Tobago Cays

The Tobago Cays are located approximately 6 nm north-east of Union Island in the Grenadines. On the chart it looks like one of those idyllic anchorages isolated from nearby villages and towns.

Looking south over the anchorage and the reef towards Union Island

Idyllic? Yes. Isolated? Yes. Free from tourists? No. We ourselves are tourists so nowhere we go is free of tourists but the Tobago Cays stretch the imagination for being isolated and idyllic with the occasional itinerant sailor dropping their anchor over the bow into crystal clear tropical waters. Here it’s a constant stream of boats big and small that move in and out of the anchorage as though it were Piccadilly Circus. This is a marine park and like many protected areas is oversubscribed with visitors.

By definition (taken from the TC’s Park pamphlet) the Tobago Cays Marine Phark is:

A non-profit government organization which is based on the principles of sustainable use, cooperation amongst resource users, active and enlightened local participation and the equitable sharing of benefits and responsibilities amongst stakeholders

Umm, does this sound like the principles of what I regard as a park? There is nothing here the speaks to the environment like protecting the turtle breeding areas or the reef strewn ecosystem.

The park is beautiful. The most visited park area is uninhabited and has numerous beaches, a corralled no-go area for boaters which protects a miniscule area for turtle grazing and then a large area of exposed reef protecting the islands.

Looking east towards Barbados

As long as the wind isn’t screaming out of the east like a banshee this is a wonderful place to spend a few nights at anchor.

I did kayak almost everywhere including over the reef, through the crystal clear water covering sand a cement company would druel over and walked a number of the higher points.

I’m not sure if the mountains of conch shells were recent

Conch mountain on the left

but one of the local activities that is attractive to the charter yachts are the beach BBQs sold to boaters the minute one’s anchor hits the sand bottom.

Our favourite salesman was this chap, sorry that I don’t remember his name, who started a conversation with us about the great BBQ on shore but then not feeling there was any chance of a sale (beach BBQ was $100EC/person) he moved the conversation on to the war in Afghanistan. 30 minutes later of liming he motored away promising us banana bread the next morning. Sure enough the morning banana bread arrived ($25EC – $12cdn) mostly unrisen and not cooked throughout. We still enjoyed it and continued our liming in the morning.

So another island group visited and another new anchorage but it’s time to move further north.