Are your rats healthy?

[LManess]

I sailed the Carribean many years ago and always was the first one off the boat checking in with customs.

I have told the story countless times about one very unusual island I visited that had an outrageous customs form and am wondering if any of you know which island this is. If you've every seen the customs form I am about to describe you'll remember some of these questions:

Are your rats healthy?
Does anyone on board have the plague?
Have you buried anyone at sea?
How many cannon do you have on board?

After I read that last one, I was laughing so hard I was in tears. I just had to ask the customs official behind the counter, when the last time was that they had revised their form. Somehow he didn't find that funny at all.

The island had one other very unfortunate quirk. It was tradition that the island population band together once a year and attempt to kill a whale. I remember one of the local bars using a piece of whale spine as bar stools.

Can anyone name that island?

Linda

[h20man]

I would guess the island is Bequia. in Port Elizabeth the Whale Boner Bar & Restaurant has an entrance onto the beach consisting of an arch of two whale ribs as well as whale vertebrae mounted on the bar seats and a whale rib running the length of the bar.

Dunno about the customs form...

BTW, Bequia is the largest island in the Grenadines. It is part of the country of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

[Faster]

From Wikipediea

Natives of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines on the island of Bequia have a quota from the International Whaling Commission of up to four humpback whales per year using traditional hunting methods and equipment.

Been there, loved it, but never saw the forms, we were guests of friends. Never witnessed the hunt either.

[LManess]

Thanks for the info, I think you nailed it - Bequia.

If you don't remember their customs form, then they must have changed it since I was there. It was truly hysterical.

Linda

[travlineasy]

The irony about the rats is that there are some parts of the world where they are considered an endangered and protected species--including certain locations in the U.S.. Several years ago my wife and I stopped at Sugar Loaf Lodge at Sugar Loaf Key. Florida. sugar loaf sugar loaf lodge sugarloaf lodge sugar loaf resort sugar loaf key sugarloaf key sugar loaf key florida florida keys vacation The resort is beautiful, has a small, relatively shallow marina, a Tiki Bar, and a beautiful restaurant within the main lodge. It was off season, the place was nearly empty, and only a few people were in the restaurant enjoying some of the local seafood cuisine.

There was a duo performing that evening, and the guy was playing a Yamaha Clavinova, an instrument that I'm somewhat familiar with. While we were wolfing down a red snapper dinner he came to our table and we quickly struck up a conversation about music. Because it was a quiet night, he offered to let me play a short set while the young lady vocalist accompanied me.

Just before our desert came a massive rat scampered across the restaurant floor. My wife nearly jumped onto the table, and I watched it slip nearly unnoticed beneath one of the counters near the salad bar. I motioned to the waiter, he came over and I told him about the rat. He said he would take care of it. I figured he would either club it to death, or nail it with a rat trap. He did neither. Instead, he slid a Have-a-heart trap beneath the counter baited with chunky peanut butter. The rat entered, the door closed and the waiter gently picked up the trap and carried it outside.

I talked with the resort's owner later that evening, an attorney from somewhere up north. He told me that the resort owned 17 acres of land on the opposite side of U.S. Route 1 from the resort, but because of the rats on that land they could not develop the property. The rat, a silver-haired rice rat, Species Profile for rice rat (Oryzomys palustris natator) was listed on the endangered species list and could not be displaced by development, and if they came into the restaurant, he and his staff were not allowed to exterminate them.

As far as I know that land is still undeveloped and the rats are indeed healthy.

Cheers,

Gary

[killarney_sailor]

The whale thing suggests that it is Bequia. The forms could be any one of bunch of former British colonies. I think they just took the old British forms from the 19th century and reprinted them with the new country name at the top. We entered the Bahamas through Mayaguana once (we were there about a week and no other boats appeared so it is pretty remote and quite neat) and they had a form that asked specifically how many crew had died from plague. I can't imagine how old the form must have been to have that specific question. It appeared they did not care too much about crew who had fallen overboard or died because the captain's punishments were too extreme - it was a tougher time back then I guess.

You never should laugh at an official's set of forms - they believe them to be of central importance to the continued existence of the universe. If you want to see the guy (or gal) smile, fill out all the spaces neatly in pen -it does not matter much what you put in the spaces since no one reads them - just that they are completed ... and neat.

[jackdale]

Gary

Alberta is rat free. We actually have a rat patrol that hunts down the invaders.

http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$departm.../all/agdex3441

[TQA]

It does indeed sound like Bequia but I can assure you that questions about rats, healthy or sickly, are no longer asked. I cleared in and out of there recently.

In fact St Vincent and the Grenadines is now firmly in the 21st century with online pre clearance through https://www.eseaclear.com/PAN/index.cfm.