Store Bay, Tobago

The trip from Grenada to Tobago reminded me of a carnival ride. Not the smooth gliding rides you'd find at Disneyland, but the stomach-flopping, herky-jerky, leave-your-head-spinning rides you'd see at the state fair. Don't get me wrong, I love riding those kinds of rides -- the Tilt-a-Whirl is a personal favorite. But not for twelve hours straight. The waves weren't very big, it's just that every once in a while the boat would suddenly drop straight down into the trough and then a few seconds later the next wave would smack the side of the boat, rattling our skulls a little. It's unusual for me, but I felt very seasick. Pretty much the whole time. Neither one of us was too keen on spending a lot of time inside the boat, so nobody made lunch and all we ate during the trip was a couple crackers for me and three slices of bread for Kevin. Mmm.

We had left Grenada around four in the morning and we arrived in Store Bay around 4pm. It took a little while to get the boat settled, but the nice thing about seasickness is that it stops right away once you are flat and level again. It was almost 5:30 when we finally beached the dinghy and hailed a taxi to take us to Scarborough to clear in. We knew it was after-hours and there'd be overtime charges but we weren't prepared for the rigamarole once we got there. The customs agent told us to walk over to the ferry dock to check in with immigration. There was no one at immigration, so we walked up to the Information booth to find out if we could get someone to check us in. The booth was enclosed in darkly tinted glass, but we could just barely see a woman hiding behind a large purse who did not respond to anyone knocking on the glass. She was practically ducking under the counter and must have thought we couldn't see her. Helpful, huh? A little old lady walked up and asked us what we needed and offered to help us track down an immigration officers. The three of us approached some security guards and she asked them a few rapid-fire questions and then started berating them for being incompetent. As we walked away, she advised us to not even bother clearing through immigration since all the officials in this country "don't know their asses from their elbows". You had to be there: imagine this tiny spitfire of a woman, maybe about five-foot even, furious and cursing like a sailor. It was hilarious, but unfortunately not very helpful. We went back to customs to explain that there was no one at immigration and after another half-hour of negotiations he said we'd have to come back in the morning to clear immigration.

At this point it was getting dark outside and we just wanted to get back to the boat and get something to eat (after the bread and crackers we were absolutely ravenous). The taxis in this country are incredibly cheap and we soon discovered why. Our driver Emmanuel picked us up and asked if it was okay for him to "make one quick stop" along the way. He first picked up some gyros to go that he was bringing home to some friends. He handed me the bag of food to hold and the delicious aroma wafted throughout the car, torturing us. Then he stopped at a bar and ducked inside hoping to find some other friends of his to say hi. Meanwhile we are waiting in the car wondering if he'd notice if we each ate a gyro. Ten minutes later, he comes back and tells us he wants to take the scenic route instead of the highway so that we can "experience the ocean breeze". Ironically we'd been experiencing just that all day, but it was kind of useless to explain it to him. The road went along the coast and periodically he would slow down, pointing to the vast blackness (remember it was night time) and saying, "Just there -- that's the sea. Right there next to the road. Can you see it?" To be courteous we kept agreeing, "Yes it's beautiful." Our grumbling stomachs were also saying things, but not so politely. We finally arrived back at Store Bay and Kevin and I couldn't even wait to get back to the boat. We stopped at the first barbecue stand we saw and pretty much inhaled our dinner. The barbecue was tasty but to be honest we would've eaten just about anything at that point.

Where we are:
Location=Store Bay, Tobago
Lat=11 09.500
Lon=60 50.372