Cumberland Bay St Vincent (Part 1)

Nicky looking sceptical about the rain showers    

Our sail north on Thursday 15 February worked out very well for us. We’d decided to sail just 18miles north to Cumberland Bay to break up the long sail up to St Lucia. We had a good wind and made excellent progress, the only slight issue was the series of rain squalls. But they cleared quickly and when the sun came out again St Vincent ahead looked glorious. Many sailors bypass St Vincent because it has a poor reputation; yachts are often hassled by pushy boat-boys and there are lots of reports of thefts. Cumberland Bay, however, came recommended by several of the OCC friends we had chatted to, hence our choice of destination for the night.

Bays on the west side of St Vincent and our destination appearing (bottom)   

St Vincent did look to be quite beautiful with volcanic peaks and lush green vegetation. Wallilabou Bay, just a mile south of Cumberland, is where ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ was filmed and so I guess that Hollywood has deemed St Vincent to be the perfect-looking Caribbean island.

Kenny touting for mooring business as we approached Cumberland Bay   

Cumberland Bay is very deep; too deep to anchor in the middle of the bay. However, there is a narrow shelf close to the shoreline and so the procedure is to drop your anchor on this shelf and then tie the yacht back to a tree with a long line. We are very familiar with this technique from our time in Turkey but here several of the locals have made it their business to help visiting yachts with this ‘unusual’ mooring technique. Kenny met us well outside the bay and followed us in. Having negotiated a price and a position with which that we were happy, he ran our long line ashore and secured it to a post. We were one of about 6 yachts there and, as the new arrival, immediately became the focus of the local traders.

‘Rastaman Joseph’ and Juniel – a local artisan

Our pilot book states that, ‘Although some of the locals look like bad guys in a spaghetti western, for the most part they couldn’t be nicer and more helpful’. That very much matched our experience. We bought passion fruit from one and a huge paw-paw/papaya from another to spread our support to the local economy. All were super fresh and much better than we had found in the shops. ‘Ratsaman Joseph’ brought Juniel out to see us but her embroidered bags and picture frames were not to our taste. There was no pressure to buy and everyone was incredibly polite and obviously very proud of their beautiful bay.

Mojito, the restaurant where we had dinner   

Tucked away under the palm trees that fringe the beach there are 5 local and one French restaurant. We chose to eat dinner at Mojito in the northeast corner of the bay; it was all good fun and the setting in the bay is just lovely. Visiting yachts are the main source of income for this quiet, largely unspoilt and charming location; we were made to feel very welcome.

Cumberland bay, St Vincent, the St Vincent Grenadines