Provisioning on Bequai vs St. Vincent?

Hi All; Looks like we are leaning on the 10 day two way charter from Grenada where we will be beating up or motor sailing to St. Vincent where we will be picking up our better halves.
There will be 4 couples and the 4 gents will be sailing the leg up to St Vincent which allows us to provision beforehand, learn boat operations and handling and experience some challenging sailing, all in order to instill a high level of confidence in our better halves on our sailing abilities when we pick them up and not subject them to two days of potentially beating up wind! Ideally we would be able to sail from Union to St Vincent (Blue lagoon Marina) pick them up and then sail down to Bequai. If we don’t need to provision is St. Vincent this will increase the odds of our being able to make it to Bequai in time (assuming a mid-afternoon pick up at Blue lagoon Marina).

I have heard that the provisioning on Bequai is just as good or even better than St. Vincent. Can anyone that has knowledge on the provisioning situation in St. Vincent and the Grenadines give some advice?
Thanks!


thanks

Yes you can provision in Bequia (note the spelling), but you will be limited.

In Bequia there are 2 Knights stores and of course Doris' Fresh Food for groceries. Doris' carries products from the US, Canada and UK that are hard to find in the Caribbean. However, you will pay dearly for anything you buy at Doris'!

The 2 Knights stores in town have groceries but you will be limited as to the brands you are used to. There is an outdoor meat seller, usually on Friday, on the street going up to the one Bank in Bequia.

Fresh vegetables are sold in Bequia but again, the selection is fairly limited based on what is available and the season.

You won't starve grocery shopping in Bequia but I would suggest you stock up with everything you need in Grenada, before you sail north. Grenada has everything you need at the IGA in Spiceland mall.

I recommend Maria_and_Steve's suggestion of IGA on Grenada. Not far from St George's and it will have everything you need as long as you aren't too picky on brands.

Get the list from the ladies if you chaps aren't competent shoppers

Yeah, was definitely thinking of doing a full provisioning in Grenada before leaving. It is more the fresh produce that I would want to stock up on. We are planning on eating out for all dinners anyway so it will just be lunches and breakfasts. Thanks for the replies.

Once we have decided on the approach I will be reaching out for itinerary advice as we won't be able to visit every island!

Cheers
Jeremy

We recently sailed from St. Lucia to Grenada. Fun trip, but logistics were a bit more involved than our past charters in the Leewards. We stayed the night before in St. Lucia, but were not near a grocery store, so we decided we would just do a very light provision at the marina store and then stock up as we go. We also tend to eat out quite a bit so we mainly just needed breakfast, snacks, and drinks. We heard there was decent shopping in Bequia, as well as other options as we continue down the islands, so we figured we should be able to pick up what we need as we go.

Long story short, we should have taken the time to provision in St. Lucia - or taken advantage of the pre-provisioning option. We found that there just weren't very many options once we got into SVG and the selection at stores was often pretty limited. We actually ended up eating out even more than we had planned out of necessity as we couldn't find the food to put together a decent meal. I should disclose that we were with our three somewhat picky kids which didn't make it any easier. Still, I would encourage you to stock up in Grenada, pre-provision with the charter company, or have the ladies make a run to a store in St. Vincent - if you are comfortable with that. We personally found St. Vincent to be a kind of funky place (at least where we stopped for the night) and I'm not sure what selection they have anyway so maybe ask the charter company about that.

There are others on this board that have more experience than us sailing the Grenadines, but feel free to reach out if you have any questions for me.

Matt

On St Vincent you can shop at CK Greaves near Joshua Airport. About 15 minutes from Young Island Cut and avoid the funkiness of Kingstown. Doris for the specialty stuff in Admiralty Bay. There is a fantastic bakery looking west of the Yacht docks there.

The market in Kingstown is the best in the region for fresh fruit, veg and spices, much larger than either Castries or St. Georges. They have a decent fish market also in town also.