Commodore
February 9, 2021

It is the colour of the water that makes the Tobago Cays so special

Romeo the boat man has helped us onto the mooring ball both times now. They have a system of taking it in turns to do business with each yacht that arrives, they sit in their boats for hours in the sun, looking for sails and masts in the distance. Romeo visited us this morning and asked if we wanted a fish BBQ, we didn’t really feel like going out again but felt so sorry for him we agreed and said we would ask El Gaucho if they wanted to join us. We are not sure what happened but late morning there was a lot of very heated discussions between the boatman, it appears one of them was out of turn. So difficult for them as this is peak season and there are usually around 200 boats (that would be ghastly!) and currently there are 15 yachts.

The three rival boatman waiting for hours in the midday sun to pounce on new arrivals. Romeo in the middle boat!

Our mooring spot next to a lovely little beach

Rowan was begged to go on board El Gaucho to try and get their faulty engine started by jump wiring it. Rowan had told him to look on youtube as that is where he had learnt to do it, as you have to make sure you don’t fry all the electrics! He definitely wanted Rowan to do it with him. Silvena said it was very funny watching both of them fit very snugly into the engine compartment at the same time! Rowan’s little wiring trick worked wonders, they were so thrilled and now think of Rowan as a mechanical guru!

We headed out at 2pm to snorkel at the reef, Rowan had hoped the tide had changed enough for the current to slow down. Sadly the current was still roaring, we did tie Jeldi Jeldi to a buoy on the reef and we swum straight into the current so we could drift back, but it was unbelievably hard and scary. What we did see was great, the main thing being the clarity of the turquoise water. We tried a few more spots but the current was still way too strong.

Gorgeous colour of the water.

Our BBQ was at 5:30 as Romeo and his wife Juliet (yes!) have to go back home to Union island. Such a long day for them. The French contingent had a huge group for a BBQ with Romeo’s rival. The other two couples from last night were there, plus the family we met in Chatham bay. Jacques and Silvena were asked to join them but obviously felt sorry for us being so outnumbered! It was another delicious meal cooked by Juliet.