Canouan travel guide

A quiet, peaceful, crescent-shaped island, Canouan lies 25 miles south of St Vincent, with excellent reef-protected beaches. Evidence of human occupation dates back to 200BC, pendants and pottery shards having been found during construction work on the airport and hotels. The island was valuable for plantation crops during the colonial period, namely sugar then cotton, which was grown until 1924. The Snagg family who owned the land were unable to keep the plantation going and the north reverted to acacia scrub and thicket. The estate was sold to the government in 1946. Other local families include the Comptons and the Mitchells, shipwrights who arrived in the 19th century. At that time there was plenty of cedar (for the hull), mahogany (for planking) and bamboo (for masts) for ship building. In 1939 Reginald Mitchell built the largest schooner ever in the Lesser Antilles. The three-masted Gloria Colita was 165 ft long, 39 ft wide and weighed 178 tons. Unfortunately only two years later it was found abandoned and awash in the Gulf of Mexico and no one knows what happened to Captain Mitchell and his crew.

The village, on the leeward side in Grand Bay, is Charlestown, founded after a devastating hurricane destroyed the settlement at Carenage Bay in 1921. It is architecturally uninteresting, untidy and scruffy but the white-sand beach is superb, running the length of the bay and broken only by the jetty. On holidays, day trips are organized from St Vincent on the Barracuda, and then the beach is full of people. Cricket matches are held on the sand, ranging from little boys to family groups to serious young men who carefully measure their wicket and dispute calls. Balls constantly go in the water and stumps are made of any sticks found on the beach. The beach at the Canouan Beach Hotel in the southwest is splendid with white sand and views of numerous islands to the south. Mahault Bay on the north coast is beautiful, isolated, with steep hills all around, and great for a picnic. Turtles come here to nest.

Much of the north of the island, 800 of the island’s 1,866 acres, is now taken up by the Raffles Resort Canouan Island. There are two nice beaches, but being on the windward side the sea is often choppy and has a fair amount of weed. The beaches are open to the public, up to the high water mark, but access has to be from the sea, making a visit problematic unless you are a hotel guest or have your own boat. The centre of the bay is taken up with a golf course running up and over the hill.

Dive trips can be arranged through Blueway Diving at the Tamarind Beach Hotel. The hotels organize boat trips to the Tobago Cays and non-hotel guests are permitted to make up numbers if the boat is not fully booked. The Trump International Golf Club is an 18-hole, par 72 course designed by Jim Fazio at the Raffles Resort. It covers 60 acres along the bay and up the hillside, giving lovely views of the sea. Rental equipment and buggies are available....read more