Living in Bequia - shopping in St. Vincent

People told us that by shopping over on St. Vincent, one could shop at a large supermarket, and buy more name brand products at lower prices. But, it costs about 36$ US for a round-trip ferry ride. So you need to buy a lot to make it pay. The large market is Greaves, and the liquor store is Gonsalves. Both have been operation for a long time. We noted that a jug of tequila on Bequia is 78EC while on St.V it is 63EC. -- starts to pay for the ferry ride.

But how do you carry a lot back?

Well the big shops in StV package stuff up and put it on the ferry for you... the cost of the packages on the ferry? - $0.. you pick it up at the ferry! Whole Foods in Portland does the same thing for people living on Peak's Island.

Unfortunately, not all products are listed on the available list. So, go over and see what they have, then later, just order more of the same.

We found that buying groceries isn't much different than on Bequia, but you can save a lot buying liquor.

This photo was taken on the trip to StV to check out the shopping.

On the way to go shopping...

StV is far bigger than Bequia,  it is the seat of government and it is far more urban than Bequia. Kingstown is a bustling city.

>>>Double click to see all images larger.<<<

The supermarket was smallish by US standards, but the liquor store was rather typical. The thing that was most interesting was that, like on Bequia,  produce is sold primarily out of street carts, not in the grocery stores. Greaves has little in the way of fruits and vegetables.

This is the street scene. We were told that this occurs everyday, not just on "farmers' market days". It is an open air market and the vendors must protect themselves, since, as we know, it rains regularly on StV.

Well, we did end up with 5 cases/boxes of goods, but we missed the short truck from Greaves and had to find a way to carry the stuff.

No worries. StV has "cartguys" to get your goods to whereever you want.. for about $4 US. We found our guy right outside of Greaves.

He had a very colorful cart. He pushed our stuff about 1/2mile to the ferry.

 Our stuff is loaded in the ferry -- along with lots of other good being shipped to BQ and other islands in the Grenadines. Hope the eggs (not ours) make it safely. The liquor cases had already arrived and were in place. The fellow in the coveralls, asked "You Shea?" We determined that he knew every one else's name, didn't recognize us, so took a good guess.

We arrived back in BQ and simply drove the car onto the ferry, loaded up and drove back to Ravenala1