Carriacou to Canouan

On Canouan, we stayed at the Tamarind Bay Hotel, where you could walk off the porch of our room right onto the sand and housekeeping left fresh flowers on our pillows after the daily cleaning.  Being in such fancy digs, served three delicious meals a day without having to leave the grounds, was initially a welcome respite.  But leaving the hotel on the second day to explore the small town where the locals stared at us coldly reminded me of the dark side of resort life.  Canouan’s only major development in the past twenty years has been in the form of several high-end resorts.  I can only imagine how it must feel to the locals to have their island overtaken in such a way.  

By far, the most interesting aspect of our visit to Canouan was getting there.  We planned to take the mailboat from Carriacou to Union Island where we would spend the night, leaving for Canouan on a dive boat – and stopping for a dive along the way - the following day. 

The captain of the mailboat, “Lady JJ,” a 20-foot converted fishing boat, told us to be there around one o’clock.  We arrived at a quarter til and watched as they loaded cases – beer, soda, diapers, rice – tossing them from man to man from the truck to the concrete jetty to the boat.  They also loaded large, plastic barrels with contents unknown to us.  How, I wondered, did they plan to fit so much cargo, our luggage, and the seven passengers, including us, who all seemed to be waiting for departure on the jetty?  We waited on the jetty in the blasting sun until two o’clock, by which time the last shipment had arrived.  Quite suddenly, a queue formed at the steps down to the boat as seven or so more passengers arrived from out of nowhere.  We climbed aboard and found seats on the benches running the length of the boat on either side.  Diesel fumes poured into the covered seating area from the engine as we pulled away from the jetty.

“Naw!  Naw!  Y’all knew what time da boat lef!”  one of the crewmembers called out suddenly, and we looked to see two men running the last stretch of jetty, waving.  The boat idled in place about fifty feet from dock for several moments as the crew negotiated what to do, deciding to enlist the help of a yachtsman who was just then untying his dinghy from the jetty.  They called out to him, and the two men were soon shuttled out to our boat, where they climbed aboard smiling.  The men were well-dressed:  one in khakis and a plaid, oxford shirt; the other in black leather pants, a red polo shirt, and around his neck, a thick gold chain and an expensive-looking pair of headphones.  As they found seats, they bantered and laughed familiarly with the crew and a couple of other locals already onboard.  In such moments, I can understand little of what’s being said, despite having grown up listening to Bahamians, but it feels nice just to be in the midst of their easy, joking, back and forth.

We set off into the deep seas where the waves were high enough to come splashing into the boat through the seams in the windows.  When the spray doused a woman sitting nearby, one of the crewmen, with grey cornrows and plastic sandals cloudy and yellowed with age, used a screwdriver to stuff rags into the crevasses.  There was an Italian family of four and a young Finn traveling alone; the rest of the passengers were local.  We were all pressed together shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip.  At one point the boat came to a chugging halt and the crewmen started climbing around the boat with sober expressions.  Looking out the window, I realized the boat was riding so low that the water was about ten inches from the top edge of the hull.  But in only a few tense minutes we were moving again.  Toby drifted off into her usual boat-ride-induced-snooze on Justin’s lap and he and I, sweaty and rumpled, smiled across at one another thinking the same thought:  Now this is an adventure.  An hour later we reached Union Island alive.