Mayreau

Tom on the NE windward side of Mayreau

This small island in the Grenadines has two main anchorages.  The guidebooks say Salt Whistle Bay is the stuff of postcards.  Saline Bay is bigger and perhaps a tad better anchorage.  We did a drive by of both upon arrival - they are close to each other.  We opted for Saline Bay.  Salt Whistle Bay is small and chuck full of charter cats on mooring balls.  So much so that you can practically walk from cat to cat.

Island power plant -four huge generators

We did however walked up and over the hill from our anchorage in Saline Bay to check Salt Whistle Bay out.  And I do mean up and over a very, very steep hill - huff puff.   But first we stopped for lunch in the village at the top of the hill.  Lobster sandwich for me and a club sandwich for Tom. YUM!

THE road and the one passing area

There is basically one main road on Mayreau.  Did you get that?  ONE!  It is a pour concrete one lane road with one small passing area.  The handful of cars, trucks, and micro vans honk when climbing the hill so anyone coming from the other direction will know they are coming.  And I do mean handful of vehicles.  There are not many - maybe 20 max + 3 scooters.  Most people walk.  We sat and visited a bit with some locals.  Mirabella runs Uncle B's waterside restaurant and limin stop.  Uncle B is the Mayreau guy for all the cruise ships that stop here.  He is the liaison that coordinates the ship beach parties and the locals selling goods.  Mirabella says she walks up and down the hill from the village to the beach shack 6 times a day.  At the very least twice a day as do all the locals working on the beach.  We stayed two nights in Saline Bay.  There were three small cruise ships in during those two days but they were off the beaches and back on the ships by 17:00.  One left almost immediately after we arrived.  The first night there were 10 sailboats and the second 5.

What is it?

Any guesses on what the above picture is?  Anyone?  Anyone?  It is one of two cisterns on the island.  The rain hits the sloped area that is covered in ancient stone and mortar and then flows down into the corner where it flows via gravity and piping into the square storage cistern.  Pretty clever.

Windward Mayreau beach all to ourselves - Tobago Cays in the distance 

Many people skip Mayreau as they rush around the corner to the Tabago Cays.  Sad as we found it lovely.