Tobago & the Tobago Heritage Festival

Tobago is a wonderful place to relax and enjoy yourself. We spent 12 days in Charlotteville which is a local fishing village. We are lucky and are here during the annual Tobago Heritage Festival. There are different events in a number of the towns around the island. In Charlotteville we watched a parade with a small steel drum band and later in the evening we watched the Tobago Dance Festival. After Charlotteville we moved to Great Courland Bay and the town of Plymouth. The bay is named for the Duke of Courland who ruled here in the 1600s. Courland (or Kurzeme in Latvian) is a region in Latvia.

In Plymouth we have seen the Calypso and steel pan band competition and enjoyed more of the local food. The music went on all night and we could hear it on the boat! The next day was the Masquerade Theatre Cultural Showcase, they engaged the audience and it was quite entertaining.

There is good diving also. The soft corals and the colors of the coral are very vibrant and different from what you see in the Marshall Islands. The water is warm and clear, though there are definitely currents that must be taken in to consideration.

Next stop, Store Bay at the southern end of the island.

Boats in the bay at Charlotteville

Heritage Festival Parade in Charlotteville - a rainy day

I saw a number of these little blue clawed crabs while diving

Great Courland Bay Monument

Cannons at Fort King George in Scarborough

Rick was a frequent target at the Masquerade Theatre in Plymouth :)

Tobago

We are now in Tobago and very glad to be here. The passage was not much fun. As Suza says, we had a little of everything come our way. It was an uncomfortable and sometimes stormy sail so we were all very happy to set anchor on the 12th.
We are starting to explore the island. It is lush, with mangoes, avocados and bananas growing everywhere. The people are friendly, the water is clear and the food is good. What more can you ask for?

Iles du Salut

The Salvation Islands were a great place to visit. They are made up of three islands: Ile Royale, Ile Saint Joseph and Ile du Diable ( Devil's Island). The islands were a penal colony in the late 1800s to 1945. It is amazing how terrible the conditions were for the inmates. The solitary confinement cells looked brutal. Today is is a historical site and you can walk around Ile Royale and Ile Saint Joseph. We spent 4 days anchored off the islands, walking around and enjoying swimming in the clean water. You can even camp or stay in a hotel on Ile Royale. There is quite a bit of wildlife on the islands. We saw monkeys, agouti (large, cute rodents), iguana, salamanders, leaf cutter ants and some resident macaws and peacocks.

We returned to Kourou on July 4th to check out from the country and we were fortunate to be able to watch an Ariane 5 launch from the boat. To see and hear the launcher go back was a rare experience.

We left Kourou for Tobago on the 7th, approximately a 630 nmi trip.

The cells on Ile Royale

The cells on Ile Royale

More cells

Not much space to live in

a local cute rodent called an agouti

resident macaws

a very cute little monkey

showing his colors

Ariane 5 launch

sunset first evening out from French Guiana