Sandy Island is a small sand reef off the north part of the southern part of Carriacou. Nothing on it. A mooring field where you can pay to spend the night. The day we were there, it was pretty windy and not very protected from the waves, so we ate lunch, walked ashore and left for better a better anchorage. The island is pretty idyllic, as you can see. Hopefully, we can go back as there is supposed to be good snorkeling here. South of here on the mainland of Carriacou is Paradise Beach, a nice long strip of beach.
This picture was taken off the coast of very south coast of Carriacou. We had decided to take a hike one day out of Tyrell Bay and ended up walking most of the way out on the southern-most point of Carriacou. Down a dirt road, there were grazing farms, mostly for goats, and a couple of large waterfront properties that also had a large amount of land. We got to one point where we made it to the shore and there were conch shells everywhere. They were also piled up onshore as well.
We looked, but couldn’t find a perfect one. Everything we found had at least some kind of flaw.
BTW, on our trip home through the airport, I saw a pile of conch shells that had been pulled from passenger’s luggage as they left the island.
While we were anchored in Tyrell Bay on Carriacou, we decided one day to see how far we could walk and ended up at the Paradise Beach Club bar on Paradise Beach, around the corner from Tyrell Bay.
We were, of course, the only people there (around noon), again, largely due to COVID restrictions. There were half a dozen people or so working and when we got there we were met by a nice woman who chatted us up a little before she showed us a table. I’m pretty sure the woman owned the place. Turns out that she knew of New Hampshire because she had sent her son to college in Vermont.
I got a guava daiquiri – don’t know why, just felt like it. Interestingly, they didn’t remove the seeds from the guava before they threw it in the blender – I think this is the normal way they’re served down there – but I thought it was terrible. The taste was OK, but you couldn’t drink it. You had to strain it with your teeth and the seed husks didn’t taste good if you ate them.
Anyway, beautiful beach. We’ll have to go back if we get a chance. And Sandy Island is right off the coast.
While in Tyrell Bay on Carriacou, a guy came by the boat one day selling stuff. Most of the stuff they sell was just trinkets, or wine and mostly grossly over-priced. They will also pick up your trash for a fee. Normally, I just politely say no. This guy asked if we wanted lobster, so I asked him how much it would cost. I think he said $10 ECD, which is about $3.75 USD per pound. I think it was a 5 pounder, so about $20 USD. I also had him take our trash away as part of the deal.
We stopped for the night at Anse Cachon on our trip down to St. Vincent/Carriacou from St. Lucia so that we could save a couple of hours enroute. Turns out it was a little rolly this night so we didn’t sleep as well as when we had visited the time before.
The next day, we got up at the crack of dawn to head to St. Vincent. We were going to stay the night in St. Vincent and then go on to Carriacou. As I recall, this was a fairly uneventful sailing day – very little wind in the lee of St. Lucia, but once we got out of her shadow, we found some wind.
We got into St. Vincent just before dusk and took a mooring ball between Young Island and the mainland. It was very crowded and fairly close to shore with lots of shore noise, but the water was calm and we were able to get some sleep before heading out the next day.
We were told that we had to go to this restaurant in one of the old English fort buildings at Pigeon Island National Park. Apparently, this is a hangout for noon-drinking from yachties from Rodney Bay marina.
When we went there, it had just opened and we were the first people. We chatted with the owner/chef. He sounded like he just wanted to talk to someone as I think it had been a slow year.
Again, at the French restaurant in the old English fort at Pigeon Point on St. Lucia. When we got there at noon, we were the only customers (not a lot of tourists because of COVID). The restaurant is really just a couple of tables in fairly narrow places with short ceilings. They even had some sofas with low tables that they said we could sit at. The owner and chef was very friendly, and glad to have paying customers. We chose probably the best table in the place with the best view and ordered a couple of drinks. For lunch, I had something with crabs. It was very good, with lots of garlic, but, unfortunately, unknown to me, the crabs were all the local, and small, type. Again, lots of garlic make anything taste good, but it took me forever to get the meat out of the tiny crabs. I felt like a newby who doesn’t know how to eat a lobster – experienced people can eat one without getting messing, where newbys revel in getting all messy. I didn’t revel.
Just a quick shot of Rodney Bay from the top of the old English fort at the end of Pigeon Point. I’m pretty sure that is our boat in the middle. The Sandals is to the left on the shoreline, while there are several other nice hotels along the rest of the shore. The marina entrance is to the right and out-of-frame.
This pic is from the top of the English fort on Pigeon Island. The fort is at the end of the peninsula, overlooking the entry to Rodney Bay (so they could blast the nasty French if they tried to come and bring their repugnant swill to St. Lucia).
All of the cannons had the British insignia cast right into the body. Branding.
Rodney Bay Marina is in an inlet straight ahead in this shot. You can see a little blue water behind the shoreline on the left of the picture. That is the marina.
