A Day at the Beach

Travel Blog   Saturday, December 28, 2013

Scarborough, Tobago, West Indies

Today was our third port day. Sunday will be an at-sea day.

We were pleased when we arrived at Scarborough harbor on the island of Tobago (pronounced to bay go).  We were the only ship in that day.  Tobago doesn’t get many cruise ships. Scarborough appeared to be a clean and well-organized city and we had a nice view of the entire waterfront area.  This was quite a contrast to the mountainous, and somewhat randomly-organized character, of our previous day’s visit to St. Lucia. 

Tobago is the smaller part of the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago and is a vacation destination for many, including the residents of the other island, Trinidad.

Since we had not enjoyed a beach day on this cruise so far, we decided that that this would be a great opportunity for one.  Our guidebooks recommended Pigeon Point, a famous beach area on the southwest end of the island.  We hailed a taxi at the port area and enjoyed the half-hour drive to the beach.

Saturday was a busy day for the residents of the island, also and the roads and towns were crowded with shoppers and beach-goers. Passing through a security gate and paying our nominal admission to the beach   Palm trees provided just the right amount of shade in the right places and we pulled our beach lounges up to a spot overlooking the sandy beach.

reserve, we were enchanted by the setting.

The beach at Pigeon Point provides nearly everything one could desire.  The water is warm and, after the first 30 feet of broken coral, the bottom was sandy.  The waves were just right, small enough so they didn’t knock you down and large enough to make swimming fun.  A reef far offshore tempers the size of the waves.  I don’t think Hawaii has any swimming beaches that can beat this.

We spent our three hours at the beach swimming, sunning, reapplying our sunscreen and talking with the other ship’s lecturer, Michael, who showed up there about an hour after we did.

Unlike many Caribbean ports, Tobago does not have dozens of vendors selling tacky tourist goods at dockside.  The central town market carried only normal goods for the Tobagans.  We will be stopping here on our return voyage and will try to find some items to bring home.

We were back aboard Pacific Princess by 2:00 and grabbed some lunch and relaxed on deck before our desk duty from 5:0-6:00.  We enjoyed music in the lounge before our 8:15 dinner.  The ship is quite a ‘roller” and the deck’s motion sometimes makes it difficult to walk. We turned in about 10:00 and tired and contented.

Sunday will be a sea day on our way to French Guiana and Devil’s Island