Whitsuntide regatta this weekend

Canouan is the place to be this weekend.
Anyone missing the Canouan Whitsuntide Regatta, which started yesterday, is bound to miss a weekend of a lifetime.
This year’s event, sponsored by the Canouan Sailing Club and the Canouan Resorts Development Committee is anticipated to be a significant improvement over all other regattas ever staged on the island.{{more}}
Carlos Mc Laurean co-ordinator of the Whitsuntide Regatta activities said, unlike some of the other regattas across the region, the Canouan Whitsuntide Regatta will offer the opportunity to experience the raw indigenous culture of the people. Mc Laurean said it’s not only about sailing.
This year’s Regatta kicked off with a fishing competition, which started at 5am yesterday. And yesterday evening an opening ceremony was staged which encompassed cultural activities from the Diabetic Association and several non-governmental organizations.
Today there will be a games evening followed by the display of several indigenous dishes of mainly sea foods, among them porpoise and conchs.
The Regatta is expected to swing into full action tomorrow when the sailing competition begins. And come tomorrow night patrons will witness a fashion extravaganza put on by some of the nation’s top models.
On Sunday, the regatta will see the island flooded by mainlanders and residents of the Northern Grenadines who will be travelling down to the Southern Grenadine Island on an excursion. In the evening there will be the Miss Caribbean Sailing Pageant with a bevy of beauties from St.Lucia, Grenada, Carriacou, Union Island, Trinidad and St.Vincent. The curtains will come down on the Regatta on Monday with the final day of sailing and lots of beach activities.
McLaurean, said one of the main reasons why the regatta is billed to be big is that the Carenage, which was closed for some time, has reopened. Hence, more workers not necessarily from Canouan but from the other islands including mainland St.Vincent are based there now and several tourists will be on the island at the time.
Boats entering this year’s competition will be drawn from Bequia, Union Island, Mayreau, Carriacou, Petit Martinique and Trinidad and Tobago.