July 20, 2026•7 min read•By Maurits Dierick, Charter Broker & Former Yacht Captain
Grenadines Yacht Charter: St Lucia to Grenada (2026)
The Pitons, a private island, and two nights in a turtle sanctuary behind a reef. The Grenadines is the wild end of the Caribbean.
The Grenadines are the wild, empty end of the Caribbean charter map.
Where the BVI is busy and social, this route runs down the Windwards through islands that are barely inhabited or entirely uninhabited: a private island where a hundred villas share the whole place, a marine park of five islets behind a reef, a turtle sanctuary you anchor in. It opens under the Pitons and ends at Grenada, and there are two proper passage days that keep the crowds off it.
It runs 143 nautical miles one-way from St Lucia to Grenada, crossing three countries on the way down.
Before we dive in, it's worth noting the route below is also available as an interactive map on our Caribbean charter page.
The route
St Lucia → Bequia → Mustique → Tobago Cays → Union Island → Carriacou → Grenada.
Eight days, 143 nautical miles, one-way from St Lucia to Grenada. Two passage days up front, then short hops through the island chain.
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Day 1: The Pitons (Soufriere, St Lucia)
Board at Rodney Bay and run twenty miles down St Lucia's leeward coast. Anchoring is banned inside the Soufriere Marine Management Area, so a ranger assigns you a mooring under Petit Piton.
The two Pitons, Gros at 798 metres and Petit at 743, have been UNESCO-listed since 2004 and look implausible from a deck chair. Late afternoon: the Sulphur Springs mud baths at the drive-in volcano, or a snorkel off Anse Chastanet. Dinner at Dasheene, on the ridge between the peaks.
Passage: 3 hours, 20 nm. Mooring: SMMA moorings beneath Petit Piton. Beach: Sugar Beach (Anse des Pitons). Dining: Dasheene at Ladera, Boucan by Hotel Chocolat.
Day 2: Bequia (Admiralty Bay)
The passage day: fifty-one miles south past the length of St Vincent, with La Soufriere, which last erupted in April 2021, at its northern end. Around seven hours under way, arriving mid-afternoon in Admiralty Bay, one of the great natural harbours of the Windwards.
Bequia is the last of the Caribbean's working boatbuilding islands. Walk the Belmont Walkway to Princess Margaret Beach, take sundowners at Jack's, and try the lobster pizza at Mac's, famous since the 1980s.
Passage: 7 hours, 51 nm, dawn start. Mooring: Admiralty Bay. Beach: Princess Margaret Beach. Dining: Jack's Beach Bar, Mac's Pizza & Kitchen, Frangipani Hotel.
Day 3: Mustique (Britannia Bay)
A nine-mile hop. Mustique has been private since Colin Tennant bought it in 1958 and gave Princess Margaret a plot as a wedding gift; a hundred villas share it now, and the guest book runs from Bowie and Jagger onward. Yachts take a mooring at Britannia Bay.
Rent a mule, the island's golf-cart taxi: Macaroni Beach is the swim, the tortoises own the roads, and the villa gates give nothing away. Basil's Bar, rebuilt over the water to a Philippe Starck design, runs its jump-up on Wednesdays.
Passage: 1.5 hours, 9 nm. Mooring: Britannia Bay. Beach: Macaroni Beach. Dining: Basil's Bar, The Cotton House, Firefly Mustique.
Day 4: Tobago Cays (Baradal)
Eighteen miles past Canouan into the Tobago Cays: five uninhabited islets behind Horseshoe Reef, all of it a protected marine park. Anchor in the lee of Baradal, whose seagrass beds are a turtle sanctuary; green turtles graze in chest-deep water.
The reef keeps the Atlantic out and the anchorage flat. Petit Tabac, the palm-tuft islet outside the reef, is where Jack Sparrow was marooned in Pirates of the Caribbean. In the evening the licensed vendors run a lobster barbecue on Petit Bateau, tables in the sand.
Passage: 3 hours, 18 nm. Mooring: Baradal (Tobago Cays Marine Park). Beach: Petit Bateau. Dining: beach barbecue on Petit Bateau.
Day 5: Tobago Cays, second day
The extra day nobody regrets. The yacht stays put and the toys do the work: World's End Reef for snorkelling or diving, flat water behind the reef for kitesurfing, sandbars in between.
For lunch, tender to Mayreau, the smallest inhabited island in the Grenadines. Salt Whistle Bay is a double-sided sandspit with palms down the middle, and Righteous & The Youths serves conch and rum in a room that is half bar, half museum. Second night in the Cays, no light pollution for miles.
No passage. Mooring: Baradal (Tobago Cays Marine Park). Beach: Salt Whistle Bay, Mayreau. Dining: Righteous & The Youths (Mayreau).
Day 6: Union Island (Chatham Bay)
Six miles, with a stop at Clifton first: the crew clears you out of St Vincent and the Grenadines while you have a drink at Happy Island, a bar built by hand on the reef edge out of conch shells. It is exactly as good as it sounds.
Then around to Chatham Bay, a wide undeveloped amphitheatre with a handful of beach shacks grilling the day's catch and nothing else. Sun Beach & Eat does fish and lobster with your feet in the sand. Night at anchor under the ridge.
Browse the fleet
Crewed yachts for every kind of week on the water, from catamarans and sailing yachts to full-size superyachts.
Passage: 1 hour, 6 nm, clearance stop at Clifton. Mooring: Chatham Bay, Clifton (clearance). Beach: Chatham Bay. Dining: Happy Island, Sun Beach & Eat.
Day 7: Carriacou (Sandy Island & Tyrrel Bay)
Seven miles into Grenadian waters; the crew clears in at Hillsborough or Tyrrel Bay. Sandy Island, off Hillsborough, is a sliver of sand inside a marine protected area, with moorings for lunch and the easiest good snorkel of the route.
Carriacou still builds wooden boats at Windward village, a trade brought by Scottish shipwrights in the 1800s; the new hulls stand right by the road. Paradise Beach earns its name quietly. Night in Tyrrel Bay.
The last leg: thirty-two miles down Grenada's leeward coast with the rainforest ridgeline to port. If the schedule allows, pick up a mooring at Moliniere Bay for the Underwater Sculpture Park, the first of its kind in the world, life-size figures slowly turning into reef in five metres of water.
Into Port Louis Marina beneath St George's, a harbour town stacked up the hillside in brick and fish-scale tile, for the handover, tips and a group photo. The spice market two streets up sells the nutmeg that made the island's name.
Passage: 4.5 hours, 32 nm, optional sculpture-park stop. Mooring: Port Louis Marina, Moliniere Bay (en route). Dining: BB's Crabback (St George's), Umbrellas Beach Bar.
Who this suits
Broker observation rather than route description.
People who want empty. This route has the least development and the most nature of the three Caribbean weeks: two nights in a marine park, a turtle sanctuary you swim in, beach shacks instead of resorts. It suits confident charterers, couples and groups who have done the busier grounds and want the wild version.
Two passage days sit up front, one of them seven hours. The reward is that by the Tobago Cays you have left the crowds behind. If your group wants short hops and beach bars over distance and emptiness, the BVI is the easier week.
Practical notes
The season runs December to April. The passages down the Windwards can be lively when the trades are up, which is part of the appeal and worth knowing for anyone prone to seasickness.
One-way from St Lucia (UVF) to Grenada (GND), two airports and a repositioning question for the boat. The route crosses three countries (St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada), and the crew handles every clearance. Most crewed catamarans run CYBA Caribbean Terms Inclusive; larger yachts often run MYBA with an APA. We confirm per yacht.
