The secret may be out on these tropical getaways, but rest assured—you’ll still feel like you’re on your own private island because…well, some are private islands.
The only criterion for our list of hidden getaways is blue-green water, deserted white-sand beaches and solitude. Bonus points if you can arrive by boat and avoid air travel.
Whether it’s an uninhabited island in The Bahamas or a quiet stretch of Caribbean beach, these hidden hideaways are sure to please.
Kamalame Cay Bahamas
Kamalame Cay is a small barrier island located in Andros. With spectacular views of the Atlantic and copious natural attractions, Kamalame Cay has the feel of your own private island.
Lie on the beach with a book or try flats fishing, but whatever you do—enjoy it.
Nickmamed ‘Land of Reefs’, Carriacou is located in the southeastern Caribbean Sea, northeast of Grenada. The island boasts some of the best snorkeling and diving spots in the region.
You’ll surely find quiet and solitude in one of more than 33 dive sites, but be sure to bring a buddy.
This private island in the Bahamas has only six (yes, six) villas along sugar sand shores. Each private villa comes with its own boat and lessons on how to operate it. Over uninhabited 50 acres provide ample opportunities to relax and unwind.
Staniel Cay is an easy boat ride away if you began to yearn for the company of others.
The islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines form one country that stretches along 40 miles of the eastern Caribbean in a northeast-southwest direction. The better known gem-like Grenadines include Bequia, Mustique, Canouan, Tobago Cays, Mayreau, and Union Islands. But there are many spits of sand and one-boat anchorages to drop the hook, feel the trade winds on your skin and ponder the meaning of civilization from the shady comfort of the cockpit.
We make much of the term “civilization”, as if it signals a respite from an otherwise inhospitable environment. The word means different things to different people. For some, it’s WiFi, lattes, rental cars, and restaurants. For me, it’s a capable boat, cool drinks, aquamarine waters, and friendly locals, which aptly describe this island country.
St. Vincent is a lush island and a convenient jumping-off point to the Grenadines when arriving from the north. (If chartering, it’s best to start in Grenada to the south where many charter companies are based.) There’s much to do ashore on the big island. Fort Charlotte overlooks Kingstown. Take a guided tour of the botanical gardens with exotic plants and the St. Vincent parrot whose blue, green and yellow plumage inspired the country’s flag. Guides for hire bring the garden to life with good humor and education so that even the flora-challenged enjoy the scenery.
A nice place to catch a mooring before departing for points south is near Young Island at the bottom of St. Vincent. A nearby rocky pinnacle is home to the ruins of Fort Duvernette. Climb the 255 steps to inspect the cannons and the views from the top before getting under way.
Adventure Jeep tours offer visitors the opportunity to explore Grenada’s natural beauty.
The Grenada Sailing Festival takes place every year on Grand Anse Beach. The friendly rivalry of this close-knit community is often expressed in Grenada through the creation of many local regattas and competitions to see which competitor has the fastest vessel. Photo: Joshua Yetman
Cannons watch over the walls of Fort Charlotte constructed in 1806, which has spectacular views overlooking Kingstown and is always worth a visit.
The carnival activities in Grenada begin in July, although they don’t pick up until the beginning of August with nightly calypso shows. A week before the Grenada Carnival begins, the carnival queen show takes place with a parade through St. George’s streets.
The Grenada Sailing Festival takes place every year on Grand Anse Beach. The friendly rivalry of this close-knit community is often expressed in Grenada through the creation of many local regattas and competitions to see which competitor has the fastest vessel. Photo: Joshua Yetman
C&N’s Port Louis Marina boasts the vibrant colors the islands are famous for. Photo: Camper & Nicholsons International
Few people do more than dip a toe in the water on Union Island. Swimming and surfing are banned on La Réunion in all but a few places because of a fear of shark attacks.
Snorkeling in Grenada is only one of the many activities to enjoy while out on the water.
C&N’s Port Louis Marina is also a popular charter destination. Photo: Steve Brett
The world’s first underwater sculpture gallery on Grenada attracts divers. Photo: Jason deCaires Taylor
An easy run south is beautiful Bequia (pronounced Bek-way), the largest and northernmost of the Grenadines. The friendly English-speaking population is very welcoming. Bequia’s Admiralty Bay provides lots of easy anchoring and moorings off the beach of Port Elizabeth. The islands’ “boat boy” culture involves men and women entrepreneurs who come out in their small boats to assist with hooking up to a mooring ball, deliver fresh baked goods, haul away trash, or deliver ice. Tip them well and they’ll take care of nearly anything you need.
Shopping in Port Elizabeth is colorful; bright T-shirts flap in the breeze outside vibrant gift shops. Street vendors offer everything from fruit and locally made jewelry to boating souvenirs carved from coconuts. Stroll down Belmont Walkway, a stone path along the bay lapped by the waves and lined with cafes and bars. It’s almost window-shopping for a place to relax; we like the Whaleboner Bar followed by Mac’s for pizza.
Mustique is a 10-mile jaunt southeast, a mostly private island with vacation homes for the rich and famous. You cannot anchor here and must take a $200 EC ($75 U.S.) mooring. A highlight is Basils’ Bar and a golf cart tour of the islands. The best time to visit is during the Mustique Blues Festival, usually held in January.
From Mustique, it’s 21 miles with a beam wind to Horsesho e Reef which surrounds the Tobago Cays. Postcard vistas of white sand beaches and swaying palm trees make up the mostly uninhabited cays where every angle presents a paradise of kaleidoscope colors. The four idyllic islands hide in protected waters. They were designated as a national marine park in 1998 so rangers ask for $10 EC (40 cents U.S.) per person per day, which is a fair price for guardianship of the area.
There are few distractions here and no nightlife other than the odd beach BBQ coordinated by the boat boys. The spectacular reef provides mostly protected water, and great snorkeling is near the roped-off sanctuary off Baradel Island; rays glide by and turtles feed on grass so close that you can hear them munching as they graze.
Parts of Pirates of the Caribbean were filmed in the Cays, so if you take your camera and troll the various beaches, you might find a few angles that look like Captain Jack Sparrow is about to swagger around the corner. Remote and pristine, the Cays are about bringing your swimsuit, a good book, cooler of beer, and forgetting the world for a while.
With good light and eyes focused on the crystalline water, it’s possible to thread the unmarked reefs and head out of the Cays’ southern entrance enroute to Union Island, a mere three miles away. Its highest peak, Mt. Parnassus, is nearly 900 feet so you can’t miss it. The main town of Clifton provides great provisioning with an open-air produce market and several grocery stores that sell gourmet coffee, chocolate and bread. A sundowner at Janti’s Happy Island in the harbor is mandatory and can only be reached via dinghy because it was built on the reef out of thousands of conch shells gathered by Janti himself. Clifton is on the windward side and if the weather is a bit sporty, it may be time to hide in Chatham Bay on the western end. This large bay with a long beach has multiple shack-style restaurants advertising lobster dinners.
When Columbus plied Caribbean waters, St. Vincent was known by its inhabitants as Hairoun, which means “home of the blessed”—it’s also a brand of a popular local beer. The region had a tumultuous history and was settled by various groups including the peaceful Arawak Indians, the not-so-peaceful Carib Indians and a mixed bag of Europeans who ping-ponged the region’s ownership back and forth for hundreds of years. Missionaries, wrecked slave ships and rumors of cannibalism made for colorful, if grim, beginnings. A succinct synopsis of the islands’ evolution is told and retold with imaginative flair by proud locals who tend to insert their own “historical facts”.
The postcard-perfect Grenadines differ from one another and you can experience a wide variety of terrain and culture in a compact area. It’s such a unique location that once is not enough when visiting these quintessentially Caribbean islands. I, for one, will be back soon, since civilization in the literal sense is overrated, but civilization redefined is sublime.
INSIDER TIP: Any time is a good time to visit the Windward Islands since temperatures hover around 80 degrees Fahrenheit and the trade winds blow a refreshing breeze year-round. Many cruisers slip down to Grenada just south of the Grenadines during hurricane season (June to November); some insurance companies consider it to be below the hurricane belt.
Outside of the Blue Lagoon at the southern tip of St. Vincent, there aren’t many marinas in the Grenadines. Mooring fields are plentiful with prices ranging $20-45 EC. The best selection of charter yachts, including power catamarans from The Moorings, is in Grenada. Sunsail, Moorings and Dream Yacht all have bases in St. George’s. Note: check-in and check-out is needed when cruising between the Grenadines and Grenada, which are separate countries.
Provisioning is good especially on Bequia and Union Islands. Local grocers can be a fun exploration of items like sugar apples, durian, callalou, wax apples, and soursop.
GRENADINES CRUISER RESOURCES:
MARINAS: Blue Lagoon Hotel & Marina
Ratho Mill
St. Vincent & the Grenadines
+1 (784) 458-4308
Port Louis Marina
St. Georges, Grenada
+1 (473) 435-7432
In 2009, Rebecca Rothney of Raleigh, North Carolina, came up with the idea of encouraging travellers to maximize airlines’ checked luggage allowance by taking much-needed supplies to the destinations they visit. Over the past six years, Pack for a Purpose participants to the Caribbean have supported educational, health and animal welfare projects. For example, sailors who took part in last fall’s Black Boaters Summit trip to Scrub Island Resort, Spa & Marina in the British Virgin Islands packed on board and delivered a variety of school supplies for the children at the territory’s Autism Center. Each charitable project on the Pack for a Purpose website comes with a specific list of desired items. Beneficiaries are located on 14 islands from Jamaica and the Dominican Republic south to Grenada and Curacao. “The wonderful ability that yachtsmen have that people flying do not is the ability to take as much as they can carry. Just maximizing the supplies they choose to take is a wonderful way of saying thank you to the inhabitants on the islands that they visit,” says Rothney. packforapurpose.org
Dark View Falls on St. Vincent offer a great gateway to the Grenedines. PHOTO: St. Vincent and The Grenadines Tourism Authority.
The waters surrounding St. Vincent are a pearl of a cruising destination. First, this Windward Island south of St. Lucia and to the east of Barbados is home to Wallilabou Bay. The big draw here is seeing some of the set remnants used by Disney when filming Pirates of the Caribbean. There are moorings at this quiet anchorage, a local seafood restaurant on shore, and the nearby Wallilabou Heritage Park is a great place to swim in a waterfall. Second, the southern part of St. Vincent is the great gateway to the Grenadines, an idyllic 37-mile stepping stone of islands to the south, which includes charming Bequia, well-heeled Mustique and the marine reserve at the Tobago Cays. A recently completed refurbishment makes the Blue Lagoon Hotel & Marina, located in the safe haven of Cannash Bay on St. Vincent’s southern tip and 11 nautical miles from Wallilabou Bay, is a perfect place to start a charter. The now bright-decor rooms earned the hotel a number one rating for accommodations on St. Vincent on a popular travel website. The hotel complex offers a restaurant and bar, café, beach bar, grocery store, chandlery, boutique, fitness center, swimming pool, dive and watersports facility, car rental, concierge services, and a Horizon Yacht Charters base. The full-service marina, the only one of its kind on St. Vincent, offers in-slip water and electric, free Wi-Fi, sail loft, laundry facilities and a fuel dock. Plans are underway to expand the marina up to 200 berths. Blue Lagoon is an official port of entry to St. Vincent as is Wallilabou Bay.
By Carol Bareuther, Southern Boating Magazine July, 2015
Grenada is nicknamed “The Spice Isle” for its production of nutmeg—it’s the second largest growing and exporting nation in the world behind Indonesia. Few realize, however, that this southern Caribbean island is also a chocolate lover’s paradise. The best way to sample this fact is at the Grenada Chocolate Festival, set for May 8 to 17 and held out of the True Blue Bay Resort & Marina. “Grenada is one of the very few countries in the world that produces a high quality, organic and sustainable cocoa, and a very special and delicious Bean to Bar Chocolate,” explains organizer, Magdalena Fielden, whose husband Russ worked in the charter yacht industry until buying the resort in 1998. “The creation of the Grenada Chocolate Fest has been inspired by the vision of Mott Green, the late founder of the Grenada Chocolate Company, who wanted to develop a sustainable chocolate industry that would inspire different sectors of the community to be creative and take advantage of the very valuable cocoa that the island produces.” Chocolate parties, health benefit workshops, hands-on culinary sessions, factory visits, farmer for a day outing, a beachside chocolate fest, chocolate tasting yacht charter, and sunset bonfire with culinary competition are all part of the fun. New this year, Diamond Chocolate factory will participate and offer visitors a chance to design their own chocolate bar. “Visitors can choose from among the events which, of course, will feature a lot of chocolate and cocoa tasting!” chocolate. truebluebay.com
Barbados May Regatta
Teams anticipate this year’s Barbados May Regatta. Photo: Peter Marshall.
The Virgin Islands, St. Maarten and Antigua are the three big island destinations for yacht racing in the Caribbean. Yet this month marks a great chance to get off the beaten track and sail or spectate on Barbados. Formerly British-owned, the island is located east of St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines and will host the Barbados Sailing Association’s Barbados May Regatta from May 21 to 24. The action takes place in Carlisle Bay just off the capital city of Bridgetown, and the festivities will be held at the beautiful 90-year-old Barbados Yacht Club. Multiple classes are held including some multihulls added for variety and a fleet of one-design J/24s. More than 30 yachts from Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, Grenada, St. Lucia, Martinique, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines attend making this Barbados’ premier regatta of the year. The race committee plans varied, challenging courses tailored to suit each class, which means great racing for all. “The Club has excellent facilities for sailors with no great distance required to travel after a day of racing,” says organizer Penny McIntyre. “There is a fantastic camaraderie among the sailors and lively after-race parties, barbeques, DJ’s, happy hours and a coconut vendor. If you have not sipped a Mount Gay and coconut water, you best come join!” The regatta is sponsored by Mount Gay, providers of the signature red hats, and Banks Breweries. barbadosyachtclub.com.
