One of the main sailing attractions of the southern Caribbean are the Grenadines. A small stretch of islands between Grenada and St. Vincent, which fulfil every Caribbean island stereotype you can imagine. We knew that we wanted to explore them and invited our crew to stay with us for two more weeks, so they could enjoy some of the islands too after crossing the Atlantic with us.
We set off from mainland Grenada in the south, stopping for one night on Ronde Island in a quiet bay which was spectacular. The island is uninhabited and covered in rainforest, but it had a beautiful white beach which we swam to. This was a beach as close to paradise as we could imagine (and it got much better later on).
The next day we continued to Petit Martinique. After all these stressful and long ocean passages it felt very strange only doing around 10 nm a day, a little like cheating. But we were thoroughly enjoying the more relaxed sailing days. Petite Martinique is a small island right next to Petit St. Vincent, the latter is a private island with a stunning resort on it. We dropped our anchor right in between the two islands in perfectly sheltered shallow water. We went ashore on Petit Martinique for dinner but found it difficult to find a restaurant. It was such a small island with so few inhabitants that I was at times puzzled about how people actually lived there. Sadly, the owner of the restaurant we wanted to go to was in London (which we were told by the locals), so it was closed. We found a small shack on the beach which was able to accommodate us.
The real highlight of our stay there was probably Mopion Island, which is so tiny it can hardly be called an island. A circle of sand about 10 m wide with an umbrella in the middle. It was surrounded by a big coral reef where we went snorkelling. Sadly, most of the corals were already dead or in the process of dying but there were still plenty of beautiful small fish of all colours.
We continued the next day to Sandy Island, right next to the “larger” island of Carriacou. This island was very beautiful, just a small strip of sand with lots of palm trees. Again surrounded by coral reefs with even better snorkelling (some corals were still alive), some bigger fish and our first turtles and stingrays!
The next day we went to Carriacou by dinghy to clear out of the country. Jenny, Flurina and I went to shore and found the customs and immigration office with a sign on it, saying that they were out for lunch and would be back in an hour. When you arrive and see such a sign you don’t know of course if they just left and you have to wait for an hour or if they will arrive any minute now. Anyway, one and a half hours later they arrived and I was ready to get my clearance. I had all the boat papers ready at hand and the customs officer quite unfriendly (as usual in the Caribbean) printed out the necessary documents and sent me to the immigration officer, so far so good. However, the immigration officer wanted me to sign these documents, but I had made a capital mistake and didn’t bring a pen. When I asked him if I could borrow one of his (he had about 5 lying around his side of the desk), he replied to me: “A captain needs to have his own pen”. I told him I would have to go back to the boat, but he just ignored me and let me wait for around 5 minutes, quietly typing something on his computer. Finally, he overcame his pride and reluctantly gave me one of his pens. Since then I always bring my own pen (although they always offer me a pen now and I’ve never needed mine again).
We spent the evening still on the island and went to a nice restaurant called Paradise Beach.
The next day we moved over to Union Island, where we got approached by a so-called boat boy as we were still out on the water, who wanted to bring us to his mooring buoy. Asking if we weren‘t allowed to anchor, he told us the anchorage was closed, which we found out later was obviously a lie. Anyway, he brought us to his buoy and even convinced us to pay 30 Caribbean dollars for a homemade banana bread he would bring in the morning.
We later went to Happy Island, which is a bit of an absurd island as it is man-made and has just one big bar/restaurant. But we had some nice drinks and a nice view of the sunset. We had dinner in one of the restaurants in Clifton, which had a huge lobster tank full of massive lobsters. The small town of Clifton on Union Island was one of the most charming places in the Grenadines. It had a lovely dinghy dock where you had to pass under a tiny bridge. The place also had many nice restaurants and even a cafe where we enjoyed breakfast the next day.
We sailed to the Tobago Cays, which is probably one of the most iconic spots in the Caribbean. It consists of many small islands surrounded by a long reef. We saw loads of stingrays and went swimming with turtles. The small islands were also quite nice to visit either by swimming to them or going with the dinghy. Stunning white beaches surrounded by palm trees, what more could you want. We also did a small dinghy trip to the island Petit Tabac, this was a bit further north and we had to get out of the protection of the reef to reach it. This island is most famous for the Pirates of the Caribbean movie, where Captain Jack Sparrow was exiled together with Elizabeth Swan. As the island is quite small we were able to walk along its whole length and recognise the spots from the movie.
After two nights in the Tobago Cays, we continued to Mustique. Mustique is a private island where the rich and famous built their mansions. We still went to the island because we decided to spend Christmas eve at the famous Basil‘s Bar, which is not only open to the island guests but also to the few sailors who come by. We had a nice dinner at the restaurant and even went back the next night.
We knew that it was not allowed to freely travel around the island but we still thought we would give it a try because we found a map with loads of nice walks. But not shortly after leaving the main „town“ Lovell, we were caught by security who regularly patrol the island and they told us to go back. The only thing we were allowed to do was take a taxi ride around the island. The idea behind this is, that this island is somewhat of an escape for the rich and famous, and understandably they don‘t want to be bothered by fans or the media on the island. Because of these rules, the whole island also had a very different feel to it, we were asked to not lock our dinghy and nobody locked their cars (mostly golf caddies), and all the big mansions were not surrounded by large fences and gates, but you could just walk up to it.
We decided we would take this cab tour and our driver showed us the island. He brought us from mansion to mansion and told us to whom it belonged. People like Mick Jagger and Tommy Hilfiger have big homes there and we drove by a villa where Justin Bieber was staying at the moment. We actually only wanted to see the trails and the nature of the island, but the taxi tour was mainly focused on showing us the celebrity homes, which we found a bit strange as we were not really interested in that. But in the end, he brought us to the southern end of the island where we were able to do an amazing, small walk up onto a hill overlooking all the Grenadines.
On the 26th we went to the main island St. Vincent, where we heard a lot of bad things about as there aren’t any good anchorages and a lot of petty crime. Since it had an airport and we wanted to drop off our crew we still decided to go there and went to the blue lagoon (which sounds a lot nicer than it is as it doesn’t have blue water). We got caught by a boat boy again who brought us to his buoy. He didn’t want to get paid right away and told us he would come by the next morning (which he didn’t). We then managed to pay the wrong people for the buoy which made our guy quite angry when he found out. But luckily they made a deal amongst themselves and we could leave. After all of our crew left, Jenny and I decided to go visit the capital Kingstown. All of the tourist guides highly appraised the beautiful historic city calling it the city of arches with cathedrals and several botanical gardens, so we thought we would give it a try. The main street was in our opinion absolutely terrible, very dirty and run down, with no shops or cafes or bars or restaurants that seemed even slightly inviting. But it is a very poor country so it‘s a bit harsh to judge, but I still advise anybody to make a big detour around all the Caribbean cities as we were disappointed every time.
We still had a good time in the botanical garden though. The garden itself was not worth a visit as it was mostly a large patch of grass with lots of white beer tents scattered around with no obvious purpose surrounded by a hedge with a couple of plants that were not labelled. However, they had an aviary on the grounds where they have a breeding and conservation program for the endemic St. Vincent parrot as they are an endangered species. The guy who was working there was really kind and showed us the parrots up close, they even jumped onto our head. After that, we went back to the boat looking forward to departing again the next day.
Since we were on a tight schedule with our crew we had to skip the island of Bequia, so we went back there now. This was one of the first „Cruisers Paradise“ places, where hundreds of fellow cruisers would spend their time, a lot of them staying weeks or even months here without moving. And after our quite stressful time rushing down from England and over the pond, we could understand that and spent a couple of days there too. Port Elizabeth was a small town that was quite nice and where you could spend some time. It had a long boardwalk at the waterfront with lots of shops (where we could buy fresh fruit and vegetables for the first time since we were in the Caribbean) and some nice restaurants. We went to Jack‘s Bar one night for dinner and our expectations were surpassed.
We walked up Mount Peggy Peak, which was quite the adventure as we missed the path at first and had to fight our way through the bushes. But it ended with a spectacular view over Bequia and the other islands of the Grenadines.
We spent New Year’s Eve on the boat as all restaurants had fixed menus and buffets which we didn’t really fancy. At midnight we sat on our roof and enjoyed all the beautiful fireworks across the whole bay. That was very unexpected and all the more spectacular.
Early the next morning on the first of January we pulled up our anchor, left St. Vincent and the Grenadines and sailed to St. Lucia.
