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 |
| Charter | a foreign-flagged yacht may charter here on a St Vincent and the Grenadines cruising licence bought from customs at the port of entry, valid up to one month |
| Charter tax | passengers pay XCD 35 per person and crew do not, with no cabotage bar on moving guests between islands of the chain |
| Comparison | the same voyage is barred to a foreign-flagged yacht in Florida by the PVSA and costs EUR 74,423.36 in Turkey for a 45 m boat since 19 June 2026 |
| Berthing | Sandy Lane Yacht Club publishes no rates and the trade guides refer enquirers to the marina, checked 28 July 2026 |
| Comparison berth | Marina di Porto Cervo published 2026 tariff, EUR 3,698 a day in the band to 40 m from 1 to 20 August and EUR 195,819 for 1 May to 31 October |
| Nearest lift | Carenantilles at Le Marin, Martinique, described as the largest travel lift in the Caribbean, to 164 ft LOA, 43 ft beam and 14 ft draught |
| Discharge | the Wider Caribbean is a MARPOL Annex V Special Area in force since 1 May 2011, so garbage discharge is prohibited and only ground food waste is permitted offshore |
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.
What a month in the chain costs
The state's charges are small and published. A private yacht pays cruise tax at XCD 35 per person over the age of 12, monthly and renewable. The Tobago Cays Marine Park charges XCD 15 per person for 24 hours and charges the same for anchoring as for a mooring, so refusing a buoy saves nothing. A charter yacht buys a cruising licence, and it can be bought over the counter at the port of entry and runs up to a month. For a boat with ten guests and a fortnight in the islands, the whole government take is a few hundred US dollars, which is the cheapest regulatory ground in this set by a wide margin.
Berthing is the number that does not exist. Sandy Lane Yacht Club at Canouan is the only superyacht marina in the country and publishes no rates at all, and the trade guides simply say to contact the marina, checked on 28 July 2026. Everywhere else in the chain there is no alongside berthing of any size, so for most of a season the berthing line is zero and the cost is fuel, tenders and crew. Set that against the alternative ground an owner would otherwise be in: Marina di Porto Cervo's published 2026 tariff charges EUR 3,698 a day in the band to 40 m between 1 and 20 August, about EUR 102,000 for the month, and EUR 195,819 for a 1 May to 31 October contract. The Grenadines cost almost nothing to lie in and a great deal to support, because fuel of any quantity means Canouan or a run to Grenada or Martinique and everything technical is a passage.
Chartering here, and the yard that can lift her
This is one of the easiest charter jurisdictions a foreign-flagged yacht will meet. A visiting yacht clears at one of nine ports of entry and buys a St Vincent and the Grenadines cruising licence from customs, valid up to a month, and charter passengers pay the XCD 35 head tax while crew do not. There is no bar of the Turkish or American kind on carrying paying guests between the islands of the chain, which is the whole commercial argument for the ground and the reason charter boats work it in numbers no marina could support. The contrast is worth stating plainly. In Florida the Passenger Vessel Services Act makes the same voyage impossible for a foreign-flagged yacht. In Turkey, since 19 June 2026, a 45 m boat is charged EUR 74,423.36 for the licence to do it. In the Grenadines it is a form at a customs counter.
What the ground does not have is anywhere to be repaired. The nearest yard that will take a 50 m yacht is Carenantilles at Le Marin in Martinique, which runs what is described as the largest travel lift in the Caribbean, hauling to 164 ft, meaning 50 m, on 43 ft of beam and 14 ft of draught. That is roughly a day's run north through St Lucia. Grenada and St Lucia have proper yards for smaller boats and neither will lift a 50 m hull. An owner planning a season here should treat Martinique as the technical base and the Grenadines as the cruising, which is exactly how the resident charter fleet is organised.
Discharge in a marine park
The whole eastern Caribbean sits inside the Wider Caribbean Region, a MARPOL Annex V Special Area adopted on 4 July 1991 and in force since 1 May 2011, under which the discharge of garbage is prohibited outright and only ground food waste may go over the side, and then only well offshore. The Tobago Cays Marine Park adds its own layer, with anchoring restricted to sand, no anchoring at all around Petit Tabac, and no fishing or jet skis inside the reef. The park is a lagoon behind a reef with no flushing worth the name, which is the physical reason the rules exist.
Black water is the one a large yacht has to plan for, because there is no pump-out anywhere in the chain outside Canouan. A boat working the Cays for a week holds everything and lands it or runs offshore to discharge, and the anchorage is small enough and visible enough that the alternative gets noticed. The reef at Horseshoe is the entire asset of this destination, and the enforcement culture around it is closer to the Maldives than to the Mediterranean.
Ashore, access and booking
| Sandy Lane Yacht Club booking | Berths are reserved directly through the marina (slycr.com) or via the Dockwa booking platform; the 29 superyacht slips fill first for the January-to-March peak and trade guides advise booking well ahead, since the marina itself publishes no rate card. |
|---|---|
| Sandy Lane fuel and pump-out | The superyacht docks have on-berth, duty-free diesel and gasoline fueling and most berths connect to a waste-water pump-out system, the only such service in the chain outside a passage to Grenada or Martinique. |
| Customs pre-clearance | St Vincent and the Grenadines runs on the regional SailClear.com system (US$25 a year since May 2024): file crew and vessel details online, then complete in-person stamping at the port of entry; bring boat papers and passports, use a blue or black pen only, and clear the evening before an early departure since office hours run roughly weekday 8am to 4pm and can run late. |
| Mustique mooring contact | Britannia Bay moorings are booked through the Mustique Company's moorings office on VHF 16/68 or by phone; boats to about 60 feet take a mooring, larger yachts anchor off and arrange clearance with the same office, and first-time visitors are asked to register with SVG Customs and Immigration by phone on arrival. |
| Bequia provisioning | Doris' Fresh Food and Yacht Provisioning and Knight's Trading in Port Elizabeth cover a full provisioning run; Dockside Marine is the main chandlery with its own dinghy dock, and Bequia Marine Services handles haul-out, mechanical and rigging work for smaller yachts. Meat and poultry are the recurring gap, since most of it arrives by ferry from St Vincent. |
| Canouan Airport upgrade under way | The Caribbean Development Bank signed a USD 46,715,100 loan on 18 March 2026, at 5 per cent interest over 21 years, to rehabilitate the cracked and pot-holed runway and extend capability toward Airbus A320 service, beyond the existing light and midsize jet traffic. |
| Union Island Airport service | Turboprop and VFR-only, served by SVG Air, Mustique Airways and Grenadine Airways; the runway underwent a scheduled maintenance closure from 30 April to 16 May 2026, during which flights were diverted to Canouan and onward transport to Union Island was left to the passenger. |
| Security precautions | Dinghy and outboard theft is the recurring complaint; crews are advised to lock the tender and stow valuables out of sight below at night, particularly in Bequia's Admiralty Bay, which recorded the chain's highest 2025 incident count. |
What owners and crew report
Provisioning in Bequia is deep but narrow
Doris' Fresh Food and Yacht Provisioning and Knight's Trading in Port Elizabeth cover most of a boat's needs, but meat and poultry are the weak link because nearly everything arrives by ferry from St Vincent, and cruisers report needing several stops rather than one.
Cruising WorldThe Tobago Cays boat vendors split opinion
The bread, fish, ice and lobster-barbecue vendors who work the anchorage are, by the cruising community's own account, sometimes a genuine convenience and sometimes felt as pressure to buy, with the trade confined to Petit Bateau's north beach and prices meant to be haggled.
NoonsiteSandy Lane's berths are polished but not silent
Owners who have stopped there describe modern, well-serviced docks and a pool and beach worth the call, but note diesel smell from the adjacent airstrip reaches boats staying alongside, and that reef snorkeling on the island's east side is often blown out by swell.
Blue Dot VoyagesThe passage in is rougher than the anchorage once you arrive
Crews sailing up from Grenada report 30-knot gusts, lumpy seas and squalls with zero visibility on the approach to the Grenadines, followed by what one described as a place close to heaven once inside Horseshoe Reef.
Sailing MagazinePetty theft is trending up, concentrated in one anchorage
Reported yacht crime in the country rose from 7 incidents in 2024 to 12 in 2025, a 71 per cent increase, with five of the twelve in Bequia's Admiralty Bay including one assault; dinghy and outboard theft is the recurring complaint and crews are advised to lock up and stow valuables out of sight overnight.
Caribbean Safety and Security NetClearing in rewards showing up early and dressing for it
Standard guidance for the Windwards is to bring boat papers and passports, use only a blue or black pen, present the crew professionally, and clear the evening before an early departure because customs can run late on arrival.
Chris Doyle's Sailor's Guide to the Windward Islands
What is good, and what to watch
Strong points
- The reef anchorage lives up to its reputationCruising and charter writers alike single out the Tobago Cays as one of the best anchorages in the eastern Caribbean, and a boat willing to anchor between Baradal and Petit Rameau rather than the busier Baradal-to-Jamesby stretch can still find near-solitude even in season.
- Access is quietly being upgradedThe Caribbean Development Bank signed a USD 46.7 million loan on 18 March 2026 to rehabilitate Canouan's runway and extend jet capability toward the Airbus A320, on top of the airport's existing light and midsize jet service.
- Clearance stays genuinely simpleThe region's SailClear online pre-clearance system covers St Vincent and the Grenadines for a flat US$25 annual subscription introduced in May 2024, and a captain still walks away with a stamped paper record from the port of entry.
- Bequia carries real depth of marine services for its sizeChandlery, sailmaking, mechanical repair, haul-out for smaller craft, fuel and water delivered to the boat, and a fresh-bread run every morning are all available directly in Admiralty Bay, more service infrastructure than most islands this size carry.
What to watch
- Reported crime is rising, not fallingYacht crime in the country jumped 71 per cent year on year to 12 reported incidents in 2025, with Bequia's Admiralty Bay the single worst-affected anchorage in the chain, including one assault.
- The southern recovery has a long tailPetit St Vincent remains closed as of an April 2026 update and is targeting only a late-2026 reopening with 22 cottages, a fraction of a full-scale recovery, with no fixed date confirmed.
- Provisioning is present but thin, even on the best-stocked islandEven Bequia, the chain's provisioning hub, has a public market reduced to two working stalls since 2010 and a chronic shortage of fresh meat and poultry, because most stock still arrives by the St Vincent ferry.
- The one superyacht marina is also a noise and swell trade-offSandy Lane Yacht Club sits next to Canouan's airstrip, so boats alongside can smell aircraft diesel, and the reef snorkeling immediately outside the marina is frequently too rough to use.
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.