Tobago Cays and the Grenadines
After a week spent in Prickly Bay, Saint Georges and Carriacou, we finally cleared out from Grenada in Tyrrel Bay. Having sailed many long hours and in some cases days between destinations it feels very comfortable to be able to see your next destination when you leave harbour. Our next goal was to reach Clifton Harbour, a Port of Entry into Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). Admin was taken care of by the Airport (rather Air strip) officials, efficiently and friendly. Clifton turned out to be a relaxed place, full of seaside small bars / restaurants. We stocked up our supplies for a few days out on the Tobago Cays. Still remembering costs of food from Brazil, we had to accept maybe 5 times more expensive costs for everything. We managed to negotiate one grapefruit, one pepper, one carrot to XCD (East Caribbean dollar) 15 (SEK 45, € 5). The motor / sail to Tobago Cays and the fantastic Horseshoe reef took only one hour, with careful navigation in crystal clear water. The anchorage, as expected was crowded but we found a nice spot. Tobago Cays and in particular this bay is spectacular, the reef to windward is partly submerged so the horizon to the east is unbroken sea. This means perfectly calm water but no protection of the trade winds. These islands / reefs are now a marine nature reserve. Every day the park rangers came by to collect the 10 XCD for the Park fee, others came for garbage collection, for selling lobsters, for fresh bread etc. We spent four days in these islets, mostly snorkeling , checking for turtles and some island walking (not very far since the biggest island is about 300 meters by 50 meters wide). On the islands were plenty of large iguanas (lizards), which including tail were about 1.5 meter long. Some of the reefs to windward were half dead due to the last hurricanes but we found some remaining large corrals with many different types of fish.
We really enjoyed our time in these waters and most likely we will come back later this summer.
S/Y Tina Princess 