The very best of the Caribbean
We made our way slowly up the beautiful west coast of Grenada from the boatyard in the south, stopping for a night over an underwater sculpture garden, and then a quiet little harbor on the north coast after that. With high winds in our faces the next day and rain on the horizon we opted against crossing to Carriacou and instead retraced our steps back down the west coast a little ways and spent the night in one of the little deserted inlet we’d passed the day before.
Our first stop in Carriacou was the bay where we checked into Grenada last spring. We’d had a beast of a time anchoring on that stop, and remembered it as being crowded, and having poor holding and filthy water. This time we found the exact anchoring spot on our charts from last spring, and dropped and hooked the first time. Check out was easy, and a good dinner and even better rum punches in a little beach shack near immigration went a long way toward redeeming the area in our minds.
From there we moved to Sandy Island – an appropriately (if unoriginally) named island off the southwest coast. Carriacou is the largest of the Grenadian dependency islands (the southern Grenadines are dependencies of Grenada, the northern Grenadines of Saint Vincent) and since Beryl tore through two years ago it’s struggled to reestablish its tourism base. We’d never known it though, given the swarms of day boats and tourists crawling all over the little spit of sand, and the cruising sailboats jockeying for the next available mooring ball. We got lucky and snagged one very close to the beach and had an easy swim into the fringing reef. We spent a couple nights there, enjoying the security of the mooring ball in the relentless wind, the gorgeous sunsets, and the snorkeling around the island. We even had a moment midday the second day while we were walking along the beach in the dazzling sun and realized we were entirely alone on this quintessential little Caribbean island – and reveled in it as another day boat buzzed toward us.
Union Island was next, though instead of going up the east side as we’d done in the spring we went around the west side to Chatham Bay and a beautiful, long stretch of beach with one small resort and no other boats. We were able to check into Saint Vincent through the resort, which gave us time to walk the length of the beach and chat with the local resort workers. It’s definitely not high season – windy and rainy too – and so people seem to have a little more flexibility to engage. We stargazed on the trampoline that night, and Peter saw two spectacular shooting stars as I snoozed on his chest.
We motored to Saline Bay on Mayreux Island the next morning in torrential rains and steady 22-25 kt winds – it hadn’t looked menacing when we left – and found another beautiful little bay edged in white sands and a reef for snorkeling right next to us in the anchorage. A huge variety of fish and the highest density of fish we’ve seen to date (it even edged out Anse a Dos in Guadeloupe!). My biggest squee moment was the next morning when I saw a baby black dotted trunkfish – I actually shrieked into my snorkel – and were charmed by the waves of tangs and little damselfish too. We ended up on the soft sand of that gorgeous beach and again marveled at being the only visitors in sight.
In the meantime, our fridge died.
Peter contacted every marine supply store in the very wide area, and no one could help. We were looking at having to go back to Grenada – Grenada Marine even, who were the last to work on it (lot of good that did). Island Water Works there had a compressor that would fit our unit. There was also a chandlery in Bequia, our next stop, but we hadn’t heard anything from them yet. In the end, Peter had a bad filling that needed attention and found a dentist on Bequia too. Off we went.
The chandler there was closed for the season, and the dentist did such a bad job on the filling he had to go back a few days later to have her redo it. But Bequia was charming with a busy harbor, plenty of good restaurants, and very pretty waterfront. Our fridge was still only barely limping along, but the meats I’d frozen at our Vrbo in Grenada were still rock hard in the back corner and doing a decent job of working with the half-assed compressor at keeping the rest of it below 50 degrees. Nothing else was freezing, but at least the milk wasn’t going off immediately.
We arrived in Mustique about 11 in the morning. We’d almost decided to give it a miss, but chatted with Sailing Fair Isle’s Steve and Judy, who talked us into spending a few days there. It was the highlight of our tour of the Caribbean. We caught a mooring ball a little ways off the railings of one of the few restaurants on the island, Basil’s (the others are mostly hideously expensive and exclusive. Def not our jam) and settled in for the minimum 3 nights our $250 payment to the harbormaster got us. Everything in Mustique is expensive – it’s a private island after all – but everything is also very, very beautiful.
We took our bikes in the next morning and were on Lagoon Beach by 9:30 – and there wasn’t another soul in sight. A gorgeous beach with a few palapas scattered along, and not a single other person. We settled in at one of the palapas, swam, walked the beach, and eventually found a couple of men setting up luncheon for four guests who were to arrive in a couple of hours. Tablecloths, even! After a nice chat with them we returned to our empty end of the beach to veg for another while. More swimming. A little reading. It was paradise. We went back in for a late lunch at Basil’s and returned for a sundowner later in the afternoon.
That was all on repeat for the following couple of days, and we added in riding all over the island, snorkeling at the hurricane-destroyed reef off Lagoon Beach, and shopping at the little, but fancy grocery store just up from the pier. Basil’s was on repeat too – the food was so good, and the service so fine – and we loved the open-air setting. There were only a couple of other boats in the harbor and very few guests staying on the island (at least few who left their estates), so it was easy to get in. We were so, so glad we didn’t pass Mustique by.
But we weren’t going to cough up another $250 for three more days, even if it was paradise. We turned the boat south for the Tobago Cays. In the spring I’d missed out on the best of the Cays because I’d torn my leg open on a piece of rebar and couldn’t get into the water. I’d been looking forward to our return ever since.
Up Next: Leaving the Grenadines behind