Re-posting this: ‘Skin yuh teet,’ you’re back in the Cari

Thursday update: You may be experiencing a glitch with this post — I know I am — so I’m publishing it again in case that irons out the glitch. I’m off for a full day exploring Antigua!

sherbet colored houses in Scarborough, Tobago

January 7, 2020, Scarborough, Tobago — After 2+ days rocking and rolling in the Atlantic, we docked in Scarborough, Tobago’s capital and its cultural center. The dual-island nation of Trinidad & Tobago (Tobago is 6.8 miles off northeast Venezuela) has been independent of Britain since 1962, and a republic since 1976.

Columbus ‘discovered’ both islands on his third voyage, in 1498, and claimed them for Spain. That was just the beginning: Tobago has changed hands more times than any other island in the Caribbean region. Variously under the Dutch, English, Spanish, French and two surprise contenders —the Swedes and Courlanders (modern-day Latvians) — plus others, it has been taken over 33 times! With the Treaty of Paris, France ceded both islands to Britain in 1814; they were joined into one nation in 1889.

All the colonizers were interested in its sugar, cotton and indigo. When Britain abolished slavery in 1834, indentured servants replaced slaves in the sugar economy. Today its economy is based on petroleum, petrochemicals, oil, natural gas and to a lesser extent chocolate. One source states that this puts the nation at #3 in the Americas in GDP per capita, right after the U.S. and Canada! It is not as dependent on tourism as many other islands.

Originally inhabited by Amerindians of the Caribe and Arawak tribes, today Tobago is one of the Caribbean’s most ethnically diverse islands. It is also the home of calypso, steel drums — and limbo! One story claims limbo is a dance imitation of the back bending slaves had to do to get through low openings into the holds of slave ships.

The Tobago Main Ridge Forest Reserve is technically a rainforest. Protected since 1776, it is one of the world’s oldest nature reserves. This terrain and climate make Tobago an internationally known source of cocoa and artisan chocolates, made from its Trinitario cocoa trees. It’s also the home of Angostura bitters, which angostura.com claims ‘started as a medicinal tincture designed to alleviate stomach ailments.’ Personally, I use it in Old Fashioneds.

Tobago is a breeding ground for endangered leatherback turtles, which come here from as far as Africa, Canada and the U.K. to lay their eggs. They can live up to 280 years, or so they say.

Having sunbathed exactly once this trip — on my first day at the hotel pool in San Juan — I decided to slather on the 45 and snorkel and swim in the turquoise waters. From Pigeon Point Heritage Park, we boarded a glass-bottomed boat and motored out to the Coral Gardens, Buccoo Reef and the No Man’s Land sandbar.

The bus ride to the park and back yielded absolutely no new information about the island, just grab shots out the window of business buildings intermixed with houses... and cows and goats in grassy vacant lots.

Some houses had been abandoned a long, long time...

On the aforementioned glass-bottomed boat... my ‘art’ shot:

There wasn’t a lot to see through the glass bottom.

Once we donned our snorkels and face masks, there were some pretty fish — but Bora Bora and Tahiti were better!

The entire marine area — explored by Jacques Cousteau — is now officially protected.

Our last ‘reef tour’ stop was on No Man’s Land, a vegetated sand bar that disappears in high tide. It’s a popular picnic place for locals, who buy beer and BBQ fish from vendors who set up their ‘kitchens’ on the sand.

If it all looks familiar, the 1959 movie Swiss Family Robinson was filmed on Tobago!

Fruits and veg on the way back to the Sea...

...where we were drummed onboard by a local steel drum band, handed glasses of rum punch, and ran the gauntlet of bumpershod crew members, with their red Viking ‘parasols.’ The weather was perfect — mid 80s and no afternoon rain shower.