Before we feed our baby boiled fish heads...

The pinnacle of western baby food technology 'Similac Advance' can not be purchased on Bequia. According to Jo our housekeeper we should not waste our money with it anyway and rather feed Connor boiled fish head stew as they do here.

Not sure if Connor would agree so I took the 930 am ferry today for a shopping trip to Kingstown in St Vincent. 

On the way I dropped off Ivy at preschool in Port Elizabeth. Which involves walking up the steepest hill from our beach and then taking the dollar bus to town. The dollar bus is called so because it costs one Eastern Caribbean Dollar - Ivy, stroller, loud soca music and crazy driving included. Ivy likes it, I am not so sure.

The ferry has been built in Tromsø Norway, north of the arctic circle and it has probably shipped for decades Norwegians up and down the cold fjords. Now with the heating removed it is retiring in the warm waters of the Caribbean, shipping goods, people, cars and trucks between Bequia and Kingstown four times a day. Most signs on board are still in English and Norwegian so Scandinavian tourists will feel right at home. 

The same is true for the ride today, it could surely compare to a rough Tromsø fjord crossing in a autumn storm with half of the passengers being seasick and all trucks and cars tied down with chains so they don't topple over. I was glad for the Norwegian craftsmanship in ship building when we finally arrived in Kingstown after a long hour. 

Kingstown is crazy. It takes about an hour or longer to get used to the frenzy of street vendors, mini buses, rum shops, exotic fruits and blaring reggae music. More than other Caribbean capitals one feels that time has stood still since the time of pirates, banana boats and colonial powers.

But not for the dollar buses, they seem to have larger and louder stereo system and 25 passengers on top of each other is about the time when they will leave for their destination.

I went to the Kingstown botanical garden and got a great tour by a very friendly local guide. We sniffed, tasted, picked, chewed all sorts of exotic, plants, trees and fruits. 

He had great stories about everything and gave me a sour tasting fruit to eat with the words 'This will clean out our insides'.

It did rather violently later and when I arrived at lunch at the Cobblestone Inn I was very happy for a clean washroom.

In the end Similac Advance and other items were purchased and the boat from Tromsø took me on a relaxing ride back to our little island just before sunset.