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Sixth day, Wednesday May 26, Tobago Cays Part Deux:

Memory is fading fast, so I may not have the day right, but I want to say this is the morning that I discovered the wonders of Mango pancakes. Ok, ok… nobody else was thrilled with the idea, but Lisa made pancakes, and we had a ton of mangos, so I cut one up and sliced it over a couple of pancakes spread with butter and topped with maple syrup. This was a concoction to die for, but nobody else would even try it! No figuring people’s tastes. Mister Quality motored in and we looked over and bought some T-shirts and, and made an order for ice ($30EC/10lb bag) and warm banana bread ($35EC) to be delivered the next morning.

After breakfast and shopping at the rail we slipped our mooring at 9:45am and motored up to the north side of Baradal. The logic being that we’d avoid an extra 1.5 miles in a dingy on the way to and back from Petit Tobac, save on dingy gas, and have easier access to Baradal that evening. It’s trickier than you’d think deciding where the hazards are when you’re facing north east from Baradal. You see nothing but water! You know the shallows and coral heads are lurking, somewhere, and with a keel still free of dings and your security deposit on the line it pays to be chicken. Looking at the chart you’ll see a hole 18 feet deep north-north-east of Baradal and directly east of Petit Rameau. Anywhere south and west of this hole is good water with no hidden hazards until you get ludicrously close to Baradal. So there we plopped the anchor and backed down on it at 1800RPM to make sure it was set, then all piled into the dingy.

It’s virtually impossible to spot the pass through Horsehoe Reef from the north end of Baradal. At least, we could not see it. Breakers everywhere. However, if you line-up the north end of both Petit Bateau and Baradal (behind you) it takes you directly to the cut. Eventually you’ll find the break through the reef, but you won’t be particularly happy about it. At least, I wasn’t. A couple of times I want to say we broke out oars to probe the depth least we trash the lower unit on the dingy motor. The path is serpentine, and the water does in fact appear to be 5.9 feet deep like the chart says, but that’s in between the coral heads! Subscribing to the school of thought that says if you’re gonna run into something, do it slowly, we inched our way out and finally made the outside of the reef. I had the GPS in-hand, mostly so I could see how good the charts were, and some bright soul (not me) was smart enough to say “Hey, why not mark the waypoint here so we can get back!” and so I did. I was also saving our track, so backtracking would have worked to. It turns out the charts are pretty good, but it’s my humble opinion that the gap in the reef is nowhere near as big as it shows on the chart. I swear I could step across the gap in places!

Once past the reef the waves were not too bad and we made haste to Petit Tobac. There’s a lagoon to the North of PT and it’s suitable for anchoring of cats and perhaps even monohulls if the Skipper’s middle name is “clanks while he walks.” One can beach the dingy on the west end but we motored on into the lagoon and anchored it in waist-deep water about 20 feet off the east-end beach and walked in to the beach. I returned to pile a few rocks on top of the dingy anchor before exploring.

After stashing our drinking water and gear in the shade, we split up and Woody and Lisa went around the island clockwise, and Barb and I the other way. We arrived on the west end and spotted Woody and Lisa gingerly picking their way through the rocks with bare feet. Moral of the story - if you’re going to walk around the south side, wear shoes! The south side is rocky and rough, and the north side sports a beautiful beach with soft white sand. Palms and other smaller trees grow in the interior. The island is small, desolate, remote, and yet beautiful. You really feel ‘out there’ walking its beach.

Our solitude was not to last, and soon we had a monohull and 3 catamarans sharing the tiny lagoon. Two kite-surfers wound their way through the reefs and the boats with skill and daring. A boat vendor drove in and landed a group on west end. Craving more solitude, it was time to snorkel.

We started on the east end and swam out to the north. There is reef and coral everywhere. We saw a pile of conch shells (lambi to the locals) piled on the bottom where no-doubt some fisherman had removed the meat and discarded the beautiful shells. Woody and Lisa spotted a large turtle shell on the bottom. There were many varieties of fish. I’d judge the snorkeling here to be good, but not great. After perhaps an hour in the water we left the reef and swam south through the bevy of boats and clambered up the beach mid-island. It was time to leave this beautiful place in search of new adventures, but I was very sad to do so. I don’t think we discovered all of its secrets and I hope to return some day.

After a relatively uneventful return to Wind Dancer we found her to be rolling uncomfortable in the surge that made it past the reef to the north. We decided to relocate and weighed anchor. We hoped to find a place on the south side of Baradal but the inn was full. After picking through the crescent of boats we found ourselves not 50 yards from where we were moored that morning! Oh well. We dropped the anchor near Jamesby and had lunch.

After lunch we loaded into the dingy for more adventure and headed to Petit Bateau. There’s a path leading to the summit on the south east end of PB. Lisa and Woody were keen to climb it, and rabbited out ahead, while Barb and I took a statelier pace. It’s a little jagged in spots, but the ascent is pretty enough, and though you can’t see much from the summit proper, there are a number of places you can stop and view either the anchorage to the east, or Mayreau to the west.

After reaching the summit, there is no place to go but down, and back to the beach we went. On the north end of PB there’s a cut-through to the channel between PB and PR. Hundreds of land-crabs appear to have made this place their home, and they shyly watch you from the safety of their burrows… ready to dash down at a moments notice. On the north side of the island is a place where boat vendors have established an advanced base-camp of sorts. There are many places with lines strung between trees for vendors to display T-shirts and the like, though there was not much there when we visited.

Lisa then decided that we should motor the dingy through a driving rainstorm to Baradal, and so we arrived much cooler and wetter than when we started. However, with this plan of attack we wasted no time waiting the storm out under cover, and being already soaking wet made the decision to snorkel that much easier once we arrived. While Woody and Barb lounged on the beach, Lisa and I took to the water on the south side. The snorkeling here turned out to not be all that great. Not bad, but not great. This is where you are supposed to always see turtles, but we didn’t spot a single one. I could feel the current pull us along, but it was not until we arrived near the west-end that it became obvious how much grip it had on us. Though we had initially decided to circumnavigate the island, we dropped that plan and decided to plow back through the current to the north beach. Sometimes it was all I could do to stay even with the current. I diverted towards shore into 3 feet of water so I could stand up and rest if I had to, leaning into the current. Lisa is a strong swimmer and plowed ahead farther out. We got a pretty good work-out making it back to the beach, and that’s where the forethought of bringing a cooler full of beer finally paid off. After that vigorous swim, it tasted mighty good!

A short dingy ride took us back to Wind Dancer in time for showers and painkillers before grilling up on the back deck. Life in the Tobago Cays was very good.

Here's a picture of the day's wandering track among the Cays.




Beach and Lagoon at Petit Tobac


Crowded galley aboard Wind Dancer.


Welcome sign on Petit Bateau!


Beach on Petit Bateau


North Shore of Petit Bateau