The Tobago Cays Marine Park. Incredible! I could have spent the entire week there. Anyway on day three, after breakfast of fruits and toasts and cheeses and yogurt and cereal, Grant told us he’d take us by dinghy out to the horseshoe reef. It was windy and the seas were pretty rough beyond, so we decided that he might move Caroline back a ways, close to a nice little beach on the cay called Jamesby, and after we explored the reef, we could drift back to the boat. There are mooring buoys there for dinghies to tie up to since it’s pretty shallow and big boats aren’t able to get that close.

Because we were so far from Caroline, I decided to wear my diveskin/wetsuit. It was almost winter and I did not want to be cold all the way out there. I wanted to enjoy a comfortable, long snorkel.

It was clear and beautiful, and we saw a small hawksbill turtle like the ones we see around here, and a four foot long nurse shark swam around with us for a bit. Cool! The coral was pretty healthy looking and there was a nice diversity of fish species. After a long time going in between many patch reefs, we started back toward Caroline. We swam over a couple of nice big southern stingrays and got to some more reef areas just off the beach at Jamesby. Nice!

Back on Caroline,  there was still time before lunch, so we went back toward Jamesby and checked out the beach. We took some pictures there and created a beach “sculpture” with a stump, a champagne cork, a sprig of broccoli that had washed up on shore and a baby coconut. We climbed a little way up a trail from the beach, but without shoes, going much farther would have been painful and stupid.

After another delicious lunch, Grant began talking about buying into the sailing club (it’s like a timeshare for sailing weeks). He said he’d get together with each couple at a later time in the week to explain the program further. Then we snorkeled around some more, saw a couple of tiny peacock flounders and an itty bitty  live conch – cute! We swam back to the boat in time for departure to Mayreau, where we would have dinner ashore at Dennis’ Hideaway.

Mayreau, oh man. I love an island with only ONE paved road and 200-300 people! We had ordered our dinners on Caroline earlier in the day, and Tara let Dennis know what we wanted. Michael and I wanted to try his Calaloo, and pumpkin soup. He also had grilled lobster on the menu, and I liked the sound of the seafood thermidore.

Anchoring in Saltwhistle Bay was a challenge for Grant and Tara that day. Michael and I were sitting up front for the first attempt, and there were some monohulls very close to each side of us. For some reason, Grant wanted to squeeze right in there, and the French guy in the boat to our port side got a little concerned and yelled something in French at Grant. Grant responded in Afrikaans (he’s from South Africa) and continued doing what he was doing. We figured it might take them a while to get the boat in the right place, so we went down to clean up before our excursion.

Our taxi ride from the dock was short, but lovely. The sun was setting behind us and goats in the road ahead were cause for mirth among the Americans. Dennis’ dining room was empty when we got there, and Goshe, Dennis’ Polish girlfriend, came around to get us drinks and bring our special fried conch appetizer.

It was tasty, but chewy (rubbery) and we looked forward to our soups and entrees. The pumpkin soup was not available that day, but they had “shark fin” (ugh!, but Michael really wanted to try it). The calaloo was good and so was the lobster. I tried a sip of the shark fin soup, but it tasted too fishy for me. The seafood thermidore was more rubbery conch with a chunk of lobster or two and maybe a chunk of fish or two, in a spicy, greasy sauce. I concentrated on the mashed potato side dish – yum!

While we waited for our entrees, a large group of people (14 of them) arrived and sat at a big table behind us. They were all dressed in orange polo shirts and speaking a foreign language and Michael guessed as Polish, since the words on the back of their shirts were not in Cyrillic script. And he was right! So Goshe had plenty of fellow countrymen and women to entertain her!

When we were finished our dinners, Grant and Tara arrived with a bottle of champagne to help us celebrate our anniversary. It was poured and enjoyed. Then Dennis came up to wish us well and to bring us his special signature drink. We were well on our way towards trouble after wine and rum and champagne, and on our way out, we stopped at the bar and met two more Polish people who invited us to sit with them and enjoy the reveling. A guy from the larger group was playing the guitar and singing Polish songs with the rest of the bar, and it made me feel like having a beer.

[singlepic id="570" w="200" h="150" mode="" float="right" ]But by the time the beer arrived, I felt like drinking vodka, so I did both and more. After listening to the loud raucous Polish songs and Dennis’ songs (he’s actually a Calypsonian who had a hit song a few years ago), and drinking some more, the rest of our group, who were seated at a table far away from the bar wanted to get going. Tara stayed with us while Grant brought the others back to Caroline. And when he got back, we drank some more before heading off promising Dennis that we’d be back and inviting him to  visit us on our island. He told us his brother comes around to the VI with a shipping company he works for out of Puerto Rico.

More pictures in the Albums and Galleries. We go now to the boat parade!

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 13th, 2008 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Terry Talk, Vacations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.