The Tobago Cays

Wow! I’d heard for years that the Tobago Cays were special, and the photos I’d seen seemed to back that up, but gee whiz these little cays and the surrounding waters are beautiful. Just a handful of dinky little islands, surrounded by that crystal clear and shallow green water advertising companies like so much, a few perfect little white sand beaches, reefs teaming with fish and breaking the swell, so the anchorages are pretty calm…hard to ask for much more!

Okay, there are a lot of other boats here, but these days there are a lot of boats almost everywhere. I’m sure it was more pristine 30 years ago, but that was then, this is now. We’ve not been to a prettier spot anywhere in the Caribbean. As we jumped in the water off the boat, Emmy popped right back up and pointed to an Eagle Ray swimming under the boat. We took dinghy over to one of the little islets, beached the dinghy on a neat little cove, and hiked up to the top to catch a great view and take some pix. Hiking along the trail Emmy had a “Close Encounter” with a large Iguana, and I had to fearlessly drive him off by throwing pebbles at him…just like Iguana Jones!

Then we snorkeled along one of the large reefs, and saw lots of tropical fish, coral, sea fans and quite a few turtles. Emmy also spotted more “Flamingo Tongues,” a kind of mollusk, than she’d ever seen before. The whole area has been declared a National Park of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, so with a little luck they’ll be able to keep things in good shape.
There are no restaurants in the area, but licensed “Boat Boys” come by in the morning selling fresh French bread and ice, later in the day offering fresh fish and still wiggling lobsters. I don’t think words are the right way to communicate the essence of this place, so will let the pictures do the talking.

This marks the southern terminus of our trip, as we need to turn north now and start making our way home, but we’d love to return here in the future and spend some more time exploring the nooks and crannies in the Tobago Cays and the rest of the Grenadines. I think you could easily spend a couple months in this area without getting bored. We also didn’t make it to Grenada, so maybe we’ll add it to the list for next time too. For now it’s back to Bequia for a couple of days. The saga continues…