by Ann Vanderhoof

“Carpe diem,” the lyric poet Horace wrote more than
2,000 years ago. And when you're a cruiser, seizing the
day wherever you drop the hook invariably reinforces how
very right Horace was.

When the yachts Receta and Tusen Takic IT arrived in
Union Island’s Chatham Bay early last June, it would
have been oh-so-easy to spend a couple of days just
hanging out in that lovely Grenadines anchorage. But
Chuck on Tusen Takic I! had a plan, and Receta’s crew
seized it with a vengeance: Walk from Chatham Bay to the
town of Ashton, where we could catch a bus to the town
of Clifton, and from there climb to the top of the Pinnacle,
an aptly named, steep-sided, high-rising chunk of rock,
reportedly one of the island’s toughest and most spec-
tacular hikes. (“You need to have a good head for heights,”
Chris Doyle writes in his guide, describing the Pinnacle’s
“dramatic 360-degree precipitous view.”)

Chuck, Barb, Steve, and I set off early the next morning,
scrabbling up the hill behind Chatham Bay’s beach (a
modest warm-up for the hike to come) and then following
the road from (more or less) the middle of the west side of
the island around to Ashton in (more or less) the middle of
the south side, rewarded by expansive views of turquoise-
green water broken by patches of frothing reef. As we
descended into Ashton, the second-largest village on this
friendly island of about 3,000 residents, and stopped in a
shop for a cold drink before the next leg of our adventure,
we were greeted with: “Have you come for the Maroon?”

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The Maroon — an annual ce
last year’s harvest and marks
son (and the rainy season) —

lebration that gives thanks for
the start of the planting sea-
is one of Union Island’s most

important cultural activities. The main Maroon, spearhead-
ed by the Roots Comnection Culture Club, takes place in
Clifton each May, three days before or after the full moon.
But this year, Ashton was also holding a Maroon, and only
serendipitous good luck (and a belief in carpe diem) has
brought us here on the very day of this traditional event. Its
roots stretch back to West African harvest rites, which came
to the Caribbean with slavery. Escaped slaves, who joined
together in communities on Union and other islands, were
called Maroons; from this grew the Maroon festival, which
celebrates not just the start of the planting season, but also
the unity of people coming together.

The celebration includes singing, drumming, dancing,
and communal cooking. “The cooking is already starting,”
one of the villagers tells us, pointing to a cleared area...

—Continued on next page

 

 

 

 

 

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