Tobago

Castara, Tobago Republic of Trinidad and Tobago 10 Degrees North Lattitude

To quote Jimmy Buffet, "Changes in lattitude, changes in attitude." Well, a 50 degree change in lattitude and an eighty degree change in temperature was just what the doctor ordered for us in Alaska for late December. Twelve hours of daylight versus five was nice too. After flying two days from Anchorage through Seattle and Miami and Port of Spain, we arrived on the small island of Tobago off the coast of Venezuela to find the small town of Castara. The picture below shows what it looks like as you are driving down in to the town.Below is the grocery store we frequented. It was too small for us to all be inside at the same time, so Hope and Nic would wait outside while Jolie went in to pay the owner for his produce. Once we didn't have enough money and he was closing up for the day. "Just pay me tomorrow" he said with a kind smile. Nic drove the rental Suzuki "Jeep" with right hand drive on the left side of the road with constant reminders from Hope and Jolie, to "stay left, stay left" as we would make turns into intersections. Shifting with your left hand takes a little getting used to. One day we went for a drive to check out another beach and coming home we saw two hitchhikers needing a lift. Since they looked harmless enough, especially in their primary grade school uniforms, we put them in the back with Hope and gave them a ride back to their home in the village of Castara that we were staying in. If they knew that I had the grand sum of three days of driving on the left side of the road, in a right hand drive car they probably would have waited for a safer alternative. As it turned out it was an adventure for all of us. They most likely silently wondered why each time I went to make a turn the windsheild wipers came on. We would see them again several days later after school but they denied needing a ride home again. At least from us.

If you go to the beach before noon you won't have it all to yourself. You may have to share it with the 'beach chickens'. Talk about your free range chicken. Not only could you label this organic chicken, Free Range, but you would also envy the life it had outside of the cage.

Most of the time you really did have the beach, the ocean, the waves, all to yourself.

A couple of times Nic helped the locals pull seine. After the fishermen threw their net out one end was pulled in by one group of men and the other end pulled in by more men. After about an hour of pulling the net in, there would be the fish, which would be carried about 30 yards to a fish cleaning table and sold. It was good exercise for Nic to keep up with his Nordic Ski training, and the locals appreciated the help. See if you can tell which one was Nic. No, he is not the one in the white underwear. Keep looking. He has black shorts. See him?

Not all of the fish were keepers, some got thrown back, as Hope is demonstrating.


After a hard day of swimming and snorkling we bought Roti from "Rasta Man". Rasta man had a small shack in the village of Charlotteville and sold Roti, rum punch, Carib beer and other things that make you feel good. Roti is a sandwich shaped like a burrito filled with curry. A man took a machete and chopped open a coconut for us to drink for about $1.00.

Below is the family photo of us on our fishing trip. We trolled for about five minutes when Jolie caught her first three fish (ever in her life not in a stocked pond) - then boated to a beach accessible only by boat. Then our guide started a fire, and cooked our fish and served us up a great lunch with a Carib beer after some snorkeling.

We were able to pry ourselved away from the beach and went inland a few miles and explored water falls on one of our hikes.

And this is the life...