Antigua: In and Out

It is early in the morning on the 9^th of July. Mark and I are in a surprisingly good mood, despite the current circumstances. Together with hundreds of flying fish, we are flying south ourselves. It is blowing a perfect 15 knots and we are sailing quite a bit off the wind, which gives us speed and comfort. Finally. From now on, no more bashing into the wind. Supposedly. We made it to our last south eastern destination… and left. We are on our way to Guadeloupe. Who would have guessed?

Two days earlier, we were all ready for our crossing to Antigua. We were very excited about visiting this country and had looked forward to it for a long time. We knew we needed a current health certificate for Darwin and an extra rabies shot. We obtained a health certificate in St. Maarten on June 9^th and thought “Good we got it today, so we can change the date into 19 or 29 if we need to.” In St. Barth, nobody cares about dogs and when we were thinking of leaving there, we tried our best to find a blue pen that matched the ink used on the certificate and gave it a go. We changed the date to 29 and immediately felt bad about it. It didn’t look that good either, and now we really had a problem. So, we decided to hitch hike to Gustavia with Darwin, for a new health certificate and the extra vaccination… There was one other -irrelevant- test request in our email from the Antigua agriculture department, but we knew Darwin didn’t have the disease, we never needed this test before and we figured we could deal with it at arrival. We also knew we needed a temporary import permit once we got to our destination. That couldn’t cost more than $10…

Sailing to Antigua is not a fun event, since it lies pretty much in the direction of the wind. We waited for a nice weather window with north east winds, but it was nevertheless a very bumpy and quite uncomfortable ride, that made sleeping during our “off shift” impossible. But, we got to sail the whole way! When we anchored in Jolly Harbour, we were spent and ready for a nap. First, we had to check in. Mark and I lowered the dinghy, put its engine in place and drove the mile or so to the customs and immigration office. There, the officials told us we had to move Irie to their dock for check-in. So, back we went, with the dinghy. Then, we lifted the anchor and motored to the customs dock with our big boat. So far, this wasn’t an easy process…

We talked to the immigration officer, who gave us a bunch of forms to fill out. We could not officially check in, until a vet came to inspect Darwin. Maybe we shouldn’t have mentioned him? A lot of people got away with this… But, we don’t feel comfortable with that, so, we waited. For four hours. Then, the fun began…

The vet wanted to test Darwin for lyme disease and give him an examination. Lyme disease mainly exists in the north east of the United States, and Darwin has not been there for two years. That didn’t matter. When a dog has this disease, he shows symptoms, which Darwin didn’t have. That didn’t matter. Also, Darwin was just examined in St. Barth by a vet and received a health certificate, meaning: he was healthy. That didn’t matter. So, why did we have to spend $50 there to get a current health certificate? “You only spent $50? What a bargain!” was the vet’s response. There were more discussions, proving that the test was totally unnecessary, but what really threw us off, was its price: for this little joke, we had to pay the equivalent of $50! And, after that, we would be issued a temporary import permit for… another $50! We wished we knew all this ahead of time, so we could have sailed straight away to Guadeloupe from St. Barth, a way nicer sail.

If we wanted to visit Antigua with Darwin, we had to give this vet (or the agriculture department) 100 USD. That was outrageous! They really wanted to make money on this. In all the other countries we have visited with our dogs, we never had to pay more than $15 a dog. Most of the time a permit is free, not required or about 10 dollars, including the vet visit. This vet, who already had an attitude, got annoyed with our objections and suggested we’d just leave the country instead. To his surprise, we actually agreed. He stormed to the immigration office to tell them we were not allowed to stay! Now what? We were so very tired from this last crossing, it was already 2 pm and we knew we couldn’t make it to Guadeloupe, mentally, physically or by nightfall…

After this incident, which took place outside the buildings and was witnessed by all people and officials present, we had a nice talk with the immigration officer. He had sympathy for our situation and allowed us to stay one night in the harbor to get some sleep. The other officials were also very friendly, so our impression of Antigua wasn’t “all bad”. After going through the stream of paperwork to check in and out of the country and getting the required cruising permit for $12, we moved Irie back to the anchorage for some well deserved rest.

Now, back on the ocean, we have all this behind us, but feel good about our decision. Too bad we don’t get to see and explore Antigua, but… we’ll spend our money elsewhere, in places where our dog is as welcome as we are. On this 9^th of July, the elements agree with us. The sun sits bright in the sky, the wind keeps up, shooting us forward at an average of 6.5 knots. I think: “Look at us now, people, and be jealous. It doesn’t happen a lot, but now you are allowed to envy us. This trip is awesome!”

In a record time of about 7 hours, we would arrive in Deshaies, Guadeloupe. Checking in there is free and takes five minutes. One sheet to fill out, no stamps or permits required. No mention of Darwin…