Grenada & Carriacou
Twelve degrees north and low enough to stay in commission through the Caribbean's quiet season — a lagoon marina, the world's first underwater sculpture park, and sister islands beyond.
Grenada sits at the foot of the Windward Islands, far enough south of the main Atlantic hurricane tracks that a fleet which empties out of the northern Caribbean every June still finds Port Louis Marina, in the lagoon behind St George's old Carenage, working through the summer. The capital gives the water its history: a French star fort, a horseshoe harbour, a Saturday market that still trades in the nutmeg and cocoa that built Grenada's name as the Spice Isle. North of it lie the nation's own outer islands, Carriacou and Petite Martinique, a roughly forty-mile passage away — smaller, quieter, and still rebuilding after Hurricane Beryl struck them hard in 2024.
“Twelve degrees north is the whole point — far enough south that the fleet stays in commission once the rest of the Caribbean has hauled out.”
Signature anchorages
The mainland's sheltered south and west coasts, then an open-water hop north to Grenada's own sister islands.
- St George's — the Carenage & Port Louis LagoonThe horseshoe harbour beneath Fort George; Port Louis Marina, run by Camper & Nicholsons, sits in the lagoon behind it — 227 berths in all, around 30 reserved for superyachts to roughly 105m LOA (length overall), 6m draft. Grenada's principal port of entry.
- True Blue Bay & Prickly BayThe south-coast charter hub, minutes from Maurice Bishop International — True Blue's floating dock takes smaller yachts moored Mediterranean-style (med-moor: stern-to the dock, bow anchor or line forward), with twelve further moorings in the bay; Prickly Bay offers 5–15m sand-and-mud holding and its own customs post.
- Grand Anse BayTwo miles of white sand on the calm leeward coast, a short run from St George's — an open roadstead (an unsheltered anchorage rather than an enclosed harbour) behind which sit the island's best beach hotels.
- Molinere Bay — the Underwater Sculpture ParkA shallow 5–8m mooring field over Jason deCaires Taylor's reef of figures, the world's first underwater sculpture park; a Marine Protected Area entry fee now applies per visit.
- Tyrrel Bay, CarriacouThe sister island's main harbour and its own port of entry, 5–10m sand-and-mud holding with reliable shelter; hit hard by Hurricane Beryl in 2024, with marine services substantially back in operation since.
- Petite MartiniqueThree nautical miles on from Carriacou, a small, boatbuilding-proud island with strong local character; Mopion's one-palm sandbar lies a short tender ride beyond it.
The scene
A reef built to outlast a storm season, a fort that has stood since 1705, and the Caribbean's longest-running regatta.
Underwater Sculpture Park
Jason deCaires Taylor's concrete figures, sunk in Molinere Bay from 2006 as the world's first underwater sculpture park. Since expanded past 75 works with an underwater wedding chapel added — an artificial reef designed to grow coral and outlast the weather that periodically flattens the coast above it.
Fort George
A French-built star fort above the Carenage, four bastions completed in 1710 and renamed for George III after the British took the island in 1762. Still standing, still in use — as headquarters of the Royal Grenada Police Force — with parts open to visitors.
Carriacou Regatta Festival
Started in 1965 by J. Linton Rigg as a local workboat race and now the longest-running regatta festival in the Caribbean; the first weekend of August fills Tyrrel Bay with roughly ten classes of Carriacou-built wooden sloops, the work of Windward's shipwrights.
Spice heritage
Grenada earned the name Isle of Spice from a nutmeg trade that has twice been flattened by hurricanes and twice rebuilt.
Gouyave Nutmeg Processing Station
Built on the site of an old French coastal battery, the station still handles the descendants of nutmeg trees planted by the British in 1843. Nutmeg once supplied a third of Grenada's export earnings; Hurricane Ivan destroyed some 90% of the island's trees in 2004, and Beryl took a similar toll in 2024 — the station has processed its way through both recoveries.
Belmont Estate
A 300-year-old working plantation in the north-east, cocoa walked from tree to fermenting box to a small-batch chocolate factory on site, affiliated with the Grenada Chocolate Company and Grenada's organic cocoa farmers' co-operative.
Market Square
The capital's Saturday-morning market, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon and cocoa laid out beside the day's fish catch — the everyday, small-scale version of the trade the Gouyave station runs at industrial volume.
Table & stay ashore
From a harbourside crabback institution to the Caribbean's longest infinity pool.
BB's Crabback
On the Carenage in St George's — Grenada-born, Europe-trained Chef Brian Benjamin on land crab and oildown, the national dish, in a dining room built into the harbour view.
Rhodes Restaurant, Calabash
The Two-MICHELIN-Key hotel's dining room at L'Anse aux Epines, built around ingredients grown in Grenada's own soil.
Oliver's, Spice Island Beach Resort
Creole and international cooking on Grand Anse Beach, at a AAA Five Diamond resort under Hopkin family ownership.
Calabash Hotel
A family-owned Relais & Châteaux property at L'Anse aux Epines, holder of Two MICHELIN Keys, around twenty minutes from Maurice Bishop International.
Spice Island Beach Resort
Sixty-four suites on 1,600 feet of Grand Anse sand, more than half of them beachfront, with complimentary non-motorised watersports out of the anchorage.
Silversands Grand Anse
A Leading Hotels of the World address behind a 100-metre infinity pool, the longest in the Caribbean, ten minutes from the airport.
A week, sketched
St George's & Port Louis Marina
Board at Port Louis Marina in the lagoon behind the Carenage; the afternoon ashore under Fort George's bastions, dinner at BB's Crabback overlooking the harbour.
Molinere Bay & Grand Anse
A short run north to a mooring over the Underwater Sculpture Park, then round to Grand Anse for the afternoon — two miles of white sand behind the anchorage, dinner at Oliver's or the Beach Club at Calabash.
Gouyave & the spice coast
Up the leeward coast to Gouyave for the Nutmeg Processing Station, still handling the descendants of trees planted in 1843, then back to the south coast for the night.
Passage to Carriacou
The roughly 40-nautical-mile run north to Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou's main harbour and its own port of entry — a half-day passage, the afternoon free to clear in and settle.
Hillsborough & Sandy Island
Round to Hillsborough, Carriacou's small capital, then out to the reef-and-sandbar ground off Sandy Island for the afternoon.
Petite Martinique
A short hop on to Carriacou's sister island — quiet, boatbuilding-proud, with Mopion's one-palm sandbar a tender ride beyond it.
Return to St George's
The passage back south to Port Louis Marina to disembark, or on to True Blue Bay for a charter-fleet handover.
Pair with
The year, measured
Monthly means at the heart of this water — daily maxima averaged, wind as mean daily peak.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Air, day °C | 28 | 28 | 28 | 29 | 29 | 29 | 29 | 29 | 30 | 30 | 29 | 28 |
| Sea °C | 27 | 27 | 27 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 29 | 30 | 30 | 31 | 29 | 28 |
| Wind, peak kt | 12 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 12 |
ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo · 2019–2023 means · sea temperature 2022–2023
The yachts that run these waters
Profiles from the record — introductions via the harbour desk.
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