Sailing and cruising around Trinidad & Tobago islands.

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August 1988
Street's "Cruising Guide" (the sailing "bible" for Caribbean cruisers) says it's "impossible" to get to Tobago from Grenada. It's only about 90 miles, but wind and current supposedly make it a lousy sailing trip. But we were determined to go there, "impossible" or not, so off we went.

The first day out of St. George, Grenada, the weather turned sloppy and messy, so when we rounded the point Peter decided that we were better off stopping in Prickly Pear Bay until the weather conditions improved somewhat. I grudgingly agreed to go in - once I have committed myself to a plan, I hate to change it. Because I had every intention of leaving the next morning for Tobago I convinced Peter we shouldn't go very far into the bay. The swells were coming in because of the sloppy conditions outside of the bay, and thus after a less than comfortable night Peter decided to pull our anchor and move the yacht further into the bay. When he came back to the cockpit I wistfully looked out of the bay and commented that it didn't look that bad out there. Peter asked, "do you really want to head out today?" I replied with, "how bad can 90 miles be?" Okay, then. We turned around, and headed towards Tobago.

We were pleasantly surprised to have a comfortable sail (phooey to Street!), approaching Scarborough at about 3 in the morning. We laid off until daylight and proceeded into Scarborough and had the most pleasant and courteous reception of any of the islands we've visited so far. The official who checked us in asked Peter how long we wanted to stay in Tobago. Peter said that five or six days would probably be okay. The official responded "Oh, no!"

??? Okay, now what did we say to insult him? He continued, "this is Trinidad and Tobago Heritage Week and we have so many activities planned, with the Great Race next Saturday..... you can't possibly see everything in so little time! You've got to give it at least a couple weeks!" Peter said that sounded good, but we had no idea where to go because the cruising guides said very little about Tobago, and even less that was encouraging. With great enthusiasm our new friend drew us a rough map of the island and marked about half a dozen "must go to" anchorages. Armed with Tobago's good will and our new cruising guide, we set off to explore the island.

And Tobago is just pretty. The best reefs we've seen in the Caribbean, with big, beautiful fish. Ashore

we found an incredible variety of birds - more representative of tropical South America than of the Caribbean - the Blue-Gray Tanager, with brilliant turquoise wings, and the Silver-Beaked Tanager, which is a glossy black bird with an electric blue lower mandible that positively glows - were just two of the birds we admired.

Tobago is where Trinidadians ("Trinis") go for vacation, and it is beautifully kept. Tobago even has an 18-hole golf course. And the people! Suffice to say that this is a peaceful, gentle island where it's impossible not to smile.

We found ourselves to be quite the adventurers, since accurate cruising information is non-existent. We

found one bay by taxi. It has a small hotel, where we stopped for lunch. We mentioned to Fred, the manager of Blue Waters Inn that our cruising guide recommends against anchoring there because it's dangerous. Fred responded "nonsense, lots of boats come here - why, we had two boats here last year!" So we made it three for the year, and found it to be the perfect anchorage with absolutely delightful hospitality extended to us by the hotel.

After 3 weeks of exploring Tobago without meeting another boat we set sail for Trinidad and the Trinidad-Tobago Yachting Association which we had visited last year. Our stay was so pleasant that we had a difficult time leaving. We had a chance to see more of this large and surprisingly pretty island, and we were treated like family during our entire stay. Even the birds flew out to the Watermelon to check us out and brought all their friends to visit (the first day we arrived and anchored, I was below when I heard Peter, sitting in the cockpit speaking: "Hello there, how are you?" I poked my head out to find out who he could be talking to - it was two swifts sitting on our lifelines looking us and the boat over very intently, cocking their heads to listen as Peter continued to talk to them. The next evening close to 20 of the birds were on our boat looking us over. I love it when the tourist attractions treat US like the occupants of the zoo! There are three or four bird sanctuaries in Trinidad, and about 1/4 to I/3 of Tobago is a wildlife preserve - this in a country where the two islands have a combined !and area about that of Delaware.

When we arrived in Margarita Island, Venezuela, we were greeted by Francisco of Shore Base with a warm "Welcome back." There was an American cruiser in Francisco's office who seemed to enjoy acting as the official greeter of vulnerable and unsure cruising women. Francisco had given me directions to take a bus to a local dentist, when the American piped up with comments about being careful of muggers, and not walking around alone, and maybe I should take a taxi, and on and on. I must have looked at him as if he were some kind of insect because Francisco tried to shush him with "she's been here before." The fellow then asked me where we had come from. At my "Trinidad" reply, he launched into a tirade on how dangerous Trinidad was and that he wouldn't consider going there. Even the information that we had spent more than two months in Trinidad and Tobago didn't shut him up. I finally asked him when he had last been in Trinidad. He replied "I haven't been there, it's too dangerous!"

Right!!