Sunrise as we arrive back in Tobago
Christmas day bucks fizz breakfast
Our little Christmas tree!
2015!
Already the Christmas and New Year celebrations are becoming a distant memory as we refocus on the New Year ahead and our further Caribbean meanderings.
After our extended stay in the delightful Tyrell Bay, Carriacou, we took one further small island step north-east to Petite Martinique. This would give us an even better angle from which to the sail back to Tobago. We were going to have to get used to the novel sensation of returning to places already visited and Albert Bay, Petite Martinique was no exception – in fact we picked up the same mooring buoy to which we had attached ourselves back in May. We could be certain of this because it was one of only two belonging to a local restaurant which we had enjoyed with our eldest son and daughter-in-law on our last visit. We were not disappointed by our second visit to the Palm Beach Restaurant which is not really a Restaurant as you would know it. Here we sat under an awning in the pretty garden of a beach-side house looking out over the palm-fringed bay where home-made local food was delivered to us across the lawn from the main house. Very special indeed.
We found ourselves back in Tobago for Christmas – in plenty of time for Gilly’s solo trip back to Blighty for New Year and her Sister’s 60th birthday. We opted for another overnight sail with the wind and swell often well forward of the beam for much of the trip ensuring a slanty (technical term!), bouncy but speedy crossing, finding ourselves in the hitherto unvisited town of Charlotteville in a deep forested bay at the northern tip of Tobago very early the next morning. Charlotteville is a notoriously difficult anchorage as it is not at all shallow, but by exhausting our full compliment of anchor chain (60 metres) and some rope besides we eventually found purchase among the other tethered yachts in the magnificent bay. After a few hours sleep we dinghyed ashore. The other huge advantage to Charlotteville is that it has its own branch office for customs and immigration which, we imagined, would make clearing in a doddle. Our guide-book instructed us to head for the local police station which we dutifully did only to be met by a rather bemused and sleepy officer. In fairness to him, it was Sunday morning and the whole place had a very easy-like-Sunday-morning feel. He made several local phone calls and eventually told us that tomorrow would be a better day to check in. Having attempted to do what was required of us we had a mooch around the sleepy town and went back to Resolute to catch up on more sleep and enjoy our newly-found scenic bay.
The next morning we and Charlotteville were looking more lively. We set off ashore again with our papers and were advised to report to the back of the medical centre buildings where apparently the Customs and Immigration offices resided. Sure enough the Customs officer jumped to his feet and cleared us in, advising us that the Immigration officer comes all the way from the Capital, Scarborough and would not arrive for another few hours at least. No matter, we thought – we headed down the hill, past the cricket pitch which was being carefully manicured by attentive grounds-men, to the small dockside town. Unlike yesterday there was now much more buzz to the place and we successfully bought some fresh bread at a little bakery shack (which seemed to be a co-operative of large cheerful ‘Mammas’ who could barely pass each other in the baking confines of their tiny workplace),alongside other welcome supplies in other small shops. Having thoroughly explored, at the appointed hour we made our way back up the hill, past the cricket pitch (still being attended to) round the back of the medical centre to the Customs office. Still no Immigration officer, we were advised, but apparently he is on his way. We waited. Others came – a French sailor who was at pains to confess to us that he had lost his clearing out papers from Brazil (uh oh – Trinidad and Tobagoan officials are not known for their forgiving ways we thought to ourselves whilst mumbling to him as many French reassurances as we could muster). After the first hour of our wait we were joined by a crew of a large American Catamaran which had sailed from South Africa via Brazil. They certainly enlivened the conversation and were full of humorous anecdotes about their voyages which helped us kill the second hour of the wait (during which the nervous Frenchman kept leaving us to pace outside and smoke yet another Galloises. Eventually he arrived. We stifled our loud cheers (knowing that Trinidad and Tobagoan officials are not at all given to frivolity). We were first into his office. Thankfully all seemed to be in order with our paper-work but we were dismayed to hear that when we reached the other end of Tobago, Store Bay, we would have to get a taxi to the capital Scarborough to inform them we had arrived there. He gave us a letter to pass to them. We both looked at each other meaningfully as the same thought crossed our minds: we had waited 2 hours for this man to come from the Scarborough office – surely then we could give him this letter back for him to take back to the Scarborough office. No, of course not….that would be far, far too simple! Without another utterance we left the office and advised the nervous Frenchman he could now go in and we wished him a very heartfelt “bon chance”….we felt he would definitely need it!
A celebration was in order. We headed to a second storey balconied bar we had earmarked previously and enjoyed a thoroughly good lunch served by a very friendly Australian lady who, she explained, had married a chap from Charlotteville and they had returned to help them out in his parents’ hostelry over Christmas. We were soon joined by the American catamaran crew….but they had no news for us of the paper-less Frenchman who we just have to hope was granted leave to stay…somehow.
The notorious Christmas winds were forecast to set in alongside mounting swells forcing us to leave Charlotteville and head south towards Store Bay at the southern tip of the island (which was very close to the airport from where Gilly was due to depart after Christmas). After sampling a few of the other bays en route south, none of which seemed very sheltered, we decided to head for a known quantity – Courland Bay, Plymouth. Again, we had stayed there earlier in the year and had enjoyed being there very much. It had good facilities ashore, including good grocery shops and a stunning stretch of white beach, but was quiet and sheltered. Thus we spent Christmas in glorious but somewhat sad isolation in Plymouth Bay….with our battery-operated lit tree, copious amounts of sherry and fizz, turkey and most of the trimmings, a proper Christmas pud with custard and (I hesitate to confess) two series of Downton Abbey (everyone has their guilty secrets!).
After a full recovery programme of swimming in the bay and enjoying the pelicans and terns fighting over the ample supplies of fish, we reluctantly left Plymouth once again. Our reluctance was not just because Christmas was behind us, or that Plymouth was indeed a very good place to while away days on end….but because it was soon time for us to part for a fortnight. Ridiculous as it seems to hardened married couples who have spent their married lives considerably apart ,we were not looking forward to this separation. It was much easier to face for Gilly who was excited to be going back to UK to see all their Best Beloveds, but much more difficult for Skipper who was being left in Tobago at anchor to do some chores aboard and count the days. To add insult to injury, just two days before Gilly’s departure in the strong swells which had still to abate, Gilly was unceremoniously dumped by the dinghy into the waters at Store Bay….thankfully quite close to the beach. Drenched and unimpressed she sent Skipper back to the boat to get fresh clothes before they proceeded on their not-so-merry way by taxi to Scarborough to, yes, you have already guessed, hand over the letter given to us in Charlotteville by the Immigration officer! Definitely not a mission worth getting unceremoniously soaked for! (Perhaps we should add, if you have missed previous entries, that Scarborough itself adds very little to the sum of civilised society and is therefore a pretty unattractive destination).
So braving life and limb once more – as the swell on the beach at Store Bay was still a formidable enemy – Gilly left with her massive suitcase for Blighty leaving Skipper fairly forlornly behind.
Resolute in the Bay at Charlotteville, Tobago
resolute-en-voyage 