Swimming with the Turtles – Petit Bateau, Tobago Cays, May 24, 2023

We have spent the last 6 days in Bequia relaxing, snorkeling, and overall just enjoying ourselves.  It was time to move on.  We had decided to take the short 10-mile sail over to the Tobago Cay Marine Park.  It is a protected area and supposedly very popular. It isn’t cheap to go to the park, so we only planned to stay for a couple days.  We picked up a mooring ball right next to horseshoe reef but based on the abundance of current we decided to snorkel with our dinghy in tow.

We started with the swim area roped off for the turtles and we lost count at close to 30 turtles.  It was like they knew they were protected here and could have cared less that we were there just hanging out with them.  We also passed over a bed of nearly 40 giant starfish, half a dozen rays and one was even a spotted eagle ray.  Our first one of the season.  At one point we were swimming with 6 turtles and a ray.  It was amazing and the reefs were in pretty decent shape too. We snorkeled again the next day and say more turtle, and a dozen cuddlefish.  The water here is like the Exumas, clear blue and beautiful.  I am very glad we came here and it will be a place we come back to early next season.

On our way out of Tobago Cays, we needed to stop at Union Island to check out of the Grenadines.  We had originally thought we would stay there overnight but it was all a bit sketchy there and since we didn’t get a great vibe, we decided to simply high tail it down to Grenada.  The island was VERY poor (as in Dominica poor).

Our next stop would be our last for the sailing season – Carriacou, Grenada where we plan to haul the boat out of the water and store it for hurricane season.