The Carib Great Race

Store Bay was our port of arrival in Tobago. It is a lovely bay with several beaches frequented by vacationing Trinidadians.  There were only a handful of sailboats there when we arrived, but the atmosphere soon changed. A large powerboat anchored near us, blaring music at 7 AM,

Our new neighbor

and then another, and another.

Notice the group rafting up at the back

It turns out that Store Bay was the finish line for the powerboat race from Trinidad to Tobago. In addition we became part of a slalom course for the jet skis, time to move on to another anchorage.

We chose to move north to a small fishing village of Mt. Irvine. There were two other sailboats there, along with a handful of small fishing boats. A nice quite anchorage away from the large powerboats.  Or so we thought...

Early the next morning Bob was up in the cockpit. "Interesting orange triangle just off our stern" he said.

 I recognized it from my triathlon days. "That's a turn around point" I said. A quick check on the internet told us that Mt. Irvine was the turn around point for the boat race.

Quickly we decided to head further north, so as to not be in the line of fire. We began to make preparations to pull up the anchor when we saw the first boat in the distance. Too late to move the boat we settled in to watch the show.

This is not my picture, but this is what we saw

The first boat approached the marker, followed in the air by a helicopter. The second boat was visible in the background. About 5 minutes later a third boat went by. These were the three boats in the fastest division. 

We expected the next division boats to come by a little later, but there were no more. Apparently the Coast Guard had to rescue 12-15 boats for various reasons and the three that we saw were the only ones that made the full course.

So much for finding a nice quiet bay to tuck into!