The Cosmos Adventure - News

Joe Dorr Report -- Tobago to Grenada

Cosmos

11 March 2003

We are now "cruising the Caribbean."  We stopped in Tobago for one week, spending two days in Scarborough, Harbor, two days in Kings Bay, and three days in Man of War Bay, at Charlotteville.  We then sailed overnight to Secret Harbor, on the south end of Grenada and stayed for two days.  Next we made a long day sail to Carriacou, the second largest island of Grenada.

Our arrival in Tobago coincided with the night Carnival started.  We really thought we would step into the action, but our most significant participation was listening to the music from aboard the boat.  The music was so loud, in fact, that we didn't want to go ashore; unfortunately, it kept us awake until 4:00 in the morning.  Scarborough, the largest city on Tobago, is a working city, not a resort.  We cleared immigration and customs, bought some provisions, filled our water tanks and sailed for the quieter environment of Kings Bay. 

I wanted to provide Joost and Daniel the opportunity to do some diving before they left the boat, and Terril Bay -- between Tobago and Little Tobago Island -- seemed to be the best bet.  Though advertised to be one of the best five dive spots in the Caribbean, the charts and cruising guides made me wonder if it was safe for us to take the boat there.  The guides recommended taking a ride in a glass bottom boat to Little Tobago Island, which seemed like a good way to see Terrils Bay without putting Cosmos at risk.

We tried to catch the bus into Speyside to start the tour, but the driver did not stop to pick us up.  As the bus went by, a man driving a pickup stopped and offered us a ride.  That ride was our first exciting ride over the narrow, twisting roads of northern Tobago.  The driver must have wanted to show us and his girlfriend, who was sitting next to him, what an excellent race car driver he could have been.  We had a lovely, white-knuckle ride, but got to our destination safely.

The tour of Little Tobago was interesting.  The island is a bird lover's paradise, so the birds are the principal focus of the tour.  The rainforest was filled with lovely birdsong, but some of the loveliest sounds came from a mockingbird, just like the ones we have at home.  Daniel was particularly disappointed not to have seen a bird of paradise, but no one has seen any of these birds -- imported to the island in the 1950s -- on Tobago since a particularly bad hurricane in the early 90's.

In Speyside, we had lunch at Manta Lodge, and while Joost and Daniel went checking out all possible hotel accommodations,  I sat and talked to Clyde Robinson, the owner.  He gave me a quick review of his history, including how he bought the land and built the hotel.  He said the biggest challenge is getting what you need.  For example, he told me that a couple of weeks earlier, a freezer full of food had broken.  Because the parts required to repair it would have taken too long to get to Tobago, he had to buy two additional freezers that he did not need in order to save the food.  He also told me about his daughter. Evidently she moved to Switzerland as a tennis pro and is now planning to buy a 65-foot fishing boat and become a fishing boat captain.  Clyde believes she is making a mistake.

After the tour and lunch, we decided to continue on to Charlotteville, the northernmost town on Tobago.  Once again we wanted to catch the bus that runs every hour, but as we approached the road, the bus went zooming by again.  We asked a waitress at Manta Lodge how we could get to Charlotteville.  She told us just to stand by the road, and someone would come along and give us a ride.  She also informed us that people normally give the driver TT$2.00 (US$0.33), which is the same as the bus fare.  Following her advice, we stood by the road for about 10 minutes when a red jeep came speeding down the road and into the driveway of the Manta Lodge.  After we waited another ten minutes without catching a ride, the woman who had been driving the jeep shouted to us from across the street, asking how much we would pay for a ride to Charlotteville.  I shouted back, "Two TTs."  She answered, "Perfect.  Come on over and get in."   She turned out to be Clyde's daughter, the one who is buying the fishing boat.  She was so full of energy, I think she'll have no problem making the watermen tow the line.  As it turned out, she refused our payment for the ride, even though it was ten miles out of her way. 

Charlotteville is a charming Caribbean fishing village that hasn't changed much over the years because it gets very little tourism.  We ate, walked around the town and bought bus tickets.  But when we went to the bus stop there sat the bus, broken down.  Once again, we stood by the road, hoping to catch a ride, but no one was leaving town.  After waiting for about 25 minutes, we saw a couple getting into a small but new four-wheel drive vehicle.  Daniel asked them if we could have a ride and although the man seemed hesitant, he consented.  He said he was worried that the rental car's engine would not make it over the hills with all of us in the car.

Of course, during the ride we shared stories of how we came to be in Charlotteville.  He and his wife were on vacation from Wales.  When he found out we were making a circumnavigation, he said that was exactly what he would like to do.  He said he used to skipper maxies (65-foot ocean racers) in the sixties, and had captained a boat that almost never lost a race.  He asked if we were in the catamaran that had sailed up the East Coast of Tobago a day earlier.  When I replied that we were, he said he had stood for over an hour watching us through his binoculars.  He gave us great compliments for how well Cosmos made her way up the coast (we had to tack several times because we were sailing up wind).  When he dropped us off, I gave him a Cosmos card so that he could find our web site. He wrote his name and address in my book and invited Elke and me to call if ever we get to his part of Wales.

The Cosmos crew must be fickle.  We thought that Carnival would be just the thing to liven up the lives of four sailors who had just crossed the Atlantic Ocean, but then we decided to listen to the music from the boat.  We tired of that in just two nights, so we moved to the totally remote and quiet Kings Bay.  After spending just two very quiet nights there, we decided that we needed some human sounds, so we moved to Charlotteville.

During our sail to Charlotteville from Kings Bay we stopped in Terrels Bay so that Joost and Daniel could do some diving with the Super Snorkel.  It allowed them to dive 45 feet to see more interesting fish and coral along the drop-offs of the Japanese Garden.  We had wanted to go diving in Manta City, but the seas were far too rough for diving there to be enjoyable.

Once we were settled at Charlotteville, I rented a car to handle the crew-change logistics.  Emily and Bill were both scheduled to arrive on the 6th, about an hour apart from each other.  Daniel made a hotel reservation to stay a few days in Charlotteville, but needed to go to Scarborough to the travel agency to arrange his flight home.  Joost took a room on a golf course near the airport for a couple of days.

Bill's flight from the States was delayed in New York for de-icing.  It arrived in Barbados 30 minutes after his flight to Tobago left.  Emily arrived one hour late and joined Daniel, Joost, George and me for a final dinner with the old crew.  It is always sad to say good-bye to friends.  Daniel and Joost were excellent crew during the two and one half months they lived aboard Cosmos with George and me, and we were indeed sad to see them leave.

After dinner, we caravanned the twenty-eight miles back to Charlotteville.  The roads on the north end of Tobago are about the twistiest, turniest roads that I've ever seen.  One corner was so sharp for such a long stretch that I almost ran into my own taillight!   We arrived at the boat at about 2:00 AM, got Emily settled aboard Cosmos and retired for the night, still wondering where Bill got to.

We didn't find out what happened to him until the next morning when Cecy called the satellite telephone to inform us that he would arrive at the airport at 3:30 PM.  Bill arrived at Charlotteville dock at about 5:30 PM, after which we enjoyed a lovely dinner at Sharon's Restaurant.

The immigration people in Scarborough were very official and insisted that every document be perfect and stamped appropriately.  They gave Emily and Bill a hard time because they did not have an officially stamped letter explaining that they were new crew for Cosmos and would be leaving the country by boat and therefore, did not have a return airline ticket.  Both were made to wait until everyone else cleared immigration at the airport.  Emily and Bill then had to persuade the supervisor to give them the OK to enter the country.

Meanwhile, the immigration officer in Charlotteville officially stamped Bill onto the boat and out of the country, before Bill had even arrived in the country.  Such is the power and authority of the immigration officer.

The day after Bill arrived, we went diving and saw a good assortment of fish and corals behind a small island in Man of War Bay.  This was mainly a practice dive for the new comers.

Leaving Charlotteville March 8, we sailed overnight 72 miles to Granada.  We sailed considerably faster than I expected, so we had to slow down to delay our arrival by three hours in order to make the tricky harbor approach in good daylight. 

We anchored in Secret Harbor, rather than the very busy St. George Harbor. On our second day there we rented a car and toured Grenada.  The island had few surprises for me because I had seen plenty of pictures of it at the time of the US invasion.  We saw some still visible graffiti on a building thanking the USA for "liberating the country from the Communists."

Now we are anchored off of Hillsborough on Carriacou, the northern most island of Grenada.  Tomorrow we go ashore to clear Grenada immigration and customs, and then on to St. Vincent and the Grenadines.  We plan to stop for a day or so on Tobago Cays, a place reported to be the most photographed location in the southern Caribbean.  It is also said to be overrun with boats and littered with trash left by boaters, and to be fished out by commercial fisherman.  But it ranks as a "must see" place in all of the guides, so go see, we shall.

Joe Dorr, Captain of the Cosmos