Beat the heat

Snorkeler

These days are hot!! But then there is our Bay with its really cool water – and frankly, easy access to some of the best snorkelling this side of Tobago. There are some unique advantages to beating the heat on – yeh, our bay.

Parking is easy and safe. As luck would have it Shirvan Road is pretty wide at this point and the verge provides a nice place to leave your vehicle. You’d want to park, come to the shop and get your snorkelling gear. If you choose to use the public transport system there is a bus stop just a few metres from our roadside door.

Itinerant taxis (as in private cars) are also easy to find. And do provide a relatively handy mode of exiting the beach. Point to note if/when using the ‘P’ car service – insurance coverage for the passenger is non-existent. Just saying.

Logistics sorted and gear gotten from our large selection of quality masks, fins and snorkels, get to the water. Allowing you’re comfy using snorkelling equipment, head off to the right. It’s a mere 50 metres to some pretty good structure. There’s a thriving community of reef fish such as the french angel, grunt, wrasse and trigerfish. There are also bands of squid, herring (anchovies), small jacks and the odd barracuda (supervising).

Interestingly, snorkelling ‘our’ bay also brings you into contact with our coastal birdlife. If you’re there on a day when there’s herring in the water, keep an eye out for the anhinga. ‘Snake bird’ hunts under the surface of ‘our’ waters and make just make your day. If you’re even luckier there our resident pair of sea hawk (osprey) out for a daily meal – or more. Then again if by some quirk of nature yoo see nothing, the day is already won. You’re no longer hot.

The Chair

Special, Uncategorized

Here at the MIW we treat our customers as friends. All our friends recognise the sanctity of the Chair. The Chair is usually as amenable as every other asshole of similar size, stage and demeanour as can be found on any beach in the Caribbean.

Unfortunately the Chair is unusually sensitive to phone conversations – other peoples’ phone conversations. Regrettably based on situation that makes us unable to remove said Chair we recommend (highly) that you

  • Take those personal phone calls out of earshot of the Chair

  • When leaving your phone on the (makeshift) shelf provided to
    friends its probably best to turn it off or have it set to Mute. Unless its waterproof.

The reasons for this admittedly lie at the feet of the Chair not directly with the true owners of the enterprise. But… life happens.

The enemy within

Uncategorized

Mt Irvine Bay Watersports is a frontline Tobago tourism service provider. The oil spill from the wrecked Gulfstream affects our income. In this blogpost we – as a local stakeholder, discuss the ‘people’ aspect of current struggle to disrupt the flow of oil from the wreck.

In a previous entry we posited via zombie analogy the process of battling an oil spill, essentially describing war against environmental and economic zombies that pose hazard to our well-being. Luckily, if that is the word to use now, our country has developed an oil spill contingency plan. That document has identified the various sources from which people will come who are qualified and outfitted to deal with our present event.


Image courtesy Sean McCoon

Is that happening as we enter the seventh day of the spill? We have indeed gotten the people. Incident command is populated by the author of the National Oil Spill Contingency Plan, Maritime Services Division, the Coast Guard, Environmental stewardship is well catered to, given the august presence of the Environmental Management Authority and the scientists from the Institute of Marine Affairs. There are many more people involved but hopefully you get the picture. We’ve got resources and qualified people and the zombies that want to take out Tobago’s fragile ecosystems are gonna get killed. (Again).

Except. After seven days of working a relatively non-remote site and despite almost every modern convenience that a mature oil producing country can bring to bear, we still are nowhere near resolving the issues. The barriers to resolution are plural. We have a vessel on a delicate nearshore locale and despite happy incident of balmy calm Caribbean waters no progress is being made.

The people at the site are saying the booms aren’t working. Stakeholders are saying those qualified people brought the wrong gear – as its not like geography around Cove Point is undocumented. Fer chrissakes comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessments exist. Were done for the marina proposed (by the Tobago Plantations Company) and for the feed line to the National Gas Company’s proposed gas hub. These are not trivial studies. Relevant too, given the study area in both EIA’s overlap and include the nearshore where the inundation is greatest.

What is apparent here is, those ‘correct’ people are somehow forgetting part of their training spoke to customising solutions to local affected conditions. Environment Tobago, a local NGO consulted on this scenario suggested that perhaps non-skilled, non-oilspill savvy people be brought to bear. That the shallow water might be just the place to deploy hommade booms utilising wrapping plastic strips for instance.

However while the ‘boom’ oversight is entering its early arc of clusterfook. The next thing Tobago stakeholders might want to watch out for is the use of dispersant. Oil dispersant may be approved for offshore spills but its not something watersport companines (for instance) want to see used in their lagoons and near their beaches. Long and short, in a war against zombies it can be hard at times to tell just who is the enemy. It could turn out to be the good guys.

The zombie has landed

Uncategorized

The wreck of the so-called Gulfstream on our southwest coast is likely a zombie sent to test Tobago’s adaptive capacity in case there was ever a ‘big’ spill. Don’t get me wrong, the ongoing event is the real thing – There is black, brownish very goo-ey oil-like substance oozing out of the hull and in the nearshore area, marine interests and coastal ecosystems are suffering.

First though let’s sort this zombie business. Software engineers that is hackers of computer systems use a bombardment tool to test the ability of a network to fend off – you guessed it, hackers. In pretty much the same way, if we look for the silver lining in the Gulfstream cloud – still ominously looming over Tobago, last week’s visitation by the dead (but still hauling oil) Gulfstream, provides a perfect test of this island’s capacity to deal with hazards that come from being in an oil spill zone.

But just how exposed are we? One might say Very. Trinidad and Tobago’s that is our own oil fields, lie all around Tobago. As concerns the active, producing blocks on the current or risky side are just sixty miles away; up-current. Further south there are the burgeoning prospects in Guyana. Immediately after, still looking south, also washed by the Guyanas Current, are the active fields of Suriname.

As with any zombie conflict, you’d want to ensure your assets are protected. In Tobago’s Gulfstream case those have been identified as its coastal zone; taken to include the mangrove forest system of Petit Trou, the sea floor, seawater column and the sea surface of the near shore zone in the affected locale.

The weapons needed to ward of the zombie/Gulfstream threat are the usual; booms, skimmers, dispersants and protective gear for the people going into the zones itself. Also classed as weaponry but probably better described as logistical support (for deploying aforementioned tools of war) are the vessels, tractors, trucks and the myriad list that gets runaway hydrocarbon pulled, pushed, lifted and washed.

The biggest asset though is the same as with any war; people. Live thinking people are going to be needed to fend off the zombie that is runaway oil. I’ll come to that.

The wreck of the so called Gulf Stream

Pandemic, Update

The circumstances which led to the hull ‘GulfStream’, now overturned on a very pristine Tobago reef system, is no doubt being investigated by people with wherewithal for that kinda thing. Our concern is a bit more immediate.

How much of coastal zone biodiversity is at risk? What effect will spill magnitude, yet to be determined, have on the area’s already stressed ecosystem? How will it affect the marine tourism sector? What effect on the fisheries, and by extension Tobago’s fish protein supply?

These questions come from a very personal perspective, as we at Mt Irvine Bay Watersport derives our income from people who pay to play in Tobago waters. True, an ongoing spill is a threat that may curb the recreational ambitions of even the most radical watersport enthusiast but likely our fears (as shared in this post) reflect the concerns of many others in Tobago.

It is very easy to discount the voices of the fishermen. They aren’t scientists, they aren’t environmentalists and they certainly are not politically palatable characters yet their questions are valid. What and how much of it is in that wreck? And what are the powers that be doing about it? The wider population have their cares too. The tourism accommodation sector in particular can’t be all that thrilled.

A tanker leaking ‘oil-like substance’ triggers a series of planned responses. Meaning logistical shakeups among things. On this great carnival weekend the inter-island ferry and the air-bridge are now mandated (under Disaster Management policies and prime ministerial mandate) to prioritise all goods, services and people traffic to do with managing the Gulf Stream emergency. This has, and the sum effect is not yet in, displaced people and material that normally move between the two island each carnival. So yeh, the accommodation providers are quiet casualties too.

Similarly stressed the Tobago House of Assembly is likely wondering what are the possibilities (and no future scenario is without pain) of looking good at the end of this clusterfook. Both Carnival and Sahara dust presents health issues. And resources to deal with such aren’t exactly forthcoming this rounds. So the Assembly may already be glancing skyward for relief.

Others harbor valid concerns of course but the average Tobagonian is kinda busy this weekend – there’s the masquerade you see. They are also sceptical anyone will even hear them given the cacaphony being wrought by politicians and media-mad personalities at this time. But in the meantime and despite all the brouhaha, the wreck of the Gulfstream remains yet unboarded, her secrets remain interminably locked

Ode to waste

Uncategorized

Its February 2024 and Tobago is entering the Carnival weekend with an oil spill on its coast and the equally unpleasant prospect of tonnes of single use plastic and styrofoam being dumped on it streets. For folks like us; revelers/appreciators of the watery domain – the double concern is, is the carnival itself a sign of poor use and stewardship of Tobago’s bounty?

If I were to concede to my superstitious alter ego I’d say our collective behaviour is pretty much what the Holy Book speaks of in the time of Babylon. Then again, this is just a watersports blog and reference to anything aside from snorkelling, kayaking and stand-up-paddling just isn’t kosher.

Its tempting to drift (note the watery allude) into a criticism of our government agencies, but these in the end are just ordinary people. Who to be fair, deserve their day on the streets to – you guessed it, toss their share of garbage how and where their drunken asses feel.

Now I’m not against the carnival. Wouldn’t want to give anyone the idea that a watersport enthusiast is skeptical of the joys of waddling, waving and wallowing in a sea of waste under stinging hot sun. But such are the breaks. Talking of breaks. The waves of Mt Irvine are going to be happening this weekend. Hope you survive the carnival.