How Carriacou's Collections Changed After Beryl

Introduction

Carriacou’s maritime collections changed dramatically after Hurricane Beryl struck the island on 1 July 2024. Before the storm, the island’s heritage was centred on the Carriacou Museum’s archaeological and maritime collections, together with a living tradition of wooden boat building. Afterwards, attention shifted towards rescue, recovery and new ways of preserving memory. At almost the same time that the island was rebuilding, a new underwater artwork, A World Adrift, opened offshore. Rather than simply adding another tourist attraction, it became a powerful symbol of how Carriacou’s maritime identity now combines traditional seafaring history with the realities of climate change, extreme weather and cultural resilience.[carriacoumuseum.gd]carriacoumuseum.gdCarriacou Museum The Museum | Carriacou MuseumCarriacou Museum The Museum | Carriacou Museum

Unlike many maritime museums that celebrate naval victories or famous ships, Carriacou’s collections tell the story of an island whose relationship with the sea is personal and continuous. Archaeological finds, fishing traditions, locally built vessels and community memory now sit alongside artworks that deliberately confront the vulnerability of small island states.

Carriacou’s archaeological and maritime collections

The Carriacou Museum has long served as the island’s principal heritage institution. Founded in 1976 and housed since 1989 in a historic former cotton ginnery, it preserves collections that range from Amerindian archaeological artefacts to colonial documents, furniture, pottery and maritime material reflecting the island’s long seafaring tradition. Its collections help explain how Carriacou developed through Indigenous settlement, European colonisation, inter-island trade and generations of skilled boat builders.[Carriacou Museum]carriacoumuseum.gdCarriacou Museum The Museum | Carriacou MuseumCarriacou Museum The Museum | Carriacou Museum

For visitors interested in unusual collections, the museum stands out because it combines archaeology with everyday island life rather than separating them into different institutions. Stone tools and pottery fragments sit alongside objects connected with navigation, fishing and domestic history, illustrating how the sea has shaped nearly every aspect of Carriacou’s culture.

Even before Hurricane Beryl, the museum was a relatively small community institution rather than a large national museum. Its importance lay less in spectacular individual objects than in preserving local knowledge, donated family records and artefacts that might otherwise disappear from the historical record.

A World Adrift and its schoolchild figures

In October 2024, Carriacou gained an entirely different type of collection with Jason deCaires Taylor’s underwater installation A World Adrift. Located off Jack A Dan, the project consists of thirty origami-style boats, each carrying the likeness of a local schoolchild from Carriacou or neighbouring Petite Martinique. Six of the children are from Carriacou and four from Petite Martinique among those modelled for the sculptures.[NOW Grenada]nowgrenada.comNOW GrenadaA World Adrift: Students immortalised as coral reefs off Carriacou | NOW GrenadaOctober 17, 2024…Published: October 17, 2024

Rather than recreating historical ships, the artwork uses children to represent the future of island communities facing rising seas and increasingly destructive storms. Their boats are constructed from marine-grade steel and environmentally suitable cement so that they gradually become artificial reefs supporting coral, sponges and other marine life. Sails display global temperature data, linking local experience with worldwide climate trends.[Underwater Museum]underwatermuseum.comUnderwater MuseumprojectsUnderwater Museums by Jason deCaires Taylor…

The installation also honours one of Carriacou’s defining traditions: wooden boat building. The island has long been recognised throughout the eastern Caribbean for hand-built sailing vessels and annual regattas. Instead of displaying historic boats inside a gallery, A World Adrift transforms that maritime heritage into an underwater museum where the sculptures themselves become part of the marine environment.

The timing gives the project unusual emotional weight. During its creation, Hurricane Beryl struck the islands, turning what had begun as an artistic warning about climate vulnerability into an immediate reflection of lived experience. The children portrayed in the sculptures had themselves witnessed the destruction caused by the storm only months before the installation opened.[NOW Grenada]nowgrenada.comNOW GrenadaA World Adrift: Students immortalised as coral reefs off Carriacou | NOW GrenadaOctober 17, 2024…Published: October 17, 2024

Hurricane damage, access and cultural resilience

Hurricane Beryl made landfall on Carriacou as an exceptionally powerful Category 4 hurricane, causing widespread destruction across the island. Satellite imagery and emergency assessments showed severe damage to vegetation, buildings and infrastructure, with reports indicating that almost every structure suffered some level of impact.[NASA Science]science.nasa.govScience Carriacou After BerylNASA ScienceCarriacou After Beryl - NASA Science…

The Carriacou Museum was among the institutions badly affected. According to the museum itself, the building was effectively destroyed on 1 July 2024, forcing immediate closure and an appeal for donations to rebuild. Current exhibitions remain suspended while restoration continues.[Carriacou Museum]carriacoumuseum.gdCarriacou Museum The Museum | Carriacou MuseumCarriacou Museum The Museum | Carriacou Museum

Post-disaster assessments revealed that the damage extended beyond the building itself. Some Amerindian artefacts stored upstairs were destroyed, while historical documents, books, office equipment and archival materials were lost. Remaining collections face continuing conservation challenges, including water damage and mould. Recovery specialists have also noted the limited digitisation of records before the hurricane, making the loss of physical materials especially significant.[UN Barbados & Eastern Caribbean]easterncaribbean.un.orgundp bb pdna grenada hurricane beryl 2024UN Barbados & Eastern CaribbeanEUROPEAN UNIONMarch 5, 2025…Published: March 5, 2025

The contrast between the damaged museum and the new underwater installation is striking. One collection became unexpectedly vulnerable to wind and rain, while the other was intentionally designed to exist beneath the sea and evolve with changing marine conditions. Together they illustrate two different approaches to preserving maritime memory: safeguarding fragile historical artefacts on land and creating new heritage that incorporates environmental change into its very design.

Why this matters within Grenada’s curiosity landscape

Within Grenada’s wider landscape of unusual collections, Carriacou now offers an especially revealing case study. Its interest does not come from mysterious relics or sensational legends, but from the intersection of archaeology, maritime tradition, contemporary environmental art and disaster recovery.

The Carriacou Museum preserves tangible evidence of centuries of island life, while A World Adrift deliberately creates future heritage by allowing sculptures to become living reefs. One collection seeks to protect the past from loss; the other embraces gradual transformation as part of its meaning.

For visitors, this means Carriacou is no longer simply a destination to see historic maritime artefacts. It has become a place where questions about climate resilience, cultural survival and community memory are woven directly into the experience of its collections. The aftermath of Hurricane Beryl has therefore changed not only access to the island’s heritage but also the way that heritage is understood.[un.org]easterncaribbean.un.orgundp bb pdna grenada hurricane beryl 2024UN Barbados & Eastern CaribbeanEUROPEAN UNIONMarch 5, 2025…Published: March 5, 2025

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Endnotes

1. Source: science.nasa.gov
Title: Science Carriacou After Beryl
Link:https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/carriacou-after-beryl-153039/

2. Source: sea.museum
Link:https://www.sea.museum/about/media/2024/06/dunbar-figurines-recovered

3. Source: carriacoumuseum.gd
Title: Carriacou Museum The Museum | Carriacou Museum
Link:https://www.carriacoumuseum.gd/general-8

4. Source: nowgrenada.com
Link:https://nowgrenada.com/2024/10/a-world-adrift-students-immortalised-as-coral-reefs-off-carriacou/

Published: October 17, 2024

5. Source: underwatermuseum.com
Title: Underwater Museumprojects
Link:https://underwatermuseum.com/projects/

6. Source: easterncaribbean.un.org
Title: Barbados & Eastern Caribbean HURRICANE BERYL
Link:https://easterncaribbean.un.org/sites/default/files/2024-07/paho-ecc-hurricane-beryl-sitrep-4-03-july-2024-1700-final-ver-04072024.pdf

7. Source: carriacoumuseum.gd
Title: Carriacou Museum Exhibitions | Carriacou Museum
Link:https://www.carriacoumuseum.gd/blank-4

8. Source: easterncaribbean.un.org
Title: undp bb pdna grenada hurricane beryl 2024
Link:https://easterncaribbean.un.org/sites/default/files/2025-03/undp-bb-pdna-grenada-hurricane-beryl-2024.pdf

Published: March 5, 2025

9. Source: underwatermuseum.com
Title: Español – proyectos
Link:https://underwatermuseum.com/espanol-proyectos/

Additional References

10. Source: puregrenada.com
Link:https://www.puregrenada.com/underwater-sculpture-park-in-carriacou/

11. Source: caribbeannationalweekly.com
Title: Grenada unveils ‘A World Adrift’: New underwater sculpture park
Link:https://www.caribbeannationalweekly.com/travel/grenada-unveils-a-world-adrift-new-underwater-sculpture-park/

Published: October 23, 2024

12. Source: allatsea.co.uk
Title: New Underwater Sculpture Museum
Link:https://www.allatsea.co.uk/news/new-underwater-sculpture-museum/

Published: October 25, 2024

13. Source: youtube.com
Title: Boat Building and the Prettiest Anchorage in Carriacou
Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwSmCuR39mQ

14. Source: youtube.com
Title: Pure Talk Episode 4-Boatbuilding in Carriacou
Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swv7wyXcCqE

15. Source: puregrenada.com
Link:https://www.puregrenada.com/fr/underwater-sculpture-park-in-carriacou/

16. Source: puregrenada.com
Link:https://www.puregrenada.com/es/underwater-sculpture-park-in-carriacou/

17. Source: youtube.com
Title: Carriacou Boat Launch
Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHx98t1Eq_o

18. Source: youtube.com
Title: Launching of the Windward Pride in Carriacou
Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0qXTrWq9BE