The Eastern Caribbean - sometimes referred to as the Lesser Antilles or Windward Islands - is a chain of islands running north to south at the eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea. It is comprised of seven independent nations, including Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. In May we ventured to the island of St. Vincent with four friends to embark on a 10-day sailing trip from Kingstown to St. George's, Grenada. The Eastern Caribbean is apparently not a hot destination for people in the western U.S. based on flight routes and connecting schedules. We arrived only a little worse for wear after our 18 hour journey.
We gave ourselves a free day in Kingstown to explore the city before picking up the boat and sailing away. Our ride from the airport into town was a great introduction to traffic rules (or lack thereof), narrow island roads, and island scenery. We arrived in the late afternoon just as schools were getting out so there was no shortage of vehicle, person, and animal dodging to get into town. We stayed at the Grenadine House, originally built in 1763 to house the British officials serving the Crown. The building has had many lives since then, including as the hub for the Pirate's of the Caribbean cast. The property is nestled amongst the surrounding vegetation, overlooking the city and the harbor. It was a lovely setting with amazing staff that took care of us and gave us lots of local insights on culture and everyday life.
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| Original stone wall from 1763 |
The big attraction (for me) in Kingstown was the botanic garden. It was established in 1765, making it the oldest botanic garden in the western hemisphere. The garden was initially established to grow native plants used by locals for medicinal purposes to support the British military and improve the economy of the colony. At the far end of the garden, there is a breadfruit tree grown from one of the original saplings brought to the Caribbean from Tahiti by Captain William Bligh (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame). The garden is also home to a captive breeding program for the Saint Vincent amazon, an endemic parrot that is listed as a vulnerable species by the IUCN. The garden included a wide range of local and exotic species from around the world. Pete's favorite find was a bin full of chunks of wood that had been trimmed from various trees. My favorite was the cannonball tree, a stately tree covered in ornate flowers. It was also a lively home for multiple species of lizards. We were adjusting to the very hot and humid conditions, so the botanic garden was a perfect outing that was cooler than the surrounding streets and provided shade when we needed a break.
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| breadfruit tree |
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| cannonball tree flower |
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| green bin explorations |
We walked down into the heart of the city, navigating the narrow roads that provide the stage for Vincy Van Culture. The minibuses are a main stay for local transport around the island. They stand apart from the other transport vans with their colorful designs, and are hard to miss as they careen down streets, honking and music blaring, and often one or two people hanging out of various windows to make space for more. Sidewalks were few and far between and were more often flanked by one to two foot deep stormwater gutters. St. Mary's Cathedral sits at the edge of the town center on a busy corner, but is quiet as soon as your pass through the gate. For a cathedral, it is a small structure that manages to pack a punch with a mix of architectural styles that feel ad hoc, at best. The courtyards outside the church were beautiful and a green sanctuary for residents, students, and parishioners. From the church, we strolled through open air markets, around the port, and eventually back up through the steep streets to our neighborhood on a hill.
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| narrow streets with deep gutters |
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| food garden nestled amongst the colorful houses |
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| colonial architecture in Kingstown |
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| St. Mary's Cathedral |
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| cathedral courtyard |
Rested and ready for the next part of our adventure, we met up with our friends for all things sailing. After we dropped our gear at the boat charter office, we divided the team into the provisioning crew and the orientation crew for expediency. Kingstown was likely to have the supermarkets with the widest selection of goods for the entire trip, so we aimed to get as many of our supplies as possible. We would likely be able to find small markets with fresh produce along the way to restock, but specialty items - like gluten free foods for me - were not going to be common elsewhere. After three supermarket and two produce market stops, we had crossed nearly everything off our list. The orientation crew was still deep into their briefing when we returned and would be for nearly three hours total. The charter company owner was a font of knowledge about routes, anchorages, weather constraints, and sights not to miss.
Hoping for a midday departure so we could do a few hours of sailing, we enthusiastically carried all our gear down to the dock. And then waited. And waited. And waited some more. There was another boat leaving that day, but it was having loads of mechanical issues. Unfortunately, that meant they could not bring our boat to the dock to load. Eventually, they ended up ferrying us and our gear to the boat while it was on the mooring so we could get on our way. Just before 3 pm, we were off on our adventure on our 42 foot lagoon catamaran, Ulysses. We did a short sail to the next island, Bequia, with our remaining daylight. We quickly settled into a rhythm and our days took on a similar pattern: slowish mornings, sailing to our next destination, snorkeling and/or a walk where possible, beverages on the beach, and delicious dinners on the boat.
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| catching our dinner |
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| fixing broken stuff |
As we sailed south, the effects of the July 2024 Hurricane Beryl - the largest hurricane to directly hit the islands in over 100 years - became much more visible, both on land and underwater. Union Island was the most heavily impacted island. From a distance, the island stuck out because it looked brown from afar compared to all the other lush green islands. As we got closer, the island was brown because nearly all the leaves had been stripped from the trees, leaving a skeleton forest behind. Underwater, the reef was in rough shape. In many places, it looked like it had been sandblasted, if it was not reduced to rubble. There were still a lot of fish, surprisingly, and some healthy populations of sponges on the leeward sides of the islands.
There was also a lot of infrastructure damage from the hurricane, particularly on Union, which contributed to an issue we had not anticipated...water availability. Our boat was equipped with a water maker, but it was not in working order, so we had hoped to refill our freshwater tank every 2-3 days so we did not have to worry about rationing. The sailing book listed water availability at a number of harbors. The briefing did not include any warnings about water availability, so we were not concerned. We filled the tank at a crazy fancy yacht harbor on Canouan. It seemed so out of place compared to everything we had seen to that point. A few of our group were excited that one of the yachts in the harbor was from the show "Below Decks." Our top up on day 3 turned out to be our last water fill until the end of our trip! Fortunately everyone was up for the challenge of conserving our freshwater for drinking and rinsing dishes and using salt water for everything else. We were likely more conservative than we needed to be, but none of us trusted the accuracy of the water gauge. We had a few other mechanical issues with the boat, but thanks to our crack team that included mechanical and electrical engineers, we managed to deal with most of the problems until nearly the end.
In spite of the damage to the reef, we did have some interesting snorkels. Tobago Cays is a turtle sanctuary and marine park made up of five small islands. We did a lot of snorkeling in the area and were rewarded with great encounters with turtles, rays, cuttlefish, and schools of fish. We also took turns taking the dinghy to the outer reef, which was quite lovely. The reef is a bit deeper there so it had less hurricane damage, and there was a greater variety of sea life out there. It also sounded like a coral reef, with lots of clicks and pops from the fish grazing the reef and critters communicating with each other.
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| cuttlefish! |
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from Andrew's drone - look closely and you can see
our dinghy and possibly two people swimming along the reef |
We spent the better part of our last two days of the trip in marinas on Grenada because the generator would not start, so we had little power unless the engine was running. Along with our low water resources, we decided to make our lives easier and hook up to shore power and water. We spent our last night at Le Phare Bleu, a lovely marina on the south coast of Grenada that had a nice restaurant and pool, as well as an old lighthouse ship from Sweden. Perhaps most importantly for our fellow passengers, we got to have proper showers before our flight home.
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| Swedish lighthouse ship |
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