Friday 3rd of January  Tobago Cays  12:38.175 N  61:21.588 W  Distance travelled 6 miles.

Over the years I had dreamed of anchoring at Tobago Cays which is so often featured in yachting magazines and cruising books, never thinking I would realise the dream. We had planned to be there on New Year’s Eve but our enjoyment of other places has us a little behind in our schedule to get Johnnie back to St. Lucia for his flight home to Cork via London on the 9th. Today was the day for the dream to come true so we left Clifton at 10.45 having waited for a 65 foot Oyster, Sea Eagle who was alongside, go out first and we arrived at Tobago Cays at noon. We were entering a national park and had decided to take up one of the moorings provided and supervised by park rangers and searched south of Baradel but all moorings there were occupied. After manoeuvring between tightly packed boats for 30 minutes we found a beautiful position as the most northerly yacht in the cut between Petit Rameau and Petit Bateau. With no other boat ahead of us we had an unrestricted view to the north east over Horseshoe Reef to the Atlantic. We were to spend many hours just enjoying that view and the changing weather. Even the rain squalls could be beautiful from here.

As we were securing Shelduck to the mooring we had a visit from Clem who suggested we go ashore to Petit Bateau for a “Lobster dinner”. We had heard from an American couple in Le Phare Bleu that they had one delivered aboard on Christmas Day so we asked Clem to deliver one aboard for the 3 of us at 17.00 on the following day and he agreed. He has a plastic covered menu with prices ready to hand and a card with a picture of himself on it. A very business like, lovely young man. As soon as he left my first job was to switch the heads, for the first time, to the new holding tank. The rest of the day was spent swimming, snorkelling and admiring the one turtle who swam by.

Next day Saturday the fourth we noticed fisherman lifting a cage of Crayfish nearby, not a Lobster to be seen. More swimming and snorkelling and we had two checks from Clem to see if we were still on for the Lobster dinner. At 17.00, on the dot, he arrived with a boy delivering the feast which turned out to be what we would call Crayfish, 4 in all between the 3 of us, two large and two medium. Served with them was fried rice and plantin, salad, vegetable and garlic potatoes. He returned at 18.15 for the plates with his family including the cook who barbequed the Crayfish so well. Truly delicious.