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St Vincent and the Grenadines map
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| Deana Bellamy, James Henderson and Will Orr |
| Key Features
St Vincent and the Grenadines are a string of stunning cays and a larger rainforested island set in the south-eastern Caribbean. Access is not that easy (mainly via Barbados or other Windward Islands), but once you arrive there is excellent sailing and the inter-island travel, mainly by ferry, is easy and fun. Lively islanders, English-speaking, with a delightful, slow, easy island life. Classic Caribbean beaches, some isolated coves of white sand and tiny sandy cays, in the Grenadines - St Vincent itself has mainly dark volcanic sand, with some very attractive jungly coves. Much of the tourism is geared to sailing, but land accommodation ranges from private island resorts and the most luxurious villas in the region to small inns and guest houses (there is very little mid-range package tourism). Some cruise tourism with good day trips, also good scuba, pretty stone buildings in Kingstown the capital, gardens, nature and hiking on St Vincent. | | |
St Vincent and the Grenadines lie like precious stones sprinkled on a baize of ocean blue. In the north, St Vincent, massive and mantled with rainforest, rises like a cut emerald. Scattered to its south are the green and mid-brown gems of the Grenadines, tear-drops of topaz and tiger’s eyes sparkling in the sun. They are some of the most attractive islands in the whole region.
And they are precious beyond their physical beauty too. While so many islands nearby have been developing madly over the past few decades, St Vincent and the Grenadines remain relatively undeveloped. They have a feeling of natural Caribbean life that is often lost elsewhere – unsophisticated, small island charm.
The invasion of large hotels, and the overlay of concrete that comes with it, has not really taken hold here. For all the plans, and there have been a few, there is still only one hotel of any size in St Vincent and the Grenadines. Pockets of sophistication do exist – after all, Mustique, world famous as the retreat of the super-rich, is one of the Grenadines – but they tend to be thoroughly low key in the best old Caribbean tradition.
So it is the natural, small island charm of the islands that make St Vincent and particularly the Grenadines so special. And the way to get the best of them is through island-hopping, by ferry or by yacht.
St Vincent
St Vincent is unlike its companions the Grenadines. It is one of the vast volcanic Windward Islands that stand in a north-south line, barring the water-laden Atlantic winds which release their moisture as rain. As a result the island is immensely fertile, so lush that you could almost expect a pencil to take root.
As far as the visitor is concerned, the island is less developed than most in the area for tourism, which you will only really see in the south of the island, between the capital Kingstown and the Blue Lagoon in the south-eastern corner. Beyond this area, the islanders live a fairly simple existence, mainly involved in agriculture. In the inland valleys the locals grow ground provisions and fruits that are exported to Grenadines and Barbados and even as far afield as the Virgin Islands.
St Vincent is hardly a typical Caribbean tourist destination. It has few classic palm-backed, white sand beaches and just a few hotels. But it is immensely beautiful and it has a charming life which is good to witness, particularly as a foil to a trip through the smaller, gentler Grenadines, for which it is an excellent starting point.
Bequia
Bequia is a very special island. It may be just five miles by two in size (actually the largest of the Grenadines), but it has exceptional charm and an unexpected amount to offer. Its diminutive town, Port Elizabeth, has one of the prettiest and most atmospheric waterfronts in the whole Caribbean – there is a small, active centre where the ferries put in and a line of bars and restaurants that stretch along a shoreside walkway under palms. In season the bars can be lively, with sailors from the yachts at anchor in the bay, but there is an almost supernatural charm about the place, which makes it lovely to visit at any time of the year. Elsewhere the island has plenty to recommend it too. There are a handful of good restaurants in excellent settings, some lovely remote beaches and beach bars and a strong local life too. It is only now beginning to see development, primarily in villas, but with some hotels too.
Mustique
Famous as the bolthole of celebrities and the super-rich, who build their villas here, Mustique is an enclave of around 130 private villas (some 70 of which are for rent) with one hotel, a guest house (stylish and very expensive nonetheless), a bar and a few shops.
Canouan
A relatively large island, half of which was completely undeveloped until recently, Canouan divides neatly into two areas, with a local community in the south and the Raffles Resort and villas in the north. Read our Review of Raffles. Now beginning to be upbeat.
Mayreau
The doziest of them all, just a few square miles of scrub and a tiny local community of 300. Lovely beaches, one secluded hotel and a guest house.
Union Island
Union Island is the launch point for the southern Grenadines, including the Tobago Cays, because of its airstrip and because it is the terminus of the inter-island ferry. Clifton has shops and bars, but beyond here the island has a strong local character. There is a handful of places to stay.
The Tobago Cays
A gathering of five tiny, heart-breakingly pretty spits of land, surrounded by reefs. Very popular with yachtsmen and with day-sailors, who come on excursions from as far afield as Barbados. Includes Petit Tabac, on which Johnny Depp was marooned as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Palm Island
A 135 acre outcrop just a short ride east across the shallow sea from Union Island. Utter seclusion on a private island. A hotel and a handful of villas and some pretty beaches are all that there is.
Petit St Vincent
Petit St Vincent is the most southerly of St Vincent’s Grenadines and it lies so close to Petite Martinique (attached to Grenada) that you can see the people walking around. Petit St Vincent is just 113 acres in size and is set in shallow sea so it is rimmed with pretty white-sand beaches. The island is devoted to a single hotel, PSV as it is known to cognoscenti, which specialises in offering an extremely well heeled clientele extreme privacy. If you put up the red flag outside your cottage, you simply will not be disturbed (well, the manager admitted to breaking the rule on one occasion, for a general on the outbreak of the Gulf War). See our review of Petit St Vincent Resort.
Below is an article about the Grenadines which was first published in the Financial Times.
St Vincent and the Grenadines
by James Henderson
Arriving after dark increases the pleasure of arriving at many Caribbean hotels. Night comes early in the tropics, and as you walk through the garden a profusion of unfamiliar bushes and trees (their trunks sometimes painted white to eight feet) stand etched black in silhouette. In the warm breeze crickets make their scratchy ring and the tree frogs peep shrill and rhythmically.
Young Island, off the south coast of St Vincent, is a particularly spectacular place to arrive at night. As you putter across the two hundred yard channel in the old diesel ferry, the lines of pinpoint lights become knee-high lamps lining the stone pathways. Hidden among the explosive greenery are waterfront and hillside cottages, and palm-thatch gazebos where guests are taking dinner. They are all connected by a network of meandering paths that are throttled by plants.
Lit from beneath, the plants give only a hint of their daytime colour and variety, but next morning you see they are heliconia and banana, fountains of golden palm and ferns, interlaced with flashes of tropical colour--bougainvillea, hibiscus and ginger lily. Palm trunks soar from among them, exploding above in an airburst of fronds.
Young Island captures the feel of an older, more elegant Caribbean; the bright and breezy rooms have no need of air-conditioning; wooden louvres channel the sea-breeze, which is then whipped up by ceiling fans. It is an ideal place to relax, as the Caribbean begins to work on you and to wind you down. Activity is to wade out to the offshore bar or to retire to the two person hammocks. And in the way of the Caribbean, you can be as private as you like, or you can fall in with the other guests, sharing dinner or a yachting trip with easy informality.
St Vincent, a vast volcanic lump mantled with rainforest, where rivers tumble and crash, and the Grenadines, a scattering of smaller, drier islands that stretch south over sixty miles, lie in the southeastern Caribbean. They are that bit more remote, an extra flight, and sometimes a boat trip, beyond the main Caribbean gateways. Perhaps as a consequence they attract a slightly different style of visitor. The Grenadines specialise in that brand of peace that so many Caribbean islands claim to offer: as the flip Caribbean call goes, they are a great place for doing very little. They are easy-going and undeveloped for the Caribbean (though there are some good hotels) and most have a more natural West Indian air (less of the champagne playground of elsewhere). And all this in the strikingly beautiful setting of a gloriously blue Caribbean Sea.
I find myself recommending the Grenadines to people quite often. They stand within sight of one another, but they are surprisingly different and this makes them ideal for island-hopping. They include island resorts with just a few cottages scattered around carefully tended gardens; dozy, barely populated outcrops which have just received electricty; busy islands with picture-postcard prettiness, and in the middle of them the wordly sophistication of Mustique.
You can explore in five-star style, chartering little planes between the luxurious hotels, or you can travel on the MV Snapper, the mail boat, which serves the islands with provisions, and soft drinks, corrugated roofing tin, breeze blocks, and goats, and the mail of course, a couple of times a week. The Snapper is noisy and lively; a good part of island life.
My first port of call was Bequia, an hour's sail from the St Vincent mainland. From the moment you enter Admiralty Bay you can feel the charmed air of Bequia. Its pretty wooden waterfront buildings, just visible in a screen of palm trees, almost nestle. Life proceeds at a dozy Caribbean pace: an occasonal dog, dozing, will cock an eyebrow as you go by, then let out a long breath and doze off again. In fact, there are 5000 islanders, somewhere.
I stayed at the Plantation House, where as the name suggests, the rooms hark back to another age: gingerbread cottages with cane furniture and hanging mosquito nets and a large wooden veranda from which you can contemplate life. It is easy to settle in on Bequia, to feel the intimacy of the small island. The islanders come out at night and mix with the visitors and sailors in the many bars along the shoreline. Part of the fun is to wander along the stone walkway on the waterfront and choose one to stop in.
The Bequian fishermen spend about two weeks in the month over on the island of Mustique, another hour's sail, or more likely ten minutes' flying time, further south. Mustique is of course notorious (a champagne playground, certainly), though recently it seems to have become a little less frivolous and more businesslike. Strangely for an island that seems to owe so little to the West Indies, the island fits into a long-established Caribbean tradition of West Indian charters. Developers have taken leases on the Grenadines for centuries; it is just that they planted Mustique with luxurious villas rather than with the cotton or sugar of times past. The island is run as a company, into which investors buy by purchasing a plot of land (the going rate is around a million dollars), and then building their dream home. Not surprisingly, most of the villas are magnificent. They use West Indian climate to its best advantage; they are light, open to the breeze and they have superb views. About forty-five of them are for hire.
The island is neat and well tended by a posse of gardeners--where Young Island is so profuse, Mustique is sparser and drier. The guests zip around in Jeeps and 'mules' (Japanese farm vehicles). There is plenty of 'space' in Mustique, both geographically and for those who wish to be alone, but for all its exclusiveness, Mustique is also thoroughly West Indian and so it is easy-going and by no means snobbish. People mix with customary Caribbean ease, whether at the weekly cocktail party for house-owners and guests or at Basil's, the only bar on the island, which holds a 'jump-up' (often riotous) each Wednesday.
Mustique has just one hotel, the Cotton House, which is set around an old cotton warehouse. This too has been restored to capture the elegance of the plantation age, with a huge veranda where you can while away dinner for hours. The rooms have been enlarged to accord with nineties demands, but they have retained the inspiration of Oliver Messel, who designed so many of the early villas in Mustique and Barbados.
From an island that is renowned, to an island unknown. Canouan, about twelve miles further south, has just recieved electricity. Here, the arrival of the Snapper is one of the day's major events. There is twenty minutes of commotion and shouting as everyone turns out to get their parcels, greet travellers or just to watch. Ten minutes later the jetty is deserted and the island comatose again.
A short walk down the beach from the mailboat dock, or a simple stroll up a jetty if you arrive by yacht, is the Tamarind Beach Hotel and Yacht Club, a new hotel which stands ranged around a pointed, palm-thatch palapa right on the fantastic, shallow-shelving sand. The Tamarind Beach is untypical for the Grenadines in that the rooms are in blocks, but they are very comfortable, with dark stained wood and a balcony overlooking the sand. It is surprising how loud waves can be, but then equally surprising how the rhythm of the sea becomes soporific and soothing.
Heading south from Canouan you pass Mayreau (population 180, still no mains power) and the uninhabited Tobago Cays, where the yacht masts stand thick in winter. The most southerly of the St Vincent Grenadines is the island-resort of Petit St Vincent, an outcrop which is measured in acres per cottage, and where life is so lazy and luxurious that you communicate by flag and room-service comes to your beach hammock. If the Caribbean promises the finest settings for studied inactivity, the Grenadines are hard to top. You can always watch the plants grow. |
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