Log #41d Final impressions of Tobago

Written at Chaguaramus, Trinidad Sept. 20, 2006

After the Sunday School experience which lasted past 0400 next morning, we went for a beach walk along the long sandy beach beside the town. Most enjoyable! It is an idyllic spot for picnics, swimming, shade from the overhanging mangroves, and beach combing. We had our delightful picnic on No Man’s Land peninsula a few days ago, and just wanted to walk the beach before leaving for other anchorages on this paradise island.

I forgot to mention that on our way over to Buccoo Bay from Store Bay we were visited by a pod of (we think Rough Tooth) Dolphins. This area seems to be quite rich in sea life, and the fishermen do a good business with their catches each day, as we found out when we went the few miles up to Mount Irvine Bay. There we got a red snapper as well as a 4 pound lobster from the local fishermen’s stalls along the highway. While at Mount Irvine Bay we walked the mile and a half up to Grafton to the bird sanctuary to enjoy the many Rufous-Vented Chachalacas (the national bird of Tobago, a type of pheasant), as well as a White-tailed Sabrewing (a hummingbird), Yellow-bellied Elaenias, and House Wrens, as well as many other species of birds seen earlier. This was on an old estate, the concrete foundations mute testimony to the bygone era of cattle, horses, and agriculture. We hoped to visit it again for longer, earlier in the day when the light would be better, but wave conditions and other considerations did not permit a much intended return visit.

However, from that anchorage we did another four dives with Manta Dive of Store Bay. I had bought another mask, and cut down my neoprene booties to below the ankles so I could fit them on my feet without too much trouble. Both the mask and the cut down booties worked well, so I could enjoy the dives without problems. The first set of two dives was a wreck dive for which they came out to Veleda to get us, on a sunken ferry at 65 feet, followed up by a reef dive (after a half hour on the beach in preparation for the repetitive dive) at 40 feet. The wreck dive was an enchanting visit to the magical underwater world of the skeleton of a sunken ship, with crusted barnacles, waving seaweed, and tropical fish flitting about this deserted hulk. The reef dive was an interesting exploration of the coral with the multi-coloured, iridescent tropical fish, plus a threatening green moray eel defending its sanctuary.

Next day we were picked up by van to go for a couple of drift dives along the coral reefs at the south end of the island. A drift dive is one where the dive boat lets us off upstream of a reef, and we go down to the bottom and drift with the current for the duration of our air supply (about 45 minutes at 40 to 50 feet) along the interface of the bottom and the reef, enjoying the reef life and the bottom feeding fish. We saw a couple of nurse sharks, sting rays, an electric ray, a lobster, an octopus, moray eels, and a fantastic assortment of tropical fish feeding on the corals. Both Judy and I learned to dive before modern buoyancy compensators, and the complex quasi-tangle of modern regulators with their four octopus-like hoses for breathing tubes, buddy breathing tubes, depth and pressure gauges, as well as the extensions for inflating or deflating the bladder of the buoyancy compensator. We also were taught that the weight belts went on last as when in difficulty, they were the first thing jettisoned. However, now they are put on first. OK!

It was good to enjoy the under sea again! We had not been scuba diving for 5 years or more, and it was good to get back into the comfort of an underwater air supply, as opposed to just snorkeling near the surface. We didn’t need the wet suits that the others wore, and our masks and fins served us well. Judy still does not use much air. On a dive, I will go from a tank with 3300 psi to 800 psi, whereas Judy will go from 3300 psi to only 1700 psi in the same 45 minute drift dive. In our younger days, I was a navy clearance diver, and Judy spent her summers while at university on a dive boat at Tobermory on Georgian Bay. So it was good to get back into the milieu of diving. For our honeymoon many years ago, we went down to Andros in the Bahamas for a dive vacation, and dived “The WALL” to 180 feet as one of the many dives we did then. I like the slogan, “Get high on a reef!”

However a day later the swells started to roll in, and we were rolling in the anchorage. We went up to Plymouth, but it was rolly too. Going on the high dock there was a dangerous evolution, as there was no ladder, and we had to climb up a five foot pylon to get on the dock. We took a jerry can for diesel as we knew there was a gas station there; but no luck, it did not have any diesel. We took a $50.00TT taxi ride over island to find a gas station which had diesel, did a bit of grocery shopping, toured the fort, and visited the grave of a mother who probably died in childbirth with a grave inscription of, “she was a mother without knowing it, and a wife without letting her husband know it, except by her kind indulgence to him.” ... Go Figure it!

However the bay was quite uncomfortable, and so we weighed anchor to go back to Buccoo Bay, thinking it would be protected by the surrounding reefs. No way! When we wended our way through the reefs to get into the bay, it was rolling here too, and so we precariously reversed our course through the reefs again and went back to Store Bay, which was far quieter. We asked if this wave action was a factor of offlying storms, but were told it was expected this time of year. That decided us to leave Tobago for Trinidad.

Next day we enjoyed a tour around Tobago with Reg de la Rosa, a local known to Judy’s dad from diving experiences 40 years earlier when he lived in Canada. Thanks, Reg, for the tour through the living situations of the people of Tobago. It confirmed for us the good quality of life these locals have, and the way the island has developed. We visited with Steve Cassini, a former Toronto musician and resident who now has an idyllic villa in the hills overlooking a tropical panorama out to sea, his dream he is now following. (Incidentally he has a lovely apartment above his home which he will rent out to interested visitors if any of you should be interested in spending a week or so in this paradise.) Reg took us to the Customs and Immigration offices in Scarborough so we could do our check out to Trinidad, and returned us to the beach at Store Bay. We took Wave Dancer back to Veleda, had supper, and after a couple of hours sleep left for Trinidad at 2200.

Tobago rates as one of our favourite Caribbean islands, along with Grenada and Antigua. We look forward to returning to it next year when we head south for the hurricane season.

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