Store Bay after all the Holiday makers had left.
We’ve decided to head back to Store Bay now that the novelty of Wi-Fi has gone and been replaced with oppressive boredom. We only stay in Plymouth for the internet, to make some Skype calls to Dylan and do our necessary admin. So a quick 1 hour sail round to Store Bay– it’s changed in the last two weeks. The masses of local tourists have all returned to Trinidad, leaving the beaches peaceful and quiet, particularly since all the thumping glass bottom boats have stopped their tours, its bliss! The water has cleared, yachties have returned and all the ‘neighbours’ have decided to get together for dinner ashore at Curves Restaurant.
Dad contemplating the difficulties of life – while we buy our fresh produce.
We set off feeling like this was more familiar territory and what we had experienced in our previous sailing years. It was fantastic to laugh and exchange similar stories and knowledge. We met two South African single handers (so Dad got to whip out some Afrikaans again) and an Italian, Raphael, who has a wicked sense of humour. He crossed over from the Med with only a handful of GPS coordinates, absolutely no charts, and still managed to arrive in one piece. Mom got to know Linda and Trevor, originally from Canada, they had been cruising on and off for 22 years before settling here in Trevor’s home country. They were kind enough to offer to take us on a round trip of the island and give us the inside scoop of what is a must see here.
Trevor, Mom, Dad, Linda and myself.
Before we went up to Mt. Irvine to meet them, we planned a trip into Scarborough. The ‘taxi’ service here is hellava simplistic. You stand on the side of the road as if to hitch, a seemingly random car will pull over within 2 minutes, and you’ll be given a price to get to your destination. This system is more for the locals so you inevitably get guys trying to rip you off, but thanks to some helpful hand signals from the rest of the car’s occupants you get to know the status quo. In Scarborough we walked in the punishing heat all the way to the top to see Fort George, the beautifully maintained gardens and buildings and I tried to revisit some distant memories.
Fort George gardens
We took a walk around to Bacolet Beach to check out a restaurant for another night and had a drink at the hotels bar which is on a perfect beach; this got Dad and me talking about finding our flawless spot where we can lure unsuspecting tourists to spend vast quantities of money! R38 for a 275ml coke that was warm… madness! Especially when down the road its R9 for a 500ml at Retas’s Roti Shop, a local place that Lennon had sworn by. Lunch here, with a continuous stream of people from causal labourers to pencil skirted lawyers moving through it as Reta and her family turned out their delicious food.
Bacolet Bay
Rolling out of there having eaten far too much, we stopped off at TT Post to see if our new Reef Fish Identification software had arrived, 3 – 5 days express apparently means two or more weeks in Caribbean time. On the way back we stopped in at their ‘mall’ (something I encouraged with my birthday just around the corner), this is a huge building to rival any of SA’s malls, but with a pitiful amount of stores, if they even decided to be open. I have come to conclude that opening times are completely at random and at the discretion of the owner. Open from 9:00 to 12:00, then closed till 12:30, then closed from 14:00 to 16:00 and open until 18:00… how is anyone supposed to navigate their day through this?
Back up to Mt Irvine to meet Linda and Trevor at 9:00 on the beach. We wound around endlessly beautiful beaches and coves, with Linda’s informative running commentary and a humorous comment now and again from Trevor. Dad found a possible paragliding spot looking down on Castara Bay, but as always it depends entirely on whether the wind decides to be accommodating. A little further on at Parlatuvier (Par-la-too-vi-air), no laughing at my pronunciation French speakers; we stopped to walk inward to their waterfall. Tobago has 6 marked waterfalls and after harassing locals for the best one to visit we had decided to go to Argyle. Linda proved indispensable yet again as she explained that only the waterfalls that are government owned are displayed on the maps since you pay an entrance fee and in exchange you get a pathetic trickle of water ending in a muddy puddle. She showed us Parlatuvier falls, and although not overly spectacular, it boasted a beautiful deep pool for swimming after an awesome walk through the impressive bamboo tunnels. We were all sad to hear that the government has recently bought this land and newly constructed outhouses and pay stations were evidence of a soon to be crowded tourist spot.
Trevor, Mom and myself taking advantage of the free back massage.
We headed inland from here, along the aptly named Roxborough Parlatuvier Rd to (you’ll never guess) Roxborough, a town on the windward side of the island. Traveling further up the coast, we stopped at Speyside, a divers’ paradise as the land based launch pad for over 30 renowned dive spots. We decided to stop off at Jemma’s Seaview Treehouse, a restaurant built on and in amongst the trees on the water’s edge. In much need for a refreshing beverage, we were told that they don’t serve alcohol, about turn! We made a beeline instead for the Blue Waters Hotel (completely stunning), that looks onto Batteaux Bay. We will definitely be stopping off here with Katlyn, who knows maybe Dad can charm the Wi-Fi password out of them… We also found out where ‘Fiddler’, a cruising yacht we had previously made friends with, was hiding out.
Blue Waters Bay at Speyside, definitely will be heading this way soon.
Jemma’s Treehouse
Englishman’s Bay
We drove back via Man ‘O War Bay, a gorgeous place flanked by high rising tropical vegetation which I still remember climbing back in 1998. To compensate for Linda and Trevor’s hospitality, Mom made them two beautiful place mats and we were thrilled to have them join us for supper, along with Raphael, some delicious Italian wine and more than a few beers!
Looking on Castara Bay
I had a fantastic cruisers birthday, with a stunning bikini and bag made up by Mom, brand new earphones for skyping from Dad and the ickiest, stickiest chocolate cake made by yours truly. Up until now I’ve been using fins clipped over booties (an annoying complication particularly in water hotter than my bath) and so a new pair of fins meant I spent a large portion of the day snorkeling. While I was checking out some caves I found an arb creature starring back at me. It was definitely a crustacean of sort, easily 15cm wide and 45cm long with a hard grey-yellow shell. It had creepy crab-like legs and a near non-existent head but for two large fake yellow eyes not unlike a butterfly. Well out goes all my well ingrained respect of the ocean, I had to touch it… but there was no way I would with my bare hand. So off came my snorkel which I used as a hooking device to tip him out of his hole and watched while he flounder around before climbing back in. So I hooked him out again (typical human) and in the end he got fed up with me and high tailed it out of there in his backward swimming manner. Later I was to discover from Trevor that that is what a fully matured local lobster look like! Dammit, there goes dinner…
New Fins
Decisions needed to be made about whether we were going to take the Ferry down to Trinidad (a convenient place to avoid the hurricane belt and an absolute Mecca for boat repairs) or sail down ourselves and submit to the somewhat unpleasant beat into the wind to get back. Either way we have planned to head up along Tobago stopping in at the beautiful bays we saw on our car trip before heading in that direction. Then we will be getting itchy feet and move on up to Grenada to find some perfect spots to take Dylan to when he arrives in 3 months’ time… ah, the leisure.
– Kate
This is the Copper rumped hummingbird, one of the many sun birds species found on this Island.
Sailing Katlyn 