St Vincent & the Grenadines

• Region: St Vincent and the Grenadines, eastern Caribbean, roughly 12 to 13 degrees north
• Season: December to May, with January to March the core
• Chain length: under 40 nautical miles from Bequia to Union Island, legs of 6 to 15 nm
• Largest berthing: Sandy Lane Yacht Club, Canouan, 29 superyacht berths, yachts to 100 metres and 5.5 metres draught
• Signature anchorage: Tobago Cays, inside Horseshoe Reef
• Tobago Cays rules: entry fee XCD 15 per person for 24 hours, anchoring in sand only, no anchoring at Petit Tabac, no fishing and no jet skis
• Mustique: moorings only in Britannia Bay, larger yachts anchor off and clear it with the moorings office
• Entry: nine ports of entry including Bequia, Mustique, Canouan and Union Island
• Cruise tax: XCD 35 per person over 12, monthly and renewable, with a separate cruising licence for charter yachts
• Airports: Argyle International on St Vincent, Canouan with a 1,791 metre runway taking light and midsize jets
• Defining wind: north-east trades, strengthening from December in what locals call the Christmas winds
• Hurricane Beryl: Category 4 landfall on 1 July 2024, over 90 per cent of buildings on Union Island, Mayreau and Canouan reported uninhabitable

The shape of the chain

St Vincent is the big volcanic island at the top, green and steep, with La Soufriere at its northern end. Everything worth cruising lies south of it. Bequia is nine miles off the St Vincent coast, then Mustique, then Canouan, then Mayreau and the Tobago Cays, then Union Island at the bottom. Below that the chain continues into Grenadian waters at Carriacou, which is a different country and a separate clearance.

The legs are tiny. Bequia to Mustique is about 12 nautical miles, Mustique to Canouan about 15, and Canouan to the Tobago Cays six. A motor yacht covers the whole chain in a morning if she wants to. That compression is the point of the place. An owner who wants to move the boat every day and one who wants to sit at anchor for a week both get what they came for, and neither spends a night at sea.

A week, and two weeks

A week works from Canouan in both directions. North to Mustique and Bequia for two nights, back south to the Tobago Cays for two, Mayreau and Union at the bottom, and a night off Canouan to reset. Nothing on that route is more than two hours. The alternative is to start at St Vincent, work down the chain in order, and finish at Union Island or Carriacou for a one-way charter.

Two weeks lets an owner take the whole Windward chain. St Lucia down through St Vincent and the Grenadines to Grenada is roughly 130 nautical miles, and it is one of the better fortnight routes in the Caribbean because the character changes every island. The alternative fortnight is to do the Grenadines properly, which means the same 40 miles but at anchor, diving the reefs and running the tenders instead of moving the boat.

Under forty miles of chain, a reef anchorage nobody forgets, and a rebuild that is still going on around it.

The anchorages that earn the trip

The Tobago Cays are the reason the fleet comes. Four uninhabited islets sit inside Horseshoe Reef, which takes the Atlantic swell a mile to windward and leaves flat turquoise water with nothing between the anchorage and the open ocean but breaking surf. Green turtles graze the seagrass. The park allows anchoring in sand only, bans it altogether around Petit Tabac, and charges an anchoring fee equal to the mooring fee, so there is no saving in refusing a buoy.

Bequia's Admiralty Bay is the working harbour of the chain, deep, well sheltered and full of boat people, with a genuine wooden-boat culture and model builders on the waterfront. Salt Whistle Bay on Mayreau is a sandbar between two beaches and takes about six boats before it is full. Chatham Bay on the west side of Union Island is a deep, wild bay with beach bars that Beryl destroyed and that have been slowly coming back. Britannia Bay off Mustique is a mooring field, not an anchorage.

Where a 50 metre boat fits, and where it does not

Sandy Lane Yacht Club at Glossy Bay on Canouan is the only real superyacht marina in the country, with 120 slips of which 29 take superyachts, a maximum of 100 metres LOA and 5.5 metres of draught. It is also a port of entry, so a yacht can clear customs and immigration alongside, and there is a jet strip a short drive away. Six miles from the Tobago Cays and fourteen from Mustique, it is the natural base for the whole chain.

Everywhere else, a 50 metre boat anchors. There is no alongside berthing of any size at Bequia, Mustique, Mayreau or Union Island, and the Tobago Cays sand patches are shallow and worked out by the fleet, so a large yacht lies outside the reef line and runs guests in by tender. Mustique runs Britannia Bay as a mooring field and does not want yachts anchoring there, and larger boats take that up with the moorings office. Nothing about this ground is berth-led.

Weather, the trades and the months to avoid

The trade wind blows from the north-east and east all winter, generally 15 to 25 knots, and it firms up from December into what everyone here calls the Christmas winds. Spells above 30 knots happen. The channels between the islands accelerate it and set up a short, steep sea, so the crossings from Bequia to Mustique and from Union down towards Grenada can be lumpy even when the anchorages are flat. Inside the reefs and in the lee of the islands the water is calm.

Air and sea temperatures barely move. The dry season runs to about May, and June onwards brings heat, humidity and the hurricane season. That is the months to avoid, without qualification. Beryl came through as a Category 4 on 1 July 2024, which is very early in the season for a storm of that strength, and the southern Grenadines took the eyewall. Insurance conditions for the region reflect that.

The season and the weeks already spoken for

December to May, with the peak between Christmas and Easter. New Year on Mustique is the single busiest week and has been for decades. The Mustique Blues Festival at Basil's Bar runs in late January and early February, with the 2026 edition scheduled from 21 January to 4 February, and it fills the island's houses and the mooring field. Bequia's Easter Regatta closes the season with a week of local racing and a harbour full of boats.

Marina berths at Canouan are the constraint. Twenty-nine superyacht slips is not a lot for a Caribbean January, and the boats that want them book early. Everything else in the chain is first-come, which in the Tobago Cays in February means arriving before lunch. Shoulder weeks in early December and through May are quiet and the conditions are often better.

Getting guests aboard

Argyle International on St Vincent is the country's main gateway and has a private jet terminal, with connections from North America and Europe. Canouan's runway was extended to 1,791 metres in 2008 and takes light and midsize jets directly, which is why owners base the boat there. Mustique and Union Island have short strips served by regional turboprops.

In practice most guests come through Barbados or St Lucia and take a short hop onward, and the connection is the fragile part of the journey. Baggage does not always follow. Owners running a full boat generally send crew ahead or arrange a private hop for the last leg. Transfer times on the ground are trivial once the guests are in the islands, because none of the islands is more than a few miles across.

Ashore, and what it is actually like

Mustique is a private island company with about a hundred houses, strict rules and no crowds, and Basil's Bar on the waterfront is the one place everyone ends up. The Cotton House is the island's hotel. Bequia is the opposite in character, a working island with bars, chandlery, sailmakers and a genuine maritime community. Union Island has the kite beach at Clifton and a bar built on a sandbar out in the harbour.

Food is simple and local outside Mustique and Canouan. Grilled fish, lobster in season, rum. The Tobago Cays boat vendors will cook lobster on the beach for a yacht party, which is one of the better nights guests will have. Nightlife amounts to Basil's, a handful of beach bars and whatever the crews organise. Anyone expecting the restaurant density of St Barths will find this thin.

Papers, support and the honest downside

Yachts clear in at one of nine ports of entry, which include Bequia, Mustique, Canouan and Union Island. Private yachts pay a cruise tax of XCD 35 per person over the age of 12, monthly and renewable, and charter yachts need a St Vincent and the Grenadines cruising licence on top. Fuel of any quantity means Canouan or a run to Grenada or Martinique. Technical support is thin, and a serious breakdown is a passage to Grenada or St Lucia, both of which have proper yards.

Then there is Beryl. The storm made landfall on 1 July 2024 and reports put more than 90 per cent of buildings on Union Island, Mayreau and Canouan as uninhabitable afterwards. Palm Island and Petit St Vincent both closed. Petit St Vincent has been rebuilding towards a 2026 reopening with no fixed date announced, and a reported USD 100 million investment agreement covers the redevelopment of Palm Island Resorts and the Anchorage Yacht Club, with a first phase reported for the end of 2026. An owner planning the coming season should confirm what is actually open before committing guests to it.

Who it is for: An owner who wants flat reef water, short hops and privacy, and who accepts a ground with one real marina and almost no technical support.