Tobago Cays, SVG

You say to-bay-go, I say to-bah-go...seriously I have no idea which one is right; I've heard locals pronounce it both ways. The Tobago Cays are one of the most popular spots in the Caribbean for cruisers. They are a group of uninhabited islands that are surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped coral reef. We anchored in a sandy patch within a stone's throw of some big coral heads. Standing on the bow, we can see waves breaking on the reef just a few hundred feet away. We did a bit of snorkeling and saw a good variety of fish -- including a ray (not sure what type) that kind of followed us around for a bit, until Kevin tried to video it. As soon as the camera was rolling it swam away. The water here is really shallow, only about 8 feet deep so most of the time we swam around patches of coral that nearly skimmed the surface. Viewed from the boat, the brown patches of coral really stand out from the shallow turquoise waters.

In other news, our diesel generator has kicked the bucket. It is pushing up daisies. It has moved on to greener pastures. It has ceased to be. It is an ex-genset. Yesterday while we were running the air conditioning Kevin noticed the generator's voltage output dropping from 120 (normal) to around 100 (too low to run most appliances). So he turned the AC off and the voltage shot back up to normal. So he turned it on again and a god-awful noise started coming from the generator compartment. The diesel engine was shaking and rattling so much you could feel it throughout the boat. We are not sure what is wrong, just that the generator cannot handle any kind of load. So no more air conditioning or washing machine or even charging the batteries. Sigh. The AC and washer/dryer are luxuries, but not being able to charge up the batteries is the real problem since our wind generator isn't working either. So the batteries only get charged when the sun is out or we are motoring between islands. We've been having a few cloudy days here and there so I am crossing my fingers for more sun.

Where we are:
Location=Tobago Cays, SVG
Lat=12 37.741
Lon=61 21.345