St. Vincent and the Grenadines
St. Vincent and the Grenadines is (are?) an independent country composed,
surprisingly enough, of St. Vincent itself plus the Grenadines, twelve small
islands (seven inhabited) and numerous small cays strung out over 60 miles
north to south, separating the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean.

The sail from St. Lucia took us about seven hours. Unusually, the trade winds had
clocked into the southeast so we had a fast but hard beat. The six to eight foot waves
on our stern quarter pushed us along but also slewed us around quite a bit.

Our first sight of St. Vincent was the Soufriere Volcano, still considered active (it last
erupted in 1979), which soars almost 4,000 feet into the air from the coast and was
shrouded in clouds as we sailed by.

Pulling into Wallilabou (pronounced "Wally la Boo," sort of rhyming with "Pepe la Pew"
but not really), about halfway down the western coast, we hailed a local boat boy to help
us anchor. This involved dropping our anchor in 80 feet of water, backing in towards
the beach while paying out about 160 feet of chain until we were in 10 feet of water,
then tying the stern off with a long line to a palm tree in back of the beach.

(You'll notice that the maplet on the left spells it "Willibou." Well, our nautical chart and
cruising guides both spell it "Wallilabou" and, since they're more expensive, they win!)
Wallilabou, as far as we can tell, is notable for three things: (1)
the Customs office is here, open 2 hours each afternoon, to
clear into the country; (2) its major (only?) tourist attraction is
the remains of the sets built along the beach for the first Pirates
of the Caribbean movie; and (3) we are close to the epicenter
of marijuana cultivation on the island, on the steep slopes and
in the hidden valleys of the volcano, and to the "headquarters"
of the island Marijuana Growers Association. We were offered
guided hikes to two of the local plantations but politely declined.

We hadn’t even settled in after anchoring before we were
swarmed with local kids on their three-week Easter holiday
swimming out from the beach, climbing on our boat, begging
for sodas, beer (!), extra dive masks and snorkels, money …
anything we wanted to give up. One of them even asked if we’d
give him our spyglasses (binoculars) if he did a back flip off our
boat.

After clearing in we wandered along the beach, checking out
the movie sets. Cheaply-constructed in the first place, they are
rapidly crumbling in the elements. The next hurricane will surely
wipe them out, leaving to the locals the responsibility for
cleaning up Hollywood’s detritus. One interesting – in an
inexplicable way – building we entered was furnished from
floor to ceiling with shelves crammed with old-fashioned, black,
Bakelite dial telephones, along with record players, tube
radios, antiquated electronic test equipment (including a tube
oscilloscope) and other junk. There was a glass merchandise
case filled with pottery shards, presumably pre-Columbian; and
a huge animal skull on the floor, possibly from a whale. There
was no sign or other indication of what we had wandered into
or why it was there. Steve bumped his head on the door
overhead as we stepped out, and his reaction caused much
amusement among the kids trailing us along the beach.
Approaching the island
A natural arch marks the narrow entrance to Wallilabou Bay
The beach at Wallilabou, dominated by the
Pirates of the Caribbean ruins
At anchor and tied stern-to a
palm tree, right off the beach
Once the local kids came to the conclusion that it
was fruitless to continue begging us for stuff, they
went back to playing beach cricket
We spent one night in Wallilabou. When we were ready to leave
the next morning, we "hired" two of the kids from the beach (the
ones in the picture above, with Jay) to help us by untying our
stern line from the palm tree. They were thrilled to do it for a one
Euro coin and a few American quarters; we may have also
thrown in a couple of Mexican Peso coins that we had in our coin
jar. We motored down the coast then east and anchored in the
cut between Young Island and the main island, near Kingstown,
the capital.
A few hours walking around
Kingstown
We hired a taxi and spent a day touring the Atlantic coast, then
hiked up the Soufriere Volcano. The Mesopotamia Valley, with
rich, volcanic soil, lots of rain and protection on all sides from
the wind, is the breadbasket of St. Vincent
Our local guide led us through the various types of
forest to the rim of the volcano, at 3850 feet above sea
level
A lava flow from the 1907
eruption
As we neared the top and entered the clouds, the rain
forest gave way to "elfin forest" which, in turn, gave way to
lichens and small ferns at the rim
At the rim of the crater there's a vertical drop of almost 1000
feet to the bottom. We had to be careful not to get blown over
the edge by the strong winds. The clouds never did clear
enough for us to get a great view, but we could see the lake,
boiling with sulfurous gas, and a growing cone preparing for
the next eruption.
The view from the base
We took a second, all-day taxi tour, this time up the
western, Caribbean coastline, with a hike to Trinity Falls in
the northwest
Because of its recent volcanic origin, the beaches on St. Vincent
are black sand, which don't look as inviting in the travel
magazines as the white and pink sand beaches of other resort
islands. The resort under construction below hopes to remedy
this by importing white sand from Honduras and building their
own, private beach inside their breakwater.
Our taxi driver would normally have guided us to the
falls, but he'd recently twisted his knee and wasn't up for
a strenuous, 5 mile hike. So, he stopped in a nearby
town and recruited these two girls, age 11 and 13, as
guides, for $10 EC (about $4 U.S.)