The wide curve of beach at the edge of Windward is an open-air shipyard. Wooden sloops and trading schooners are laid out on stocks under the casuarinas, their ribs and planking shaped with adzes and hand planes. There are no sheds and no power tools to speak of — most of the work is done with the same kit a boatbuilder would have used a century ago. The smell is cedar shavings and tar; the soundtrack is hammers on copper nails.
The trade has shrunk in recent years — fewer commissions, fewer young men taking it up — but several boats are usually in build at any given time. Walk slowly and you will be invited to look closer; the builders are used to visitors and will happily explain what they are doing. Come back in early August for the Carriacou Regatta and the same boats race past the headlands in full sail.