We’re up early and off our anchor by 7:30 am for the trip down to Tobago Cays. Winds are relatively light, about 15 kts max from the east the whole way. Not a fast sail but reasonably comfortable. The Cays are a little busier than we expected but we find a decent anchorage (there are no free mooring balls) between two cats close to the beach. Anchor down at 1:47 pm. Captain Neal has 3 seats saved for us for lobster tonight.
Later we dinghy over to the park to try and snorkel with the turtles. Except there are no turtles. We enter on the Atlantic side of the park island as usual and I swim all around the area and see nothing but some small fish. As I am exiting the ocean one of those big bottom feeder fish, as big as my leg, swims right underneath me and I try to step on him with my flipper but it is too fast and gone in a second. Later we learn all the turtles are on the other side of the park boundaries where there is sea grass, there is no sea grass in the park now after the hurricane. Hope it comes back. We walk up the hill to see the view, it’s always difficult in bare feet. Zero kite surfers, usually there’s a dozen here.
Later, back on board, Captain Neal comes over to say hello – “I always remember this boat” he says, Milu is very recognizable and people often remark they see us all over.
Around 5:30 pm or so we dinghy over and haul the dinghy up onto the beach. Walk to the other side of the island and show Liz where I broke my foot. Not much exploring though. We head back to the bbq and enjoy a spectacular sunset while the near-full moon rises behind us. The food is great as always. Neal comes over to chat and I remark how this is one of the only places I eat lobster. He points to some Germans at another table and tells us one of them said “I have been all over the world and this is the best lobster I have ever had”. Ain’t it the truth.
We take lots of pictures as the sunset just gets better every minute. Lots of people doing the same. There’s a guy playing steel drum which is a nice accompaniment to the evening.
It’s dark fast of course, we pay Neal and eventually head back to the boat.
We sit out back a bit and marvel at the near-full moon. The tides have been very strong and the swell on beaches noticeably harsher here and Bequia. Liz almost got run over by the dinghy as we tried to land on Princess Margaret Beach for the BBQ there. Here, as we’re getting ready for bed, Christy tells me all the boats are facing different directions.
I go up top and sure enough we’re turning and spinning like the others. I see something swimming fast upstream towards the park – that’s not a fish, it’s sargasso weed, rushing headlong upstream towards the reef. Lots of other flotsam doing the same. It’s the strong, full moon tide doing that. The wind is rocking but the tide is going the other way. Never seen that here before and it is causing us to spin around. After 10 minutes or so of watching I reckon our anchor is holding well and we’re not encroaching on any other boats that are generally doing the same. A little concerned that we the current will take us upstream and pull out the anchor so I try to set the anchor alarm. It just keeps going off so I go to bed and trust our trusty anchor.
It holds.