myTobago – your questions, review and comment about Tobago

We are visiting Tobago in April with our 2 sons, aged 9 and 12. Both are very strong swimmers and the eldest is a fairly competent sailor. It would probably make the holiday for them to go out in a boat, snorkel from it, possibly have a go at a bit of fishing and maybe then even eat the fish! I have read lots of reviews about the various boats that go out and they sound fantastic, but which of them would be best for us?

Cheers, Alison

You can go with any of them ... they are all good and can tailor your day according to your wishes.

I cannot recall hearing a bad word about any, although to have the full choice of activity available to you I would avoid the Buccoo and Speyside trips.

Cheers

just mention the kids when you are booking and it is always possible to cater for them. good places even have snorkelling gears for the kids, fishing lines they can handle and have a ball or frisbee for the time on the beach, waiting to get their own caught fish grilled....
they will love it....

Thanks for the replies. Brian, we shall definitely be in touch when we arrive - sounds like you're really in tune with what the boys would love (and that probably includes their dad as well!) Roll on April!

Alison

Never mind the kids, I'm 51 and it's getting very close now (7th until 22nd March).

I'll be bringing my own rod and a few lures, but I don't want to go heavy game fishing.

Do you think anyone will cater for a balding, overweight juvenile delinquent who likes to snorkel and fish??

Whilst waiting for a glass bottom boat round at Store Bay I noticed a couple of small boats come in which carried about 3 paseengers who had been rod fishing. They'd caught about 3 kingfish as well as some smaller stuff and the boat and owner (captain/ driver?) were obviously hired for the day.

The boat itself stayed in Store Bay and one or two people were stood in the water discussing trips with the owner. I also noticed a couple doing the same thing from our hotel beach (Coco Reef) who discussed trips with the boats who were dropping people off.

15 or 51... where is the difference....

ship ahoi

If you are looking for a glass bottom boat trip then I would recomend that you go down to pigeon point and there are many people there that are selling the trips. Personally i wouldnt go onto the boat millenium, Pleasure girl or Sun fun as they do not do snorkelling as well, they do reef walking (just walking over dead reef although this is not popular or good to do because any bits of live coral that were left are immediately killed if trodden on) You will see so many different fish there

I did not realise that any of the glass bottom boat operators allowed 'reef walking' anymore.

I used Sun Fun whilst there recently and they were a good crew ... the skipper snorkelled around the reefs with me to show me the best bits and the whole crew joined in with the limbo dancing on the top deck on the way back.

A nice 2 hour trip.

Maybe the crews change and it could be misleading to identify any culprits or goodies by the name of the boat but I guess, from Emma's post, that she went on 3 separate trips on 3 different boats.

That would be quite a shocking experience if all 3 of the trips involved reef walking ... I am quite concerned by that.

Regards

Hi Paul,
no reef walking up at Speyside the waters far too deep. There is some good snorkeling though and they can organanise just a snorkeling trip if you ask them.

Regards
Kevin

Hi Kevin

The opportunities over the 3 weeks I stayed were few and far between at Speyside due to a combination of heavy seas and poor visibility underwater.

The Goat Island trip was mostly what they did.

Shame, but it does get like that at this time of year and there is no where to board the boats during heavy seas while the Batteaux Bay jetty is out of service.

Regards

Hi Paul,
The jetty was bust when we were there in October only the first 30m was useable so there was a bit of shuffeling with the glassbttom boats and dive boats.

Duane was talking about getting it sorted some time after May this year, the damage is quite bad at the far end and was going to need new piles (hope the spellings right).

Regards
Kevin

We had a trip out on Sun Fun last week and it was brilliant fun. The crew were great and took care to point out that we would be snorkelling in deeper water as they do not encourage reef walking on that boat. There were quite a lot of people on our trip who couldn't swim (quite surprising), but the crew took great pains to get as many of them into the water as possible using life jackets. There was a group of guys from Trinidad on our trip having a boys weekend away type thing, so we had a real party on the top of the boat, while the quieter people sat inside. My husband was quite sad to leave his new best friend from Trinidad behind at the end...but he was ok once he'd sobered up!