On January 5 we left our terrific, secluded anchorage at Mysore Bay, Canouan and moved the short distance to the even more terrific, but crowded Tobago Cays. The Tobago Cays (not to be confused with Tobago, as in Trinidad & Tobago) are the main attraction in the Grenadines - and possibly in the entire eastern Caribbean-- for cruising yachts. The Cays are a handful of small deserted islands protected by the sea inside a horseshoe reef. The water and reef colors are spectacular and cover the spectrum, including what must be a zillion shades of blue, varied by subtle changes in water depth and whatever colors of sand or coral that happen to be on the bottom. Large cruise ships can't get here and the popularity of this location for cruisers is predictable.

We waited until after the Christmas/New Year period to visit, hoping the holiday crowd would have thinned a bit . We were partly right - it was quite crowded when we arrived but the thinning out was clearly taking place as each day there were fewer and fewer boats remaining. To get away from the crowd when we arrived we anchored in very shallow water between coral patches on the windward side of Baradal, the easternmost Cay, just inside the horseshoe reef. Our shallow draft permits us to get into pretty skinny water. Nothing was beyond the reef until Africa. Here it didn't feel crowded. Most of the other boats were anchored in deeper water between the small islands and were out of sight.

We spent three nights here and took in some good snorkeling and chillin' out. We were joined by friends Ken and Joan on S/V Cat Away and enjoyed time socializing and snorkeling with them as well. It was only short rides to dinghy mooring balls on the inside edge of the reef. Tie up to a ball, explore the reefs nearby, move to another ball, explore to find something different, move to another ball….

On our last day here, having visited all the balls, we decided to swim directly from Pas de Deux a short distance to four clustered dark reef patches we had dodged on arrival while anchoring. One turned out to be the best spot we found after two days of exploring--just a short swim away the whole time! The highlight was watching the Lord of the Reef, a huge barracuda who stood guard motionless over his domain the whole time. Alas, Dave did not bring the camera on this swim (wanting to ensure we saw something good, no doubt...).