Carriacou has once again demonstrated it is archaeologically rich in historical artefacts and is a prime place for research in the archipelago of the Caribbean. This is evident as a 33 member team from the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands recently completed a one month excavation here, as part of a six year on going research project.

Archaeological research has uncovered prolific artefacts and brought new understanding of historical culture on the island of Carriacou

The directors of the program are Quetta Kaye from the UK, Scott Fitzpatrick from the USA and Michiel Kappers from the Netherlands. They all described the exercise as truly educational.

“Unusual numbers of burials and very interesting and rare pottery were discovered” said team leader, Kaye.

The area in Carriacou where the team spent most of their time, is the Grand-Bay area which is located to the eastern side of the island, along the coastline. The team stated that this particular site has the greatest concentration of artifacts and it is an extremely educational area for those who are the field of archaeology.

The research is changing the knowledge base of how the inhabitants of Carriacou lived in pre Columbian times. Researchers have uncovered pieces of pottery, tools, animal bones and even some human remains helping to understand the life and times of the Amerindians. Following the findings, the team visit the Carriacou Historical society where the items discovered are cleaned, washed, labeled, sealed and packed away at the same venue. Many of the findings are now housed at the Carriacou Historical Society Museum where they can be viewed.

The yearly research and discoveries by the visiting team has helped to propel Carriacou Island into a desirable destination for archeological research.

The team also appreciated the beauty of this 13 square mile island with its wonderful views and turquoise seas against the beautiful back-drop of Petite Martinique. Carriacou is an attractive place to conduct research and foreign archaeologists are increasingly interested to come, not only because of the fruitfulness of the research uncovering many artifacts, revealing more about the way of life of pre-European Amerindians, but because of the delightful surroundings.

The visit also allows the team to enjoy the social life of Carriacou which certainly adds another dimension to the one month stay. A special get together is arranged at the end of the program which is always an enjoyable time for the team. A prize is awarded for the top archeological student on the tour. This latest research has further enhanced the reputation of Carriacou as the ideal place for teams wanting to do research in the field of Archaeology.

The Maroon Heritage Village is a truly unspoilt and majestic venue, with enchanting features and a natural royal ambiance, and is known as the ‘cradle of culture’, on the beautiful 13 square mile isle of Carriacou.

Sitting at some 800 feet above sea level, this neatly tucked away facility is captivating beyond your wildest dreams: its head-spinning beauty is out of this world.

Beauty, culture and history all meet in this majestic venue for the Maroon and String Band Festival 2011

The tall trees offer shade during the day, and yet still allows moonlight to shine through the leaves at night time, making this place wonderfully special.

The Great House was once home to former Prime Ministers, Sir Eric Matthew Gairy, and later Maurice Bishop.

Whilst the great house has its original structure, depicting ancient architecture, the gingerbread house was constructed in contemporary times yet it was built in the traditional style of yesteryear. This is a reminder, that despite changing times, Carriacouans remain committed towards ensuring these buildings maintain an historical appearance.

A cannon is a further reminder that this island was aggressively fought for, by various nations in the 15th and 16th centuries, until finally it remained in the hands of the British from 1783.

Sweet relaxing sounds emanate from the wide variety of birds, adding to the desirability of the venue. Its location is close to the island’s Agricultural Research Station and the surrounding areas are mainly vegetation.

The Maroon village is dubbed the ‘cradle of culture’ as it reflects and showcases this islands varied and unique cultural practices.The venue will again stage the experience of the 2011 Carriacou Maroon and String Band Music Festival from Saturday April 30th

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Glorious, white, sandy beaches inviting romance, await visitors staying at the Hotel Laurena. This prestigious holiday accommodation offers special packages to help you further explore the island and discover its real enchanted spirit

Some of the world’s best beaches can be found amongst the many bays and cays on the island of Carriacou.

Sandy Island

One of the planet’s most renowned places to visit is the tiny Sandy Island, lying close to Hillsborough harbor and near to the Hotel Laurena. Offering white sands and beautifully clear water, this a perfect place for snorkelling or simply relaxing whilst surrounded by beauty.

Anse La Roche Beach

The Hotel can also arrange a trip for you to the secluded, quiet and sheltered, Anse La Roche beach which can be found to the north of the Island. It is accessible along a mile long trail, or, more excitingly by speedboat. It is one of Carriacou’s best kept secrets and is also one of the most beautiful places in Carriacou.

Paradise Beach

Paradise Beach is striking for its long stretch of silver, shining, white sand, and is another breathtaking spot for your enjoyment during your stay at Hotel Laurena. The sea is calm and sheltered which makes it good for swimming.

White Island

The name of White Island reflects the color of the sand. A haven for divers, this beach is south of Carriacou and another place that the Hotel Laurena can arrange for you to visit.

There are also several other unspoilt and appealing islands (Cays) which are simply unmissable.

Mopian Island

To the north of Carriacou there is Mopian Island which sits in royal majesty, as the warm waves lap up and down the sparkling, unspoilt, all white sand. These areas simply offer you the world’s best snorkelling experience.

Hotel Laurena gives you a complete opportunity to experience nature at its very best.

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Hillsborough Beach

And of course, there is the very pleasant Hillsborough beach, which is a five-minute stroll from the main hotel. Why not enjoy a lunch of jerk chicken at the Laurena II beach bar while taking in the view of the Caribbean?

It’s fair to say that getting to Carriacou is not quite as straightforward as hopping on a flight to NewYork or Miami, and you have to be a little bit creative. But this is all par for the course in the Caribbean, where things tend to be a bit laid back and flexible, and where it’s not a hanging offence to be late for an appointment.

Having said that, the easiest route is to get to Grenada first and then take the Britten Norman Islanders 9-seater SVG Air flight that is the only service of its kind operating between Grenada and Carriacou, taking about 20 minutes to get to Carriacou airport. One-way flights and children under 12 come at half price. The single flight leaves Grenada at different times each day of the week, and these are always subject to change so it’s best to book a reservation through the SVG Air website before heading out.

Getting to Grenada itself may present a problem, because there aren’t many direct services, but again a flexible approach helps and you’ll find plenty of opportunities for transiting from neighbouring islands in the region. Island hopping in the Grenadines is part of the fun of having a holiday here.

An alternative that will appeal to travellers looking for a bit of excitement and really getting in to the spirit of life in these islands is to emulate the famed Carriacou sloops and take the fast Osprey catamaran from Grenada to Carriacou. The trip takes about 90 minutes, and you can pick up a ticket at the dock. It works out a lot cheaper than flying, but be prepared for a possibly bumpy ride especially on the journey out from Grenada, and a couple of sea sickness pills before boarding might be a good idea.

The catamaran pushes off from the Carenage in St George’s, Grenada at 9:00 am each day, 8:00 am on Sundays, and arrives at Hillsborough Jetty in Carriacou, to make the return trip at 3:30 pm before another departure from Grenada at 5:30 pm.

If your stomach can handle it the Osprey alternative will certainly get your holiday off to a great start – you can’t beat racing through the clear blue Caribbean waters with the spray, wind and sun on your face and a lush, green sliver of paradise approaching on the horizon.

Another popular route to Carriacou is via Barbados to Grenada, and you get to choose between two airlines for the first leg of the trip, LIAT and Caribbean Star, then use the Osprey or SVG Air to Carriacou. SVG Air also does a private charter flight.

From the USA there are daily flights from JFK in New York to Air Jamaica’s Montego Bay hub, and American Airlines have flights from Miami to Grenada and route their Caribbean services through the hub in San Juan, Puerto Rica. For travellers from Europe BA, Monarch Airlines and Virgin Atlantic all run weekly flights to Grenada.

However you choose to get to Carriacou, you’ll find that the minor inconveniences are far outweighed by the warmth and hospitality of the islanders and the stunning natural beauty of the unspoilt island itself once you’ve arrived.

The music of a country is an indication of the essential character of its people. Germany has Wagner, solid and serious; Britain has the Pomp and Circumstance of Last Night of the Proms, still dreaming of her lost glory; and Carriacou has Reggae and Calypso. I rest my case. Carriacou music lies at the heart of the island.

The people of Carriacou, Grenada and the Grenadines have sung and danced their way through a succession of foreign interferences, and watched the old European empires come and go like so many outdated vaudeville acts. Their spirit remains intact, and Carriacou’s music continues.

Grenadian and Carriacou music is a mix of old and new, and derives from European colonial influences as well as African rhythms. French quadrilles and picquets can be glimpsed in some of the dances, as well as evolved African traditions. Zouk, a style of French Caribbean music, has been influencing the traditional calypso in recent years and causing concern to some purists. But in truth this is a process of adaptation and evolution that has always been going on here in the Caribbean melting pot of peoples and cultures.

A dominant force in Grenadian music is Steel Pan, which came originally from neighbouring Trinidad and is evolving all the time just like jazz. There are drum groups, with an annual drum festival in Tivoli village on Grenada, and folk dancing is ubiquitous, keeping alive the old traditions.

With major Carnivals on Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique, there’s plenty of opportunity to sample the full range of costumes, music and dance that animates these vibrant islands throughout the year.
The Shakespeare Mas on Carriacou, part of the annual Carnival, even has the performers reciting speeches from Julius Caesar in a tradition that has been going on for hundreds of years.

The African influence on music is especially strong in Carriacou, where everyone knows which African tribe they’re descended from. Each tribe has its own rhythm in the Nation Dancing that marks special events. Improvisation around a core theme marks the music of these parts, and nothing much is actually written down, with players having the freedom they crave to express themselves without upsetting the rest of the band, who adapt accordingly to create new forms, and so it goes on.

The rhythms of calypso and reggae, and the flexible approach of the musicians, uninhibited by any notions of correct practice, precedent or deference, express an intrinsic quality of the island people themselves.

Whether its sloops racing against the customs men in smuggling days or against one another in the Annual Regatta, or steel pan improvisations spiralling and fragmenting into new compositions, there is a spirit of freedom and openness here that many visitors find completely irresistible.

Nutmeg, that bottle of spice you toss into your basket at the supermarket along with the cloves, coriander and bergamot, has a rich and exotic history.

What it means to most us now is something cheap and cheery to tart up the rice pudding and eggnog, but just a cursory glance at how this humble accompaniment made its way to our dinner tables opens up an historical Pandora’s Box of skulduggery, greed and Imperial competition in the Caribbean. The history of nutmeg is a lesson in power politics and colonialism.

A quick word about the nutmeg plant itself first. It is to Grenada what the pig is to Germany. Every bit of it is used, nothing wasted. The plant grows up to 30 feet and the fruit’s 3 layers are the outer pericarp, used for jelly; a red membrane called mace, a twin spice; and the seed. Even the outer shell is used as garden mulch.

Nutmeg originates from the Far East, in the Banda Islands. In the Middle Ages its trade was managed by Arabs, who kept its location a secret. In 1511 the Portuguese got in on the act when they took control of Malacca, and stuffed several ships full of nutmeg on Banda, but it was their overlords the Spanish who first started exploiting the crop for the European market.

When the Dutch muscled their way onto the scene in 1621 they massacred or deported most of Banda’s inhabitants and took over what was by now a lucrative trade in nutmeg spice.

In Europe, especially England, it was worth its weight in gold as a reputed cure for the plague, and was already widely used in Asia as an aphrodisiac.

The Dutch tried desperately to protect their most valuable commodity by coating the seeds in lime before selling the fruit, to prevent propagation and competition.
Pigeons unintentionally thwarted this cunning plan when they spread the seeds to other islands in their droppings, and the Dutch put much effort into destroying these nutmeg diasporas to keep the price up. Even so, the wily French managed to smuggle germinating seeds onto Mauritius.

The history of nutmeg entered the final leg of its journey to modern supermarkets when British merchants in the West Indies in the early 1800s went to assist their colleagues in the East Indies with sugar extraction techniques, and in the quiet and polite British way pocketed a number of nutmeg seeds. These they planted in the gardens of estate plantations on Grenada and the crops prospered.

A final act of God on behalf of the British, in the form of a crop disaster that hit the Dutch Indonesian trade in 1850, put Grenada firmly on the map as the Spice Island of the Caribbean when its production of nutmeg was put into overdrive to fill the gap.
Grenada now produces almost a third of the globe’s nutmeg, and its importance to the island is so great that it has an honoured place on the flag.

So why think about Carriacou? On a day like this, watching the rain come down in sheets from a sky the color of old dishwater, and feeling about as full of the joys of life as a wet rag, what do you do?

If you’re anything like most people you’ll be irresistibly fantasising about sunshine and long, deserted beaches. But not beaches in the usual tourist places. In your imagination you’ll be pulled to the extremes of solitude and peace, to desert islands scattered in the middle of wide, blue seas: to a castaway existence beyond the reach of unsolicited and crass emails, phone calls and bosses.

Paradise on earth really does exist, and it’s not just a legend either. It’s in the Eastern Caribbean, and clearly marked on the map. But it’s so small that you’ll need a magnifying lens to see it.

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Imagine being transported magically out of this miserable daily toil of deadlines and chores, and suddenly feeling the hot sun on your face and warm water lapping gently at your feet. Wriggle your toes experimentally and you feel sand sifting between them. Take off your sunglasses, open your eyes and you see a wide, long, white, crescent-shaped strip of beach with a margin of palm trees bending in a cooling breeze.

Have you died and gone to heaven? Not at all! This is Carriacou, 13 square miles of unspoilt loveliness, a tiny but flawless diamond lying in the clear waters of the Caribbean.

Carriacou is part of the Grenadines, a group of 200 small islands between Grenada and St Vincent that looks like a trail of precious jewels flung across the sea by some jovial, sparkling-eyed god.

Carriacou means ‘Isle of Reefs’ and you can see why as you shade your eyes to watch white surf breaking lazily in parallel lines just off the coast. This is what Robinson Crusoe must have felt like.

Carriacou Grenada has not been targeted by the international jet set in the way that some of its neighbours have, like Mustique and Palm Island. It’s one of the few places left where you can rediscover your centre of gravity, which tends to get lost in a storm of petty concerns back home; a place to truly chill out and recharge your drained batteries.

Within the Grenadine chain, Carriacou forms a mini-group with its two closest neighbours, Grenada and Petite Martinique, and has a dry and a rainy season. But even in the rainy season the sun still blazes down most of the time, and the rain lashes the palm trees only in short bursts of fifteen minutes or so, and usually at night. Nature here has benignly conspired to make life as pleasant as possible for the island’s 5,000 residents.
So next time you find yourself wondering what you’re doing stuck in a meaningless nine-to-five job in a city that seems to be hell-bent on destroying your soul, let your imagination take wing and make a date with Carriacou Grenada. A couple of weeks here and you can return home ready to take on anything civilisation can throw at you.

The history of Grenada and the Grenadine islands has been a chequered one, and as far as the West is concerned it all began in 1498. In that year they were ‘discovered’ by Columbus, though some islanders might have ridiculously imagined they had been chugging along quite happily for centuries before he arrived. The native Kalinago islanders called it Camahogne.

After its discovery there was precious little peace for Grenada as it was bounced between Western Imperial Powers like a ping-pong ball, the fate of many earthly paradises in this part of the world, and collateral damage from major European players competing frantically to extend their colonies in the 17th century.

The Spanish noted it down on their expanding map of the world, but did not bother to settle permanently, being more interested in finding Eldorado with its fabled riches to fill the coffers of the Imperial crown. English attempts to settle there failed shortly afterwards.

Grenada was colonised by the Governor of Martinique and subsequently became a French possession in 1674. They named the island Le Grenade and it became a wealthy colony, exporting mainly sugar. Cardinal Richelieu ordered the establishment of Fort Royal, later to be renamed St George’s by the British, to provide shelter for the navy in the island’s incomparable natural harbour.

The history of Grenada continued apace as the British got their hands on it as part of the Treaty of Paris that concluded the Seven Years War in 1763, and Grenada stayed in British hands for almost two hundred years, despite a slave revolt in 1795.

Things started to pick up again when the scattered remnants of the British Empire started to implode in the 1940s, and the United Labour Party under Matthew Gairy won universal adult suffrage rights in 1950. The whole of the Windward Islands, including Grenada and the Grenadines, became self-governing in 1956 and joined the West Indies Federation, which lasted until 1962.

In 1974 Grenada under Gairy gained full independence, although he was himself deposed in a coup led by Maurice Bishop in 1979. As Bishop was head of the New Jewel Movement which espoused Marxist principles and closer links with Cuba and the USSR, this was tantamount to begging for American military intervention. When he was killed in another coup in 1983 the US duly obliged, leaving later in the same year after establishing a democratic government.

Throughout the 1980s under Prime Minister Herbert Blaise, Grenada established a degree of political stability, though an austerity programme had to be introduced at the end of the decade following near collapse of the economy.
Keith Mitchell’s NNP party won elections in 1995; he was defeated in 2008 by Tillman Thomas, and sworn in as Leader of the Opposition eight days later.

Considering their turbulent history as chess pieces in European power struggles, it’s a little ironic that what tourists most value in the Grenadines nowadays is precisely what was already there before Columbus breezed through: peace and tranquillity.

Carriacou in the West Indies is a true paradise of a tropical island, part of the Grenadine chain that stretches between Grenada and St Vincent, and the southernmost of the group.

The international jet set has infected a few of the other islands in the Grenadines (and consequently most other Grenada hotels), like a virus. Mustique is a prime example.

But if you’re looking for some real peace and quiet you don’t need to worry about any spoilt narcissists competing for attention on Carriacou. The long, crescent-shaped beaches and swaying palms are relatively untouched.

Earthly paradises like Carriacou Island tend to sit on fault lines of one kind or another, and this indeed is what they have to thank for their idyllic appearance – the hidden menace beneath the tranquil waters and gently swaying palms.

Atolls, lagoons and archipelagos of islands with gently sloping beaches that slide into clear blue sea are in the process of sinking like the fabled Atlantis beneath the very azure waters that make them so appealing. They’re also often assisted in their stage exits by volcanic eruptions, again thanks to faults and fissures beneath the surface. It’s the price they pay for a spectacular but transient beauty.

But this is a process of gradual change. We’re talking millions and millions of years, and you don’t need to lose any sleep over it.

The Rocks of Carriacou

Now for the science, as they say. Actually, the geology of islands like Carriacou is what gives them their distinctive appearance, and it’s not as boring as it sounds.

The island of Carriacou for example is composed of two-thirds volcanic rock. The contours of the island, beneath its trees and beaches, are determined by the ways in which lava has flowed from volcanoes over millions of years.

There’s a lot going on deep down in the earth beneath the Grenadines. Either the North or the South American Plate is sliding or crunching its way beneath the Caribbean Plate. Scientists haven’t yet discovered which one is moving.

The boundaries where the plates are meeting each other are marked by volcanic activity as immense pressures are exerted that force molten rock to the surface. This has been going on for millennia, and from the Virgin Islands to Venezuela there’s an arc of 17 active volcanoes.

Carriacou Island – Underwater Volcanoes

Only 10 km north of Grenada the amusingly-named Kick-‘em-Jenny submarine volcano is on full alert to cause trouble. It’s as well to have a sense of humour when dealing with things as unstoppable as volcanoes. Kick-‘em-Jenny has erupted several times, most recently in 1990.

On Carriacou in the West Indies research has been ongoing in connection with interpreting the complex tectonics of the region. Carriacou’s rocks were formed in the Cenezoic Era, after the time of the dinosaurs, and the record in these rocks has played an important part in understanding the geological history of the area, apparently called the Southern Lesser Antilles Arc Platform.

And Finally . . . How To Impress!

Next time you’re at a cocktail do on Carriacou, which hopefully will be some day very soon, you can astound them with your extensive knowledge of plate tectonics in the region. Or on second thoughts maybe you should just keep your mouth safely shut, join in the party and sway to Calypso rhythms…