jewelry, handmade in de islands, mon?" Sure, they take "no" for an answer, but you have to say it several times. Most cruisers just hang out belowdecks so they won't be bothered. We prefer the approach of one outfit in Bequia -- one of their people came by and dropped off a flyer listing their services, and the VHF channel they could be reached on.
On shore there is no shortage of men to help you tie up or "watch your dinghy" -- for a fee, of course. It's annoying to have to not hand your line to the person on the dock, since he's not being helpful, he just wants money. (Other boaters are perfectly happy to give you a hand without requiring a tip!) At the customs dock at Hillsborough, Carriacou, a seedy-looking local stood on the dinghy float "directing" us to tie up (although it was clearly obvious where to tie).
"Watch your dinghy for you, skip?"
"No thanks, we're fine, we'll lock it up."
"Watch your dinghy for you?" He repeated it several times as we tied and locked our dink. Finally Britt turned to him and said, "What are you going to watch it do? It's just going to sit there. Not very interesting to watch it, don't you think?"
"I watch your dinghy for you, mon."
We shrugged and left to go check in at Customs. (Carriacou is part of Grenada, a new country for us.) When we returned to the dock, the guy was still there. As we unlocked and untied, he pushed up to us and whined, "A little something for watching your dinghy, skip? You give me a little something?"
Finally I turned to him. "We didn't ask you to do anything, and we're not going to give you anything."
"You give me a little something, skip?" Arrggh.
The most annoying incident we had occurred at Union Island. We had our scuba tanks and trash in the dink, and had just tied up at the Scuba Shack's dock, when a man walked down the dock toward us. "Need air? Bring the tanks right here, I help you. I get your garbage too." He picked up one tank and the trash and carried them to the scuba shop, as Britt carried the other tank. Nobody else was in the shop at the time. He took the trash and said he'd be back in a moment.
A few minutes later, another guy came around the corner and into the scuba shop, and said no problem with the tanks, they'd be ready later that afternoon. When we returned for the tanks, the first guy was outside again, and immediately accosted us saying we hadn't paid him for taking our trash. Huh? We had thought he worked for the Scuba Shack, and that he was tossing our trash with theirs as a courtesy since we were buying airfills, but no, he was just a "dock boy" hanging out looking for boaters to fleece. $10 EC (that's $4 US) for him to carry our garbage to the dump, a few minutes' walk away -- hell, we had been going there anyway (it was on the way to the airport, where we were headed to check out with customs and immigration). A bit much for a small service we didn't really need, considering that $3 EC buys a beer at happy hour.
We were a little put out by the thought that we'd been scammed, but the next day someone got scammed even worse. (Note that this is third-hand information; we heard it from someone who overheard the alleged victim telling it to another person on the VHF. So we may have details wrong.) Apparently, a guy on a charterboat pulled into the harbor that afternoon and accepted a boat boy's offer of a mooring. He tied up to it and went into town that evening. While he was ashore, his boat drifted off and ended up on the reef. Six boat boys "rescued" the boat, then demanded $2000 US. He offered $60, which was refused. When he looked at the mooring, apparently it was evident that the mooring line had been cut; at that point, he went to the police.
It's not that we don't want to spend any money. We try to contribute to the local economy by buying produce, getting our laundry done, eating a lunch out in a restaurant, having a beer or two in the local bar. What we resent is being aggressively peddled goods and services we don't want. Of course, cruisers in general are tightwads (how else could we afford to go cruising?) so I imagine it's a tough market. Perhaps the reason the boat boys are so plentiful here is that charter boats are plentiful here too. It's easier to throw money around when you're on vacation. And jewelry, handmade in de islands, mon, makes a good souvenir.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) and Grenada have so far been the only former British Caribbean possessions we've checked into, and based on these countries we have to say that the British are unexcelled at bureaucracy. In the French islands we had to fill in a short form and show our passports; in Saba, which is part of the Netherlands Antilles, the form was even shorter, and our passports never made it out of our backpack. (For all the traveling we've been doing, we have only three new stamps in our passports -- the officials at most islands don't do anything but look at them and copy down the numbers.)
We've dutifully checked out of each country when we leave, but so far SVG and Grenada have been the only countries which have required us to hand over the paperwork from the previous island. I don't know what they do if you failed to check out properly -- send you back? The customs forms for yachts are usually the same as for commercial ships, so they ask for all sorts of inapplicable information, such as cargo contents and whether there is mail aboard. They want to know your boat's registry, tonnage, length, beam, and draft, color of hull and number of engines, when you arrived and from where, when you are leaving and to where. In Hillsborough on Carriacou, checking in to Grenada, it wasn't enough to tell them we planned to go next to Grenada on July 8th. No, we had to say we were going to St. George's harbour, at 8:00 a.m. We've heard stories, maybe apocryphal, of cruisers being charged overtime for saying they planned to leave at some time outside normal office hours. On the other hand, when we checked out of SVG, and answered the immigration officer by saying we would leave at 8:00 a.m. the next morning, he just said, "Why so early? You on vacation, sleep a little later."
We had learned from the guidebook that we needed to bring crew lists -- four copies -- to check in to Grenada. What the guidebook didn't say was what needed to be on these crew lists. We just guessed, based on all the forms we'd filled in up to then, and ran them off on our computer printer. The customs guy looked at the top copy, pulled out a pen, and added a list of all the things we were supposed to have on the list that we didn't have on the list. Oh, well. At least we had most of the information already printed out; behind us came another cruiser who didn't have crew lists, and the customs official explained that they didn't have forms and the cruiser would just have to go and find some blank paper somewhere and come back.
In Hillsborough we also had to check in with the Port Authority, although we remained in the Port of Hillsborough only long enough to check in. (Tyrrel Bay is a much better anchorage, and besides, we wanted to make it to the 4th of July party this afternoon at the yacht club there.) We couldn't help noticing the flyer tacked to the wall:
NOTICE -- IMPORTATION OF TOILET TISSUE
The Grenada Bureau of Standards notes with concern the importation
of toilet tissue containing less than 300 sheets.
We wish to advise that this product does not meet the requirements
of the compulsory national standard for toilet tissue or the CARIACOM
standard for toilet tissue both of which clearly state that the minimum
number of sheets in rolls of two-ply toilet tissue shall be 300.
The importation of toilet tissue which does not meet the requirements
of the standard is therefore prohibited. The relevant standard is
available at the Bureau.
Your kind co-operation is solicited.
|
Okay, it was no doubt a joke. (Although we saw several other notices tacked up from the Grenada Bureau of Standards, which while of less amusing content were in just as excruciating bureaucratese!) But after filling out forms and answering questions and getting things stamped and signed and copied and checked by officials in three different offices in two different buildings, we wouldn't be surprised by anything coming out of this government. We're hiding our non-compliant toilet tissue, just in case.
With our arrival in Carriacou, we are now officially below the hurricane belt -- at least, according to our insurance company, who won't cover us in the Caribbean for named storm damage unless we're south of 12°30' N latitude. We're almost 3 miles past that magic line now. Still, tropical storms don't necessarily check their GPSes before whomping boaters, and Tyrrel Bay's been hit before. But the last one, we're told, was forty years ago, so we're not too worried.