Advertisement

Mariella Frostrup returns to her Caribbean childhood stamping ground after 30 years

'The picture-postcard depictions of perfect sandy beaches and coconut palms tend to eclipse the raw, elemental appeal of these tropical idylls' - Geoffrey Fletcher Northside ME14 3BL
'The picture-postcard depictions of perfect sandy beaches and coconut palms tend to eclipse the raw, elemental appeal of these tropical idylls' - Geoffrey Fletcher Northside ME14 3BL

There’s a unique sumptuousness to a West Indian morning; waking heavy with sleep, after a night of vivid dreaming, the tropical heat leaving a sheen of sweat on the skin. It felt deliciously familiar as I lay in torpor, the filtered, silvery sunlight reflecting the palm fronds through shutters on to white sheets in my Bequia Beach Hotel room.

My first encounter with these island nations was in my 20s and it’s a love affair that’s lasted much longer than any I embarked on during those faraway romantically adventuring days. The picture-postcard depictions of perfect sandy beaches and coconut palms tend to eclipse the raw, elemental appeal of these tropical idylls. I love the heat, and the rain, the dramatic changes of light on the water, the black outline of islands on a moonlit sea, the crazy 50 shades of azure that mark the sun-filled daylight hours, the soft white sand, the roti, goat curry and callaloo soup, the sugary doughnuts and even the headache-inducing rum punch. The music never fails to get me on the dance floor (helped by the punch) and though philistines dismiss soca and calypso as cruise boat tunes, they surely haven’t heard Calypso Rose and Roaring Lion, David Rudder and Arrow, to name but a few musical giants. 

This summer I returned after three decades to my old stamping ground of Bequia, in St Vincent and the Grenadines. I last frequented this ancient whaling station, a history proudly celebrated in its graphic black and white flag, in the early Nineties. The second-largest in the chain of islands running from St Vincent down to Union Island in the south, it has been favoured over the centuries for its sheltered mooring. Perhaps thanks to the transitory nature of its nautical visitors, Bequia remains authentically Caribbean both in character and pace of life. Back in the Eighties when I first arrived, it was quite an adventure to reach, involving a flight to Barbados, then to St Vincent and a two-hour sail on a locally built schooner, the Friendship Rose. With only your luggage to sit on, you fought for deck space with chickens, goats and residents transporting their monthly grocery shopping in assorted carrier bags and panniers. Since then an airport has opened, but aside from a few luxury villas dotted around the eight-square mile island, and a couple of small hotels, little has changed. 

A cacophony of colourful buildings, pink, lime-green, bright blue and yellow, dot the harbour front, with vegetable carts piled high with plantains, mangoes, coconuts and pineapples awaiting boats in need of restocking, particularly those with depleted larders after the long Atlantic crossing. In high season there’s a festive spirit to this natural harbour and tiny bustling port, but when we visited, at the height of summer, tourists were thin on the ground and the world moved more slowly. Time even slipped backwards as I walked the narrow Belmont Walkway weaving along the harbour front, passing old haunts such as Mac’s Pizza, the Gingerbread House and the macabre Whaleboner Bar, its entrance and bar itself created from the eponymous ocean giant’s skeleton. 

It’s a luxury of middle age to travel back, particularly in a world that relentlessly projects us forward. I took a beer with Bob Sachs, the now-retired American owner of Dive Bequia, who taught me how to scuba dive and whose hand-signal for idiotic behaviour (the sign of the turkey, so familiar while I was his student), reappeared within moments of sitting down. The decades disappeared as we discussed the drama of Christmas 1987 when our dive boat sank and, Dunkirk style, we had to be rescued by a flotilla of tiny local vessels.

Mariella with daughter Molly, above right,
Mariella with daughter Molly

On our second Hairoun beer came the too familiar round-up of people who’d died, the children who had been born and the businesses that had opened and closed. Later the two local boys who now run the dive shop took us back to the Wall, a dramatic vertiginous dive site just outside the harbour. There in 1985, suffering nitrogen narcosis, I set off to find the wreck that lay at 300ft, to be saved from my madness by Bob hauling me up from the depths. On this occasion, schooling mackerel and a curious barracuda circled us and although global warming and pollution have taken a toll on the soft corals and once abundant tropical fish, there remained the enduring thrill of swimming over the ledge to gaze down hundreds of feet into the big blue. 

We stayed at the Bequia Beach Hotel, a relative newcomer, where we were among a mere scattering of tourists in what’s considered low season, but seemed pretty perfect to us. A series of two-storey bungalows along the edge of the unspoilt mile-long white sand of Friendship Bay, the hotel is a medley of Old Havana style, with rattan chairs, wooden beds and posters of vintage swimwear-clad couples sipping cocktails in Fifties-style resorts. In the poolside bar, a lively local band blasted out the rhythms of the islands, outnumbering their audience of four (our family), but performing as though to a full house in Vegas. Our energetic applause echoed across the empty dance floor, but the band thanked us effusively before announcing with theatrical aplomb “ladies and gentlemen, time for just one more before the end of the night!” My jet-lagged son felt so bad for them that he remained in his seat until the bitter end despite drooping eyelids. 

After two days tripping down memory lane, we gave in to the lure of the open ocean and boarded the 52ft sailboat Dauntless. Our hosts Judy and Jim were US citizens late of Chesapeake Bay who’d embraced retirement on the high seas, offering their spacious, pristine new yacht, built in 2017, for charter in the Grenadines and Virgin Islands. Our plan was to sail down to Tobago Cays, five tiny deserted islands enclosed by a reef, popular as a turtle sanctuary and most recently made famous as a location in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. En route we passed the larger islands of Canouan, where an eerily deserted multimillion-pound new marina seemed to be waiting for customers, and Mayreau, home to Dennis’s Hideaway, one of the Grenadines’ most iconic establishments and beloved of local sailors. It was a pleasure to find Dennis himself, still playing the best and loudest music outside St Vincent and looking much the same as he had back in the day, although his cousin’s three-day wedding, ongoing in the background, had bent him slightly out of shape.

The day after we arrived at the Cays, a storm was brewing and we were grateful for our protected anchorage, as the wind whipped up white caps beyond the protection of the enclosing reef. One of the last safe moorings before Grenada, these tiny jewels are also the closest I’ve come outside Hollywood to the desert island fantasy, nothing but glistening white sand, tangled green vegetation, and crystal-clear water running from liquid blue to indigo. The only attribute they used to lack for the perfect Instagram was palm trees. Now, thanks to a starring role in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, one of the five, Petit Tabac, where Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth were marooned, boasts a cluster of coconut palms, especially planted to improve the location’s “authenticity”. When I first visited, local fishermen camped here while gathering stock, but nowadays it’s a protected hawksbill turtle sanctuary. You can’t kill them, but you can swim with them! Donning masks and flippers, we spent a thrilling morning under brooding skies following these graceful creatures as they meandered their way through the sea. 

A few days on a sailboat offers a valuable lesson in how we need to live now. Super-yachts are the great polluters – massive, multimillion-pound resource gobblers cruising the high seas guzzling vast quantities of fuel and power to keep their guests in air-conditioned, seven-star luxury splendour. A sailing boat offers the polar opposite. Regular sea salts will know all about the water conservation rules, the selective use of the generator, how to eke out supplies to last a voyage and the need to find ingenious ways to coexist in a small space. If we could all live like sailors have to, we’d certainly have a more sustainable planet.

The Bequia Beach Hotel - Credit: Getty
The Bequia Beach Hotel Credit: Getty

Unfortunately we experienced one of the downsides of essential resource conservation when Dauntless ran out of water while in the Cays. So, with the weather closing in and even bigger seas predicted, we decided to cut our losses and run the gauntlet of the storm; sitting on deck wrapped in towels, listening to Judy and Jim’s soothing soft-rock playlist and keeping our eyes fixed on the horizon, not on the huge swell. Six hours later and energised by the experience, we sailed into the harbour in Mustique, Bequia’s glitzy next-door neighbour, which is more of an ex-pat colony than a thriving island. To discourage day-trippers they offer no services to passing boats so it’s rare to see more than a handful of vessels moored in the harbour. Luckily we had friends on land so exceptions were made and we headed to meet them in the newly built Basil’s Bar, the iconic hotspot favoured by royalty, superstars and the super-rich. After a few medicinal rum punches and an exaggerated retelling of our adventures, the ups and downs of our voyage back were obliterated. Invited to stop over, we bade a fond farewell to Jim and Judy, who set sail back to Bequia. 

We spent our last night enjoying all the frills that only a large bank balance and lack of conscience can buy, including a tub of caviar, ice-cool air-conditioning, lashings of hot water and late-night dips in a vast, palm tree-shaded heated swimming pool.

The essentials

Carrier (0161 492 1354, carrier.co.uk) offers seven nights from £2,230 per person based on two adults sharing a Deluxe Room at Bequia Beach Hotel, St Vincent and The Grenadines on a half-board basis. The price includes return flights from Heathrow with British Airways, and transfers. Based on departure date of March 16 2019. 

Indigo Bay Yacht Charters (02380 813909; indigobayyachtcharter.com) offers sailing, motor yachts and catamarans for luxury crewed charter around the Caribbean. Available, all inclusive, from $2,500 (£2,000) per person per week.