For four days in late July or early August the whole island shifts gear. The Carriacou Regatta brings every locally built sloop and schooner into the channels around Windward and Hillsborough for a week of racing, drinking, and street parties. Boats are scrubbed and repainted, crews are mustered, and the rum flows from morning onwards.
The races themselves are spectacular: traditional gaff-rigged wooden boats, heeled hard over, jostling for position on courses set between the islands. For visitors with no stake in the racing, the onshore programme — calypso, big-drum dance, a beauty pageant, and the Shakespeare Mas where men in pink and yellow costumes recite lines from Julius Caesar — is just as good a reason to come. Book accommodation months ahead.