proper water supply, no secondary school, no hotel, no golf course, no possible inkling of a glitzy marina — and the very idea of an airstrip big enough to cater for Boeing 737s was preposterous.
Now? Well, the tortoises may still outnumber the residents but Canouan (pronounced ‘ka-no-wan’) is being talked up as the ‘new Mustique’ or, crudely, the ‘island where billionaires get away from millionaires’.
Thank goodness, there is far more to it than that. There are glorious beaches, a few ramshackle shops and bars, the longest coral reef in the Caribbean, towering Mount Royal (the top of which has views of almost all the islands that make up St Vincent and the Grenadines, including moneybags Mustique), a multitude of turtles and tropical fish, exquisite hummingbirds and charming people who seem happy to go along with the ride.
The ride is one powered by money — and vision. At one end of the island, which is a mere three-and-a-half miles long and a mile-and-a-quarter wide, is the 1,200-acre private Grenadine Estate owned by Andrea Pignataro, an Italian former bond trader who founded the software company ION Trading. This is where the Mandarin Oriental sits on a sublime stretch of sand overlooking a huge bay and the reef beyond.
The room, with its expansive balcony, presides over all this. Elsewhere on the estate, individual villas have been built to an exceptional standard, selling for millions or rented out for thousands of pounds a week.
Nearby is a charming Anglican church, which looks as if it has been transported from Blighty stone by stone — which in fact it was in the 1800s.
At the other end of the island is Dermot Desmond, the Irish billionaire and co-owner of the glitzy Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados, who has built a 120-berth, $250 million marina on Canouan’s west coast, plus a quaint-looking village modelled on Portofino in Italy.
