myTobago – your questions, review and comment about Tobago

If you ever wished you could flap your arms and fly, and could look at Tobago from the air, now you can! The latest Google Earth pictures of Tobago have improved immensely, particularly the south-western side of Tobago. The resolution is excellent, the clods from the earlier version have disappeared. The hi-res area starts on a boundary line from Ministers Bay on the south coast, to King Peters Bay on the north coastr, and everything to the west of that line, back towards Crown Point. Unfortunately, Google Earth has not yet upgraded the central part of Tobago, which includes Castara, Englishman's Bay and Parlatuvier, and the north-eastern side including Speyside, Charlotteville and Pirates Bay is almost totally obscured by cloud.

But at least you can now do a virtual flyover of the south-western side from an imaginary height of as low as 200 meters. At that height you can clearly make out individual buildings and cars, but not people. I was able to date the images of the south western side to be from about 3 years ago.

It's quite fascinating and gives you a totally different perspective of the island. Hopefully over time, the other parts of Tobago will be rendered with better imagery.

Have fun with your flyovers!
Clyde

Hi Clyde,Virtual Earth is even better and is up dated regularly.The whole island is high resolution
David

Hi David, how can I get Virtual Earth? Is it a free download, or is there a license fee that has to be paid?
Clyde

Clyde virtual earth is an ms product and I loaded it free htpp://www.VirtualEarth.imagery-2008.com
David

David,

The link is incorrect.

I have just updated my version of Virtual earth and it seems to be really out of date compared to Google Earth - it still shows my caravan that I haven't had for at least 5 years !!! Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to download a 'patch' or something ?

Jill

hi clyde, you should try msn virtual earth, it takes you down to visible car scale!!!

I downloaded Virtual Earth and compared the views of Tobago using both Virtual Earth and Google Earth.

I think Google Earth has Virtual Earth beaten on the South-Western side of Tobago - the images are more current (Google Earth shows Angostura's Samaan Grove development in Orange Grove, for example, while Virtual Earth shows no development in that area), and the resolution appears to be slightly higher. I could see better detail than via Virtual Earth. But where Virtual Earth has Google Earth soundly beaten is its coverage of central and north-eastern Tobago. As opposed to Google Earth, Virtual Earth shows no cloud cover obscuring the views of places like Castara, Englishman's Bay, Parlatuvier, Charlotteville, Speyside etc.

So for all you virtual fliers out there, I suggest that you use both, depending on which area that you are interested in. Just remember that the images you will be seeing are a few years old in both cases, with Virtual Earth being more out-of-date than Google Earth.
Clyde

Looking at Tobago on Google Earth or similar really shows how unspoilt the island is, to see the other side of the coin take a look at Bermuda to see just how greed & overbuilding can turn a paradise island into a housing estate