Sport & Fitness Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

It is 8am in Frigate Bay on Union Island. The wind has filled in to 18 knots from the northeast. A line of kites lifts off the lagoon — pink, orange, lime green — and the riders cut across the flat water with the reef break of Mayreau on the horizon. Three boats are already towing wing-foilers further out into the channel. By 11am the lagoon will be crowded with kites; by 4pm it will empty as the wind turns and the riders head in for cold beer at the floating loft. This is what sport tourism looks like in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines — reliable trade winds, warm water, and the kind of conditions that the rest of the Caribbean envies.

The country is a year-round playground for water-based sport. The trade winds blow from the northeast at 15–25 knots from December through July; water temperature sits between 26 and 28°C all year. Sailing, kitesurfing, wing foiling, sport fishing, scuba diving, and stand-up paddleboarding are all major disciplines with established schools, certified instructors, and easy logistics. On land, the country is small enough that you can pair a morning kite session with an afternoon mountain hike, or a sunrise diving trip with an evening tennis match.

The Grenadines also host one of the Caribbean’s great regatta circuits. SVG Sailing Week (the Canouan Cup, plus the Bequia Easter Regatta) brings 50 to 60 boats and several hundred sailors across nine days of racing. The Mandarin Oriental Canouan Golf Club is the country’s only championship 18-hole course. The Hairoun Cup cricket tournaments fill the school pitches every Saturday in season. Whatever sport you bring, you can carry on with it here.

Sailing — the regatta circuit

Sailing is the country’s defining sport — cultural as well as recreational. Bequia still builds the wooden Bequia Whaler sloops, the same boats that worked the inter-island trade in the 1900s. Modern racing yachts share the harbours with traditional Double-Enders. Most major hotels run skippered day-charter programmes; bareboat companies operate from Saint Vincent and Union Island.

SVG Sailing Week is the country’s premier event, running from late March through early April. Two championship series back-to-back: the Canouan Cup (March 29 to April 1, 2026) and the Bequia Easter Regatta (April 2 to 6, 2026). Together they pull boats from across the Caribbean, the US East Coast, and the UK; spectators turn up at Bequia harbour for the start lines.

For day racing, the Bequia Sailing Club holds J24 fleet races every Sunday morning during high season. Visitors with sailing experience can crew on request — turn up at the club at 9am on a Sunday and ask. The same club runs Saturday-afternoon races for the Surprise Class and the Double-Enders.

The southern Grenadines (Canouan, Mayreau, Union Island, Petit Saint Vincent) hold a rolling programme of smaller regattas: Heineken Cup at Christmas, Mayreau Mini-Regatta in November, and the kite cruise weeks running out of Union. Most are sociable rather than highly competitive.

Kitesurfing & wing foiling — the trade-wind belt

Union Island has become the kitesurfing and wing-foiling capital of the Eastern Caribbean. Two flat-water lagoons (Clifton on the south, Frigate Bay on the north), reliable side-onshore trade winds at 15–25 knots from November through July, and an established school infrastructure with certified instructors and chase boats.

The JT Pro Center on Clifton Beach (run by professional kitesurfer Jérémie Tronet) is the longest-established school. Wing-foiling courses run year-round in season — from a 2.5-hour discovery lesson on the beach and a tow-back SUP on the water, through to multi-day beginner courses with private instruction and a safety dinghy. The lagoon depth is knee-deep for fifty metres out, perfect for early-stage falls.

HappyKite at Frigate Bay is the smaller alternative on the north side of the island — a 2010-founded school built around a converted 60-foot catamaran (the “floating loft”) that doubles as the school office and the Gypsea Café. Smaller groups, the Mayreau reef break visible across the channel, and a focus on private lessons and small-group day-tour kite cruises.

Both schools rent gear (North, Mystic, Duotone), repair kites on-site, and run kite-cruise day tours through the southern Grenadines — chase boat from Union Island to Mayreau, Tobago Cays, and Petit Saint Vincent, with launches and pickups arranged by VHF. Best winds November to July; August through October is hurricane window and most schools close.

Sport fishing — deep-water and flats

The waters off Saint Vincent and the Grenadines hold one of the least-fished offshore zones in the Eastern Caribbean. Drop-off depths reach 1,500 metres within a few miles of shore; the trade winds and the warm currents that pass between Saint Vincent and Saint Lucia bring blue marlin, yellowfin tuna, mahi-mahi, wahoo, and sailfish through the channel from December through July.

Big-game offshore fishing runs out of two main bases — Saint Vincent (south coast, Blue Lagoon) and Union Island. Charter operators run half-day, full-day, and multi-day trips on 28- to 40-foot sport-fishing boats. Catch-and-release is the standard ethos for billfish; the smaller pelagics are kept and cooked at the operator’s home dock or a partner restaurant.

Fly fishing is the surprise. Union Island has the country’s only fly-fishing flats — sheltered shallows on the leeward side and around Frigate Beach — with bonefish, tarpon, and permit cruising the seagrass at high tide. The country has only one experienced fly-fishing guide; bookings need to go through them well in advance.

Tournaments are mostly local: the Bequia Tournament in early March, the Big Game Classic out of Saint Vincent in late June, and the SVG Sportfishing Tournament series running across the dry season. Visitors with their own gear are welcome to enter on a day-pass basis.

Golf, tennis & land-based fitness

The country has one championship golf course — the 18-hole Canouan Golf Club at the Mandarin Oriental Canouan, designed by Jim Fazio and opened in 2004. Par 72, 6,914 yards from the black tees, with the front nine in a sea-level amphitheatre and holes 11 to 17 winding around Mount Royal at 877 feet. It is the only golf course in the Grenadines and one of the most dramatic in the Eastern Caribbean. Day passes available to non-resort guests by reservation only.

Tennis facilities cluster at the boutique hotels: the Mandarin Oriental Canouan, the Bequia Beach Hotel (an all-weather hard court with night lights), Petit Saint Vincent (one court), and the Cotton House on Mustique. Most are open to non-guests with a small day fee and a phone call ahead.

Hiking and trail running connect the country’s green interior — La Soufrière from sea level to 1,234 metres, the Vermont Nature Trail through the Saint Vincent Parrot Reserve, the Princess Margaret Trail across Bequia’s headlands. The volcanic relief makes for genuinely demanding running terrain on Saint Vincent; the smaller islands offer flatter coastal trails for easier days.

For pure fitness, most boutique hotels run yoga sessions in the morning (complimentary at the Bequia Beach Hotel and the Mandarin Oriental). Stand-up paddleboarding from Friendship Bay, swimming laps at the resort pools, and the long shore walks all combine into a passable cross-training schedule across a week.

Cricket is the country’s national sport but largely played at school and club level — if you happen to be on a Vincentian beach when an informal pick-up game starts, you are usually welcome to field. Bring sunglasses; the white ball against the white sand is genuinely hard to track.

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