It's been a very busy couple of days. It seems that all I have done is check in and out of various customs and immigration offices. These offices are never easy to find, so it becomes a game of "hide 'n seek". The locals never know where these offices are located as they never need them. To add to the game, customs and immigration are NEVER in the same building, or in the same area for that matter. I wound up humming Crosby, Stills, N &Y 's "Immigration Man".let me in..'Irritation man'.."imitation man".let me in.. your form is big enough to keep me warm...ect.
On Wednesday, I had an easy sail from the Tobago Keys to Union Island. Union is the most southerly island in the Grenadines chain. (The country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines) The principle town is Clifton which has customs and immigration offices. When leaving a country you need to "check out" and obtain clearance papers in order to legally leave. Without these papers, you are unable to check in to the next country. Wednesday was brutally hot so walking around Clifton looking for the customs office (one side of town) and immigration (opposite end of town) was plain torture..it only took 2 hours to round up all the paperwork; not bad for 'island time'.
The plan was to go to the "Happy Island Bar" for sundowners. The owner collected thousands (literally thousands) of conch shells and built his own island on the edge of the reef. The "island" is about 75' round and the owner has built a tiki bar on top of it.amazing !! Well, at five o'clock I was getting ready to dinghy over to Happy Island when a squall line approached. The wind increased dramatically, and there was a deluge of rain. All evening squall after squall came through, so I was unable to get to Happy Island. The only good thing was that I was able to refill all the water tanks aboard.
On Thursday, again, I had an easy sail from Union Island over to Carriacou; which is part of the country of Grenada. I dropped the anchor off the main dock in Hillsboro and dinghyed into town to find customs and immigration. Grenada being a former British colony is pretty civilized, so the check in procedure was straight forward..but it did require walking around Hillsboro to find the customs office, the immigrations office, and the revenue office where you pay for your "cruising permit". (Of course these offices are not together and the game of hide 'n seek continued) In the last several weeks, the cost of the cruising permit has skyrocketed from $50 EC per year, to $50 EC per MONTH. The cruising community in Grenada is screaming !! I just shut up and paid my $150 EC for a 90 day stay.
After checking in, I hoisted anchor and motored the couple of miles around the corner to Tyrell Bay, Carriacou. As I arrived, I got a radio call from "Compass Rose" welcoming me to the harbor. I haven't seen Compass Rose since Eric and Jackie left the Bahamas nearly 5 months ago. Jackie is back in the States, so Eric and his brother-in-law came over to Persephone for a coldie. We all went to the Hallalujah Bar for happy hour. The Hallalujah is a floating bar anchored in the middle of the bay. The owner, Lady D, had a work boat converted into the bar...not something you would ever get away with in the States..it was great ! Following the Hallalujah, we went to the Lazy Turtle for pizza and called it an early evening.
I will spend the day in Tyrell Bay just hanging out "liming". Tomorrow, Compass Rose and Persephone will sail the 35 miles down to Grenada...reaching a major milestone in the cruise.
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