Christopher Kosloski

Canouan Island, in the Grenadines, is not a place that many people have heard of. From Los Angeles, it is a long, arduous trip. Door to door, it took about 15 hours of travel time. But it is indescribably beautiful, and it was worth the long journey. 

I stayed at the Mandarin Oriental Canouan, formerly the Pink Sands Club, and arrived the day after a tropical storm had blown across the island. My first night there was still rainy and dreary, and I couldn’t believe I’d flown all this way to be stuck inside.  

The next morning though, I woke up to find the sky a picture-perfect blue, with a few big puffy white clouds drifting by. The water was calm, and the beauty was almost surreal. The color of the water is the most amazing blue, and as the sun moves across the sky, the colors change.  

The water and air temperature seemed to match at a perfect mid-to-upper 80s, and we were fanned by an idyllic breeze. I got into the ocean and stayed for two hours.  

Best of all, the people were friendly and warm, and the hospitality and service at the Mandarin Oriental was world class—far above and beyond what you would expect on such a remote Caribbean island.