The amazing landscapes of these tropical islands, from the jungles in their mountains to the deepness of the ocean, make it even more appealing.

The islands of the Little Antilles forms the shape of a nice necklace of coral, basalt and limestone rock making an arch of 2400 km that goes from the Virgin Islands (the British and the American) in the north, to the three Dutch islands: Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao in the south, right off the coast of Venezuela.

Sometimes these islands can be seen from neighboring ones. When the Amerindians, which were the first to colonize the East Caribbean, came from South America, they could see from the northern point of an island the southern point of the other, even though it looked just as a bizarre, mallow spot in the horizon of wild waters. This vision surely encouraged them to go north and to discover new creatures, plants, landscapes and opportunities hiding beyond the seashore.

Each Island Has Its Own Identity
Each of islands of the East Caribbean has great geographical and cultural diversity. Travel agencies use advertising pictures of white sandy beaches, clear turquoise water and palm trees shining under the sun. Actually, there are more beautiful landscapes than those shown in the photographs.

From the pristine tropical forests of Dominica to Santa Lucia, where water precipitation - at mountaintops - reaches 760 mm per year, and huge ferns shine with silvered light, going through the delicate acacia and Campeche woods of St. Martin or Barbuda, it seems there’s a different kind of vegetation for each mood. Even staying in one island will allow you to explore a large variety of ecosystems.

The plain islands offer a smaller variety of landscapes and, in many cases, are more vulnerable to exploitation. This is how Antigua & Barbuda lost many of their ancient forests, due to uncontrolled development of sugar plantations, modeling a particular landscape, full of bushes, where inhabitants developed their agriculture and cattle-raising.

The Ocean and the Deep Blue Sea
Anywhere in the Caribbean the mild air and cool breeze coming from east winds welcome you. The tropical weather of this region offers many hours of sun and a standard temperature of 27°C.

The east winds, that guided the first European sailors towards the Caribbean in the XV century, blow strongly from the northeast through the Windward regions and then smoothly reach the Leeward coasts.
The difference between both coasts is amazing, at a point that watching the fury of the Atlantic side of the eastern Caribbean islands, makes you fancy the Scottish coasts instead of the warm and pleasing white sand beaches of the Caribbean coasts.

Alive and Running
Except Barbados, the island chain going from Saba to Grenada emerged as a result of volcanic activities, when the two tectonic plates lying beneath this necklace of islands moved. The North American plate, going east pushed the Caribbean plate, going west, producing this mosaic of Antillean islands. Barbados, located at the southeast, emerged as a result of a slow process, when sediments were pushed to the surface. In these islands are ancient coral reef rests that appeared when sediments got more space from water. Towards the south, Trinidad & Tobago were part of Venezuela, during the glacier periods, when water level was much lower, thus explaining the resemblance of their fauna and flora.

Some islands are much older than others. Those who disappeared under the sea because of erosion, and then emerged again are Anguilla, St. Martin, Barbuda & Antigua. With plain geography and dry weather, they are outside the volcanic region.

The younger islands, from a geological point of view, have a more spectacular geography, like mountain chains and deep valleys. Montserrat, Guadeloupe, St. Vincent and Martinique, for example, have suffered this century, the consequences of volcanic activity. In 1902, a volcanic eruption leveled the city of St-Pierre, in Martinique, and 30,000 people died. Recently, in 1995, a volcano from the Soufrière Mountains erupted south of Montserrat Island.

The Montserrat catastrophe caused the “closing” of two thirds of the island, 19 people died, and most of the inhabitants were evacuated. In fact, soufrière (sulphur in French) is the name given to most of the volcanoes at the region. For example, at St. Lucia, you can go by car through a volcano with landscapes full of spots with mud puddles and boiling water, and sulphur cracks, that emerged when one of the sides of another huge volcano collapsed, very close to a southern town of the island called Soufrière.

There are also gorgeous landscapes under the sea, where you can find mountains, a submarine volcano called Kick’ Em Jenny, cracks, lava rivers, pinnacles, and coral fences and reefs.

Leaving volcanoes aside, hurricanes are part of common life at some East Caribbean places, especially at those going from St. Lucia to the Virgin Islands. The hurricanes halt the rainy season, starting in May and ending at Christmas. Usually consequences are devastating and sometimes people’s lives are in danger. Houses, shops and crops are destroyed. Dry season often starts around Christmas, ending in May. At this time, water reserves can be scarce; but then trees and bushes have a more colorful shape.