Tobago Cays - 9 January
Dearloves
Tue 10 Jan 2006 03:45
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The view from our boat is 90% water, most of which
is the brightest aquamarine colour I have ever seen. It has the most
amazing luminescence. Even at night it seems to glow, and at night our
windsurfers and dinghy behind Keoma have a moon shadow on the sea bed.
This bright blue sea area is interspersed with occasional islands - there are 14
in total, although some are no more than scrappy pieces of rock. There are
no houses, no shops, no bars and no restaurants.
 View from Keoma - the island is
called Petit Tabac and was another of the sets for Pirates of the
Caribbean
Yesterday we snorkelled through an area where
turtles like to graze on the weed at the bottom of the sea. We saw around
15 turtles over approximately 45 minutes. They are such graceful swimmers,
with their long front fins flapping slowly. We swam to within
around 1 metre of them. The picture below was taken by one of Alice's
friends, Jonathan, who has a waterproof camera, and the turtle was around 60cm
in size across its shell.
 Both Alice and Pip are really enjoying
snorkelling
 Strange undersea
creature
We have seen some beautiful skies - most people
here try to get back to the boat by around 5pm so as to watch the sunset
(sometimes with a cold beer in hand). Below is the view from our boat
looking the other way, towards an island called Jamesby. The closest boat is
Temula B - Pip has been going there for reading practice.
 Yesterday we had a two dinghy excursion out to
Petit Tabac, with our friends from Whitehaven and Temula B. For a few
hours we had our very own desert island. The children made a camp and
collected hermit crabs, while the adults climbed up for coconuts and
snorkelled. The reef fish here are every colour and there is beautiful
coral.
 The beach at Petit Tabac - looking
towards the Atlantic
 Hermit Crab
 One of Petit Tabac's stunning
views
On the way out to Petit Tabac we had managed to get
the dinghies across the reef, which was very shallow with breaking waves.
On the way back to the boat the tide had gone down a bit and there was no way we
were going to get the dinghies across the reef, so we had to go an extra mile or
so to get around the edge. The Atlantic swell had also increased while we
were on the island, so it was a bit of a rodeo ride in the dinghies, and quite a
few waves were breaking over the top of the dinghies. Then Charlie gave us
the news that we didn't have much fuel left in the outboard engine...
Fortunately we made it back to the anchorage - running on fumes. We
followed a local boat around the end of the reef to find the
way.
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