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Mayreau hosts The Caribbean Island Resort, the Saltwhistle Bay Club, which is a real Caribbean Hideaway in the Grenadines

Your arrival at Saltwhisle Bay is by boat, having been picked up at the airport on Union Island, and you are taken to Mayreau Island. Real holiday hideaways very often are only accessible by boat, and as you cross the channel to Mayreau you will realise, if you didn't before what a small island it is.

Mayreau in fact is the smallest inhabited island in the Grenadines, being less than two square miles in size, with a population of about 250 living in a village on the south west of the island. Saltwhistle Bay Resort occupies the entire northern end of Mayreau island and the unspoilt beach shore of the windward side, which is considered by many windsurfers and kite boarders to be world class. Another reason for basing yourself here is that the famous, beautiful Tobago Cays are no distance away at all.

You will be greeted with a tray of rum punch, and your luggage will disappear, to reappear again in your bedroom, one of just ten rooms in stone cottages, scattered around behind a screen of palm trees in a 22 acre tropical garden. This is a simple and definitely barefoot type of place, but don't be misled because it is also extremely comfortable but very low key. The cottages at Saltwhistle bay have been built using local wood and stone, and all feature king sized beds, with a spacious bed sitting area with an ensuite bathroom. Accessible from each room is a semi private shaded and furnished roof terrace.

It has to be described as a real Caribbean Hideaway because it is at least two plane journeys and a boat ride from home, so it is isolated. There is a little activity but not much, and the people who come here, do so to escape the speed and noise of life in the twenty first century. Most people who come to this Caribbean island resort come to read, relax, swing in a hammock and just generally enjoy the natural tropical life of a totally undeveloped tropical paradise. The bay is a perfect half moon of white sand and turquoise blue water, and must be one of the very best in the Caribbean

To summarise the key features of Saltwhistle Bay.

This is a very remote small Grenadines Hotel set on the smallest inhabited Grenadines Island of Mayreau, with a bar which can be lively with visiting yachtsmen, and an excellent stone and palm thatched garden restaurant which presents three good meals every day. It is an intimate, friendly hotel on a romantic Caribbean beach, with good swimming. This really is the classic Caribbean barefoot seclusion and attracts independent travellers, honeymooners and visiting yachtsmen.

Two things still to mention about this Caribbean Island resort which relate to tnings close by. The first is the Tobago Cays, the five uninhabited dream islands, and Saltwhistle Bay Club is the clsest resort to them, being just 15 minutes from the Cays and a snorkelling paradise. Not only that you can spend an afternoon on Petite Tobaque which is where Johnny Depp was marooned in the movie 'Pirates of the Caribbean'.

The second thing is that you should visit the village on the other side of Mayreau where you will be able to eat some very good food at great value prices.

This Caribbean Island resort will not be for you if you like five star pampering but if you see yourself as a traveller as opposed to a holidaymaker then this Caribbean Hideaway could be perfect.

For more information about Saint Vincent and the Grenadines go to http://www.caribbean-vacationspots.com/categories/St-Vincent-and-The-Grenadines/