Position: 12:38:19N 61:21:79W

Distances are so short in the Grenadines – today’s sail was only 7 or so miles.  It’s all line-of-sight sailing – you can see where you are heading as you set off.  However, we’re now into reefs-ville, and there are lots of keel-hungry coral heads lurking below the surface so you’ve got to keep your wits about you.  For various reasons, I haven’t got the electronic charts for the Caribbean, so it is back to paper charts and bearings.  Luckily the visibility is so good it’s not really an issue.

The girls looking out for reefs

The Tobago Cays are a small group of islands and reefs in the Grenadines – nowhere near and nothing to do with Tobago itself.  They are idyllic tropical islands – what most people would visualize a perfect tropical island looking like.  Clear azure water, white sand, deep lush green foliage.  Of course this means that every yacht and his tender are there with you and there were around 20 yachts at anchor.

I could get used to this

As you approach, you pass through a narrow channel between two islands, then the water opens out into a lake-like area, protected by the aptly-named Horseshoe Reef and four small islands.  On the way in, we nearly sailed into a turtle, floating on the surface!   We anchored in 10 metres of water and I could still see the anchor clearly.

Incidentally all this being able to see your anchor on the bottom is very educational (if you like that sort of thing).  You can see how the anchor sets, and how much scope is required.  In general, our anchor (it is a 20kg Delta) sets within it’s own length, which is really impressive.  I have so much more confidence in our anchor than I used to with our old CQR – which is important in the Caribbean given anchoring is the norm rather than marinas.  We always dig the anchor in by slowly motoring backwards up to 1800 rpm and watching to see if we are moving and 90% of the time it sets first time.

Approaching Tobago Cays

We spent 3 days in the Cays, swimming off the boat, and watching the turtles.  Whilst Sarah and the girls were doing school, I took the dinghy off to the outer reef where the Marine Park rangers have laid dinghy buoys where you can moor the dinghy and go off snorkeling.  The snorkeling is pretty good – lots of reef fish and coral – but the highlight is the multitude of placid turtles that are swimming around in the grass bed off one of the islands.  I also saw a ray silently swimming by whilst watching the turtles – an amazing sight.

Turtle watching, Tobago Cays

Our Dutch friends arrived and we all organized for one of the local boat boys to cook us a lobster barbeque on one of the beaches.  This turned out to be a superb feast with lobster, fish, chicken and a whole array of local vegetables such as plantain, yam and potato. 

All our dinghies

A superb beach barbeque

Lobster feast

Our old friends Martin and Marieke from “Walrus” arrived from Grenada.  We had last seen them on a drunken evening in Funchal, Madeira and we had a fittingly drunken reunion party on their boat with all the other Dutch families. They kindly brought us some Nutmeg products from Grenada – Grenada is known as the Spice Isle, and Nutmeg is one of the main crops.  Clearly we’re going to have to take “Nutmeg” to visit!