currently enlarging the island’s cargo port across the street, but despite this, and the international airport that opened in 2017, St Vincent remains low key. Leaving the capital, we explore deserted beaches black with the island’s ubiquitous volcanic sand that diamond-sparkles in the sun. “People think it’ll be rough but it’s so soft, right?” says Julicia at my idiot grin as we paddle in the surf, the sand like velvet underfoot. A rare strip of imported white sand graces the beach at
Young Island. This one-hotel destination is accessed by a three-minute ferry journey, summoned from a phone in the small dock near Villa Beach. St Vincent will open a Sandals Resort this spring, but for now, Young Island’s confection of thatched cottage-suites characterises St Vincent’s locally run accommodation offering. I fall asleep to the crash of waves, the croak of frogs and the sound of soca music from Villa’s small strip of bars — more or less distant depending on which way the wind blows. Sitting pretty in the southern Caribbean, between
St Lucia and Grenada, St Vincent & the Grenadines doesn’t lack castaway opportunities — and with a network of ferries and twin-prop planes, island-hopping is affordable and easy. The following morning, a 20-minute flight takes me low over a patchwork of Grenadine islands haloed in blues of impossibly brilliant hues. It’s as much bucket-list thrill as A-to-B journey. Barely 20 minutes by motorboat from the shores of Union Island, where we touch down, I’m out into that turquoise water, nose to snout with hawksbill
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and green turtles grazing in the seagrass at Tobago Cays Marine Park. This pristine protected reserve was a filming location for
the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. We skirt the shores of Petit Tabac, the palm-bristly sand spit where Kiera Knightly’s Elizabeth Swan shouts at Johnny Depp’s rum-drunk Captain Sparrow in The Curse of the Black Pearl. On neighbouring Petit Bateau, I sample a dark, spiced Vincentian rum named after the 17th-century brigand John ‘Sparrow’ Ward who inspired the movies. Sailors have long favoured this tiny island for rum punches, conch and lobster barbecue. “In my dad’s day it was just a beach bonfire. Things have changed,” says Carlos Peters, smiling as he indicates a newly built kitchen shelter with gas grills. Carlos heads up an association of 22 ‘boat boys’ who taxi guests from their yachts to dine surf-side on fresh catch. “We’re trying to regulate things more — how many boats operate, how much fish is caught and sold. Some old-timers don’t like it, but it’s the only way this is sustainable for everyone.” Local business is crucial for communities in the
Grenadines — a place plied by self-sufficient cruise ships and famed for exclusive resort islands like Mustique (a 1970s favourite of Jagger, Bowie and Princess Margaret) and Canouan (where, so the local joke goes, billionaires go to escape the millionaires). On Mayreau, a 1.5sq mile hill ringed with white sand and coral reefs that’s the only populated island within Tobago Cays’ reserve — I meet John
From left: The views of Tobago Cays Marine Park from Petit Bateau; Silica Simon grills fresh lobsters at Carlos Peters’ Beach BBQ, on Petit Bateau; fresh callaloo leaves for sale at New Central Market in Kingstown, St Vincent
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