Buccoo Reef and the Nylon Pool
Today was my last day on the island, so I abandoned the budget and decided to do all the touristy things.
My first action was to book a glassbottom boat trip for 90TT (I could have gotten it cheaper, but not on a Sunday at the start of the season). Thankfully there was no sign of Miller with the springy curls, so I booked with Rama & Yorke who were represented by a business-like guy who looked dependable. I wouldn’t be alone either.
I went for a saltfish bake. Nostalgic music pumped from the speakers, bringing back memories of a London summer from long ago.
*
The boat, the Yorke Pride, was not based at Store Bay. After a while the guy I had booked with yelled at me from across the carpark and waved me over. I squeezed into a car with two ladies, who had kindly agreed to give me a lift, and their kids. We drove all the way to Pigeon Point where we were left sitting on a bench at the back of the dive shacks for the next hour.
I began to wish that I had given Miller Light my business after all.
When the boat eventually arrived, it was full. We squeezed in with the captain yelling at people to shift closer together.
The reef was miles away from the bay. For along time we drove over nothing but sandy bottom with patches of turtlegrass. Then we were there. There were thirty-six species of coral, but if the captain was to be believed, these include sponges and gorgonians (“The yellow coral with the holes in the centre are tubiform sponges”).
The Red Sea this was not. The damage was extensive.
We didn’t see many fish. The captain explained that the boat shadow scared them away. “Like we are a big predator. You want to see fish? You want to see Manta Ray? Sharks? You have to get in the water, get involved!”
I couldn’t wait. I had taken only a few pictures—blurred due to the water swilling on top of the glass—but the captain had other ideas. Normally the boats stop in the shallows but today conditions were a little rough. The captain talked us around to go straight to the Nylon Pool. There was little protest; the families with small children on board were not interested in snorkelling.
We left the pittance of a reef behind, and we did not return. All in all we must have spent about fifteen minutes drifting over the coral.
There were seven boats already waiting at the Nylon Pool, a patch of shallow water on top of white coral sand. For a while it was a great liming scene, but then the other boats left and the music stopped. The wind picked up and it was —frankly—cold. The Yorke Pride was anchored nowhere close so I swam hard against the drift to catch up with it.
The captain sent me upstairs to have a ciggie (“I don’t like the smoke!”). The wind more of less blew it out, but it was warm on the wooden roof.
The dark patches around us all the way to distant Buccoo Bay were turtle grass. My maps were highly inaccurate: the reef comes nowhere close to shore.
Eventually the captain started the engines and went to pick up the parents with their kids who had been stranded on a shallow sandy patch. The kids were shaking when they climbed back in.
The first mate borrowed my lighter to have a cigarette, standing right next to him. He was joined by another man.
I found the captain’s abrupt manner rather unpleasant, verging on rude. He may even have yelled at me to sit down, but I don’t react when somebody yells at my back. I was taking pictures of kite surfers and he said: “Lady, sit down.” The male passenger was still standing next to the engine, finishing his cigarette.
The whole operation is driven by greed and is—quite frankly—a waste of time.
“Should have gone to Speyside,” Sheldon had said when I’d met him at Bago’s Bar. So I should, because in Speyside there is no Nylon Pool to distract from the coral.
“The reef there is in much better condition,” he added.
Tags: Americas, Buccoo Reef, Glasbottom Boats, Tobago, Yorke Pride, Tag Index
Denni
January 22nd, 2009 at 18:00
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