Trippin’ in Tobago with the Unexpected

We had left Trinidad for Tobago expecting the unexpected. We understood that it was a smaller, less industrial, far nicer island, with lots areas to go diving. We had an easy sail up and and arrived in Tobago at Store Bay. The clearance port in the South East is Scarborough but the harbour is not suitable for yachts. However, there is a cruise ship terminal and bouys for fishermen but little other room. At a pinch, there is little room for a temporary anchor amongst the fishing boats in a very ugly port.

Store Bay

Store Bay was a reasonable anchorage. No dingy dock and you had to pull the boat up the beach. The airport was very close and very busy, much more so than expected.

From Store Bay you need to take a taxi to Scarborough to clear in, even though it is the same country. bureaucracy rules. The cab dropped us at the main immigration office not the one we needed in the port, so we walked down through the town to the port. A cruise ship was in so people were everywhere. A very uninspiring town and we saw many cruise ship people wondering what they were doing there.

Asking our way to immigration we were shown down an alleyway past the toilet block of the port terminal building and up some stairs – follow the yellow foot prints. We were wondering where we were going. When we got to Immigration the first thing they wanted to know was when we wanted to leave and then informed us that we could not go to any other bays without informing them. Next, they told us the island was divided in half. Hence, if we were going up to the northern end, we also had to check out of Scarborough and check into Charlotteville without stopping as it was a different area under completely different authorities. Then we asked how we could visit the beaches and bays on the way without stopping. He agreed that we could but was very vague on the issue. We said we wanted to check out now as we did not want to cab back into town again the next day just to check out. This was getting ridiculous so we just said we would leave the next day to enable us to get the forms to take to Charlottesville.

Next he told us we did not need to visit customs as it was the same country -Trinidad and Tobago. We had a wander around the town and then tried to get a taxi back to Store Bay. The price was 10TT each on the way to Scarborough but the taxis on the rank wanted 40TT each to go back because the cruise ship was in. We walked up to the main road and got a car for 10TT each

We spent the next day in Store Bay relaxing and snorkelling. We made the decision to leave the next for Buccoos. The forecast was for an increasing northerly swell due to a weather system to the north. Buccoos Bay was behind the reef so we decided it was worth a go.

Buccoos Bay

Arrival and Unexpected Visitors

We wandered slowly and carefully through the narrow shallow channel in the reef and anchored off the port. We were just sorting out some bits and pieces inside when we noticed we had a visitor sitting right in front of the window. The Pelican stayed for an hour totally unperturbed by our movement around the chart bench or dining table.

Not long after I went for a swim to check the anchor and could hear someone yelling. The next minute, I see two Chinese gentlemen swimming towards us. They had come off the beach and then got a bit tired and cramped and asked if they could rest onboard. We gave them some water and had a small discussion using Google Translate as they spoke no English.

It turns out they were from Wuhan and were working on some runway maintenance at the airport. Wuhan is a long way from the sea (look it up). I think they had no idea after swimming several hundred metres off the beach what sort of trouble they would have been in if we hadn’t rescued them. Swimming and floating downwind we were the last boat before the reef! We then offered to take them back to the shore in the dinghy for which they were very grateful. They were desperate to get photos and when we dropped them off they had to get some more. All their friends were on the beach waiting for them.

Buccoo Town

Buccos is a lovely little town. The main feature is a goat racing stadium !! They have the main event once a year and a lot of money has been spent on the facilities. We remain uncertain of the political influence of the goat racing fraternity that managed to build a stadium that may only be used once a year.

The favourite activity on a Sunday is Sunday School. This is not your typical “Sunday School”. This is a big party every Sunday with food stalls and music all through the town, Dancing and partying. People come from all over Tobago to party on Sundays here and it goes until 2am or 3am in the morning.

The rest of the town is about fishing boats and a lovely beach.

That night we ate in the local Italian restaurant La Tartaruga and it was superb. The best food we had had for some time. It had an amazing wine list (well beyond our pocket) and the owners were lovely and explained every dish. Interestingly they were selling a book about a female airline pilot. She is a resident and eats there often. https://latartarugatobago.com/

The next morning the wind had risen and the sea was forecast to increase by another meter so we moved on. Staying any longer with a narrow shallow channel to exit seemed a little risky.

Plymouth

We left Buccoo Bay early when the wind was low and wandered out of the channel through the reef and along the coast to another town called Plymouth. We anchored there close to the wharf and behind the headland and island which all seemed to be sheltered. The surf breaking on the beach meant we wouldn’t be going ashore.

We were amazed at the number of birds in the small bay. A couple of swallows came and kept us company through most of the morning. There was also a lovely beach and some fortifications to explore but with the surf, it was too hard to get onto the shore.

Unfortunately, as the tide went out and the wind got up so too did the swell. By lunchtime, we decided it was time to move on and find a more sheltered spot. Usually, all these places on the west coast are OK as the prevailing wind is an easterly. However, the swell was well to the north because of a storm that had come down from USA to the northern Caribbean and made all the more shallow bays untenable.

We checked out several other bays on the way north but in the end, decided that it was going to be straight to Charlotteville which hopefully would offer some shelter although we were not sure.

Charlotteville

We arrived late in the day to discover a large deep sheltered harbour with mooring buoys and 10 or so other yachts. Anchoring in 20 metres of water just in front of the town the swell passed gently underneath us to break on the shore and across the road nearly into some of the houses. Going ashore was not an option but we swam and relaxed in a very pleasant bay.

First thing in the morning Customs sent a boat out to us asking why we had not checked in – so off I went with the documents. It was too rough to tie the dingy to the dock so Hew delivered me to the dock. It was just as well because it took about two hours. The customs lady was waiting on the wharf and berated me for not checking in but after finally accepting we had come from Tobago (the same island) she became Natasha, my best friend.

An hour later we finally made her office after stopping for a Double ( a local delicacy) then she also needed a pie to go with it. A friend then arrived looking for some watermelon, but there was none in the shop, so we walked to her house where she had some for him, and then finally on to her office via someone else from the Tourism office to do the paperwork. Then there were forms to fill in (more carbon paper) while my new friend rang various people around the department complaining that we were misinformed about visiting Customs in Scarborough.

From there it was off down the hall to Immigration (for those who have seen the movie Local Hero) to find the same guy we saw in Scarborough working in a different department this week. A relatively straightforward process as I handed over the forms he had given me the previous week in Scarborough which seemed to be in order given he had signed them!

Two days later I had a leisurely walk around town with Hew looking at the local buildings which are tidy and well looked after. Those that were abandoned were quickly claimed by the rainforest.,

Anchored next to us was a nice young English couple who had just arrived across the Atlantic in an old traditional boat. After cups of tea and a chat we filled their water containers from our watermaker as getting water locally was a little fraught with the swell still running.

Inland Tour of Tobago

Due to the large swell we had missed cruising many of the bays on the way north so in discussions with my best friend Natasha, I had asked about an island tour and she had suggested the watermelon man (Keywell) could organise a tour guide. This young local guy assured me it was no problem and he would collect us off the wharf at 8.30 am tomorrow for a full day out for T$700.

The young English couple dropped us on the dock as it was still too rough to leave a dinghy while the waves were breaking over the dingy dock. We were good to go. Our tour guide, Keywell, in his usual pink shorts, was having his morning swim but when he saw us he sprinted off up the road to return a while later with a car and a driver (Anne Marie) with him more formally attired.

We had an entertaining day being driven around the island by these two young people, Keywell had no idea about anything and Anne-Marie turned out to be a student nurse and Keywell’s mother was her Godmother. She had been recruited at the last minute as Keywell had no car and needed help! Proper local enterprise.

Luckily we had done some research and had a list of places we wanted to visit and we rather made things up in between. We visited the Atlantic coast at Speyside and then roamed down the island via the Argyll waterfall, it had 14 levels and we managed to climb up about 6 of them, a garden full of hummingbirds which would land on your hand, lunch in a local restaurant, a visit to Fort King George in Scarborough and finally to Flagstaff Hill lookout above Chartlotteville for the sunset where we found Natasha, my new best friend, and her future husband.

Interestingly both Keywell and Anne Marie had never been to most of these places so when needed we paid their entry fees.

Speyside

Betsey’s Hope

Argyle Waterfall

Tobago Hummingbirds

We have the name of a place that had the hummingbirds but as we passed the park at the top of the hill, Keywell asked a ranger where it was and instead, he directed us to his house – for a fee of course – which he had set up for visitors. Then he had to go back and leave us to do his real job at the Park. The hummingbirds eat out of the feeders and the little pots if you put them on your hand – they wouldn’t go near Hew but then we found that his pot had no sugar water in it! The birds are cleverer than you think. they can see in the UV spectrum and apparently, the sugar water/nectar has a specific colour.

Parlatuvier Beach

We considered Parlatuvier Beach on the way up the coast. We could see there was space on the northern edge but we thought there would not be enough swing room for us and it was odd that all the fishing boats were on the south side even though the swell was from the north. Of course, there is always a reason. When we looked down on this beautiful beach from above the way it was formed caused all the swell to run down the northern side and not the southern side!! Also, the area free near the beach on the south side would have been too shallow. We were glad we had given it a miss.

Fort King George, Scarborough

Fort Cranby and Grounded Ships

While we were on the island there were 2 shipwrecks, one of which made international news. An unidentified ship/barge had washed up off Scarborough and was spilling oil everywhere. No one seemed to know where it had come from, what is was carrying, who owned it as it spilled oil from split tanks all over the coastline including a marine reserve. We were unable to get anywhere near it but there was a huge clean up going on as well as an investigation as who it belonged to..

Meanwhile just up the coast this barge had escaped its tow and ended up on the beach luckily it only seemed to be full of sand. It appeared they had a plan to unload it and float it off but it was a public holiday when we saw it so nothing was happening. Obviously not a great emergency as the tug was merely keeping the bowline tight.

Along the way we discovered that a newly qualified nurse could earn $TT 10,000 pa (NZD 2,500) but a job at the end of your training was not guaranteed. Keywell didn’t really have a job but was fixing up his boat because he could then get some casual work with ERIC, a local environmental organization. Anne-Marie was concerned that Keywell had passed himself as a professional guide, which he wasn’t but we already knew that. Keywell didn’t want a proper job as he could earn enough daily from tourists to only need to work one or two days a fortnight. Shall we say his aspirations were not high?

If your household income is below $TT 10,000 then education is free (this is about the average). The government employs about 45% of the population and unemployment runs about 20% so government jobs are well sought after. Many choose to work like Keywell and enterprise, which we found everywhere in Grenada, is largely missing as central government funds pretty much everything off the back of oil revenues.

Flagstaff Hill

Our final stop on the tour was Flagstaff Hill for a view of the sunset high above Charlotteville. While admiring the view we came across Barb’s new best friend the Customs lady and as we were informed, her future husband. Its a very small island.

Checkout

The following day, after another 2-hour endeavour with carbon paper and 6 sets of forms with largely the same information on each, we were good to go. I was glad to escape the bureaucracy and only to have to deal with the simple French system in Martinique 200 miles away.

Next blog: Relaxing in Martinique