Tobago at last!

One hour later, the original water pump, which we had repaired, was back in place and working well. We weighed anchor about 3.30pm and headed out to sea against the wind and the current as Tobago lies 87 miles to windward.

We went due west for 10 miles and thanks to a NE wind we could fly our mainsail and a tiny bit of genoa, but we kept the engine going as well. We were then in a good position for a beam reach, under reefed genoa and mainsail, all the way to the SE end of Tobago. Sal Darago bowled along at 6.5 knots. We had to slow down as we needed to approach the shoal patch off Tobago in daylight, so Jeremy hove to and I went below for a sleep. When I heard the mainsail gybe hard and the contents of the fridge empty out on to the floor, I knew something was wrong. Jeremy had just turned 180 degrees to avoid a collision with a ship.

Once the ship was safely past us it was my turn on the helm for 3 hours and we still needed to go slowly. I chose to furl the genoa and go at 4 knots under mainsail. I took a Stugeron as I was feeling a bit queasy and an hour later I was wretching in the sink. I felt much better afterwards. The sky began to lighten; my watch came to an end and I was glad to lie down for a while. As it turned out, there was a wide channel between Tobago and the unlit shoal patch which we could have safely negotiated in the dark, but we were following the advice given in the cruising guide.

The next 3 hours were directly into the wind and against the current, so we were relieved when Scarborough, the main town of Tobago, came into view. Our troubles were not over yet. When we anchored we were too close to another yacht and when Jeremy tried to lift the anchor it was fouled round some rusty, heavy chain. After much struggling with lines and boathook, he managed to release our anchor and we found another spot and dropped it without incident.

We had a late breakfast, collected our papers and passports and took the dinghy ashore to Immigration. A surly receptionist gave Jeremy the forms that needed to be filled in and we were told to take a seat in the crowded waiting room. At least it was air conditioned! Jeremy went to ask the receptionist if 4 copies of the forms needed to be filled in and she said, “Yes”. She didn’t mention the carbon paper that was on the desk, which we saw after we’d written the same information 4 times on 2 sets of forms! After an hour, we were called to see the Immigration Officer, who filled in another form and scanned our passports on his computer. He was very pleasant and gave us the form we needed in order to go to Charlottesville, which is in the north of Tobago. Normally, you have to go back to Scarborough Immigration and to Customs on the day of departure. Customs is a short walk away and we were admitted to the office by a man with his feet up on the desk watching television! He looked at our papers from Immigration, stamped them and wrote something, but he refused to amend the form so we could leave for Charlottesville without return to his office. He really couldn’t get rid of us fast enough.

We went to the bank, well 3 banks actually, and all of them refused my debit card transaction. Thank goodness we had the money from “Isle Escape” or we would not have been able to pay the navigation fees (50TT$) at Customs or buy groceries from the supermarket.

We stayed in Scarborough for 4 nights. One yacht had been there for a month after crossing the Atlantic from the Canaries and two more came in, having done likewise. “Carriad” from New Zealand had taken on two crew in Las Palmas and the skipper and one of the crew had argued all the way across. Consequently, both crew left the boat as soon as they had cleared Immigration and Customs. The skipper, Waddy, who is 73, became friendly with us and we might be “buddy boating” to Trinidad together.

Whilst in Scarborough, we climbed up to Fort King George, where there were 16 British cannons and took photographs of the spectacular views. On another day, we went to the Botanical Gardens, which were well kept, but most of the signs giving information were blank. We met a local woman, Leandre, and chatted for ages. She gave us her business card and offered to take us turtle watching in Trinidad. The gardens began to fill with cruise ship tourists and we made our way to the supermarket, which was closed, because it was Spiritual Baptists’ Liberation Day, a public holiday.

After clearing Customs on Tuesday morning and buying some supplies, our next port of call was Store Bay. We spent two nights there; had our laundry done in the world’s first Internet café laundry and filled our tanks with water. The laundry was good value at 49.95TT$ but the water was the most expensive so far at 100TT$ for 20 gallons (50p a gallon for tap water). We had to take the dinghy through reefs to a dive centre, land on the beach, walk up to the tap and fill our containers. Today, we motored round the edge of Buccoo Reef and anchored in Buccoo Bay. We’ve been on a marathon dinghy trip across the reef to a lagoon and walked on another palm fringed, white sand beach. We now have a stern anchor out to keep us into the swell and we’re watching the pelicans and black headed gulls diving for fish.