Swimming with Sea Turtles

On Friday, March 30th, Luke and I had the opportunity to visit the Tobago Cays. We caught an H van in the morning to be at the marina by 8:30am. When the boat arrived, we thought they were joking. It was a speedboat big enough to fit 18 of us, but compared to the catamarans and yachts around it, it looked tiny! 

Our boat.

Luke and I found a nice bench seat in front of the captain and under the shade. Since Luke spends the majority of his time here studying in the library, I knew his poor skin wouldn't be able to handle the sun all day. Thankfully, the waves were not too rough, and the trip only took about two hours. It was fun to see some of the other grenadine islands as we passed. The captain even took a little detour so we could see the marina at Canouan. Since it was so close to Easter, the Tobago Cays area was very busy. 









 Our first stop was Petit Tabac, known locally as "Rum Island." It was on this little island that part of Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed. They call it "Rum Island" because they filmed the scene of Elizabeth burning Captain Jack Sparrow's rum here. According to the captain, they were not able to get a fire going, so they filmed close to the rum bottles and added the fire in later. We were able to walk to shore and explore the small island a little bit. 


I love the varying shades of blue!







A boat captain dressed as a pirate.

So many conch shells!


Just a short way over was the area where we could swim with the sea turtles. I was super excited! I love snorkeling and seeing the sea life. The current was strong by the boat, but once we swam into the roped in area, I couldn't feel it as much. Our friend Teresa had visited the Tobago Cays before, so we followed her to find the sea turtles. We saw one small turtle and one medium-sized turtle. We were able to swim with them and pet them. It was so amazing! 









After swimming with the turtles and exploring the nearby island, we swam back to the boat. While we waited on the boat, we saw a large manta ray swim by. We also saw more sea turtles swimming around. We traveled to another grenadine island called Mayreau to eat lunch. The captain had called ahead and placed our food orders for us, so when we arrived, we backed the boat up to the beach, waded through the water to the shore, and walked to the restaurant at the end of the beach. They had tables all set up for all of us and served the food family style. All of the food was delicious! We walked the beach after we ate, and began our journey back to St. Vincent. 




This was how the fish was served. It made me very grateful I had ordered the chicken, although a friend let me taste the fish, and it was very good!



On the way back to St. Vincent, we saw dolphins and flying fish. When we came close to Bequia, the captain stopped and pointed out a few interesting things. We saw a shipwreck on some rocks. We also saw a place called Moonhole. It is an area where houses were built into the rocks on the edge of the cliff. 


The origianl Moonhole house.

Slightly newer Moonhole houses.

As we neared the corner of Admiralty Bay, the captain stopped again and pointed out a sunken shipwreck about 30-40 feet down. He allowed us to jump off of the boat and snorkel around the wreck as long as we could get back on. It was really cool to be able to swim around a shipwreck. I even dove down to get a closer look. There were fish swimming all around it. A few of us felt jellyfish stings as we swam back to our own boat, but thankfully for Luke and I, the only pain we felt was the initial sting. We made it safely back to the marina in St. Vincent as the sun was starting to set. Luke and I had planned to take an H van back home, but we saw a small truck stopping to pick up a lady. Luke asked her if we could ride in the back, and they said we could! We put our stuff in the truck bed and stood in the back. It sounds a little dangerous, but compared to how some of the Vincentians ride in the back of trucks, we were quite safe! We were exhausted by the time we arrived home after such an adventurous day, but I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have spent such an enjoyable day with my husband!




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