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Tobago
Three types of travelers frequent Tobago. There are families vacationing from nearby Trinidad, playing golf
on courses where the water hazards include caimans. There are birders of all nations looking for species with names like the "blue-crowned motmot" or the "rufous-vented chachalaca." And then there are the divers.
Tobago diving is drift diving. The currents here are so consistent that barrel sponges take on warped, bonsai-like shapes. And with consistent currents come a dependable supply of nutrients, fortifying and attracting sea life. On dives such as Cove Crack and Flying Reef in the south, if you peer under a coral head, you're likely staring into the beady eyes of a shy nurse shark.
In the north, off Speyside, you might let the current carry you into the deep, tide-sculpted bowl behind the split rocks known as Bookends. Look up here, and you'll probably see tarpon darting in and out of the cloudy water at the surface, lunching on baitfish knocked senseless by the waves.
Your dinner might be at Jemma's Seaview Kitchen, where the dining room is a multilevel treehouse in the branches of a giant almond tree arching over the blue Caribbean. And your evening entertainment might be at nightspots such as Bar Code, where the hottest bands from Trinidad play during peak season.
Between dives and dinners you can tour the grounds of forts dating back to British-colonial days, or visit an old cocoa plantation and walk to a distant waterfall. Along the way, you can stop at fruit stands to purchase clementinelike portugals, or stop to watch fishermen pull their brightly painted boats up onto the beach at the end of the day. It's all so calming the perfect balance to the nonstop rush of the diving.
