About 270 people live on Mayreau, the smallest inhabited island in the Grenadines: one and a half square kilometres of hills, a single concrete road, no airport. When a ship anchors in Saline Bay and the tenders drop passengers off at the small landing, the population sometimes doubles for the day. Visitors who accept this radical change of scene experience one of the simplest and most endearing ports of call in the Caribbean.

The Village on the Hill

From the landing, the only concrete path climbs between colourful houses, bougainvillea gardens and goats dozing in the shade. In a fifteen-minute climb, you reach the top of the village, where the Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception, blessed in 1930, watches over the horizon. From its forecourt, the view takes in the entire southern Grenadines: the Tobago Cays, Union, Palm Island and Petit St. Vincent form a scattering of green patches on the blue. Locals wave, offer an iced juice and tell of the not-so-distant time when there was no electricity here yet. Many earn their living on excursion boats to the nearby Tobago Cays; others tend a garden, run a canteen or troll for fish, as their parents did before them.

Salt Whistle Bay, the Perfect Crescent

On the other side of the hill, the road descends to Salt Whistle Bay, one of the most photographed coves in the Caribbean Sea. A strip of sand about thirty metres wide separates the sheltered bay on the leeward side from the Atlantic rollers on the windward side: you go from still water to a lively sea in a few strides. Leaning coconut palms provide shade, a few shacks serve grilled fish and rum punches, and kitesurfers play with the trade winds offshore. In the morning, before the sailboats arrive, you often have the sandbar to yourself. Allow 25 to 30 minutes on foot from the landing, or a short water taxi ride negotiated at the dock.

The Anchorage Beach

Less avid walkers need only follow the shore: Saline Bay beach borders the anchorage directly. Long, pale and rarely crowded, it is perfect for a swim as soon as you step off the tender. Snorkellers follow the rocky points at either end, where trumpetfish and schools of fry swim. Behind the beach remain traces of the salt ponds that gave the bay its name and once sustained the island's modest trade.

A Lesson in Happy Simplicity

Mayreau offers no museum, no duty-free shop, no large-scale motorized excursion. That is precisely its strength. You walk, you swim, you talk. Children come home from school in uniform, fishermen mend their fish traps, local rum is poured without ceremony. For many cruisers, this day without a program unexpectedly becomes the most vivid memory of the itinerary.

Port Essentials

When It Is Time to Leave

In the evening, as the tender pulls away, the village lights up faintly on its hill and the smell of grilled food still drifts across the bay. You leave Mayreau with a question in mind: how many places like this remain in the Caribbean? The answer can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and this one is among the best preserved.