Ok, this is strange. I half expect Kevin Costner to come flying out of the water with those creepy gill things in his neck. There are upwards of fifty sailing yachts tightly anchored out in the middle of the ocean so it’s kind of like a floating community. I mean there is no bay for protection, no high land mass, no welcoming dinghy dock, in fact not much of anything but a rolly lurching spot of ocean shallow enough for your anchor to find the bottom. That’s why I found it strange when two guys in a runabout with Park Ranger painted on the side carefully sidled up to Escape Velocity and asked for $10EC per person per day to anchor here in the floating community. There are a couple of beautiful low-lying islets gathered around the periphery and so technically I suppose you’d have to call this a lagoon. The charts call it Tobago Cays. Boat boys with colorful names like Mr. Quality, Free Willy, Mr. Fabulous and Desperado zip around in runabouts with their names painted on the sides servicing the yachts with fresh baguettes, fish or whatever.
I have to say the water is some of the clearest I’ve ever seen and they have a section marked off where you can swim with turtles and the like then try to figure out how to get your beached dinghy off the sand bar. The darn thing’s got to weigh more than 300lbs. so you really don’t want to run it up the beach too far but you really don’t want it floating away either. It’s a fine line.
With Bequia’s siren song calling us we decided to dinghy over to the islets that define the lagoon at Tobago Cays just to enjoy a spot of exploring. It was a lovely day but we couldn’t deny that the dead pig had definitely floated past Escape Velocity . We need wifi and a cafe.