At The Edge Of The World!
Point Galera is the north eastern-most edge of the island of Trinidad and is a popular tourist attraction for its beautiful quartzitic rock outcrop and lighthouse built in 1897. It is the area where the first British settlement was covertly built in 1632 while Trinidad was still under Spanish rule! The rocky outcrop has a few blow holes where when the ocean slams into the rocks, aerated water energetically sprays upwards through cavities! We set about exploring Galera point at sunset with its many amazing views!
The above photo faces westwards showing how the north coast stretches in that direction from Petit Trou village in Toco. The sun was setting very nicely with a few ominous clouds that seemed to add to beauty, thankfully, rather than spoiling the fun of exploration. As you can see from this bird's eye view, Petit Trou is not at all densely populated with some farmland. It is marvelous and breathtaking countryside!
We pulled up to the entrance for the lighthouse and found that the gate was locked and closed! Upon further inspection, some signs stated that there were construction and renovations being done on the Galera point compound as well as on the lighthouse itself! It was then I lifted my gaze upwards and saw that almost half of the lighthouse was missing from the top!
No worries, I could still send up the drone and do my exploring that way and get even more views in that manner and thats what I did without wasting time! After launching, the whole compound came into view and it was all mines to explore from the air! You can see the carpark on the bottom right with a radar tower just in front of it. The lighthouse is the white monolith next to that and the rocky outcrop is on the left which we will be exploring in a bit!
Here are a few more angles viewing the compound and the literal edge of the country from multiple sides and from a top down perspective. I just love how the setting sun just sets the landscape a blaze and emphasizes just how blue and breathtaking the waters were! The imperfections of the rocks and the surrounding coconut trees were all so beautiful and stunning! Imagine, it is said, that during the Spanish colonial rule, the indigenous people would rather throw themselves off of these rocks than be captured and enslaved!
While I was filming how the waves crashed up on the quartzitic rocks, I captured all three blow holes going off in tandem in full force as you can see in the photo above! They looked so much like steam vents or something! They tend to be quite loud and forceful and I wished we were able to enter the compound as whenever we visit, we would sit and reminisce on those rocks!
I went a little lower and closer to see if I could get the blow holes going off again and I hovered there for a few minutes and they only went off quite weakly and it looked as you see above like a weak myst! I was quite blessed to be able to have gotten the first shot like that with all three! The rocks still looked so beautiful with their crystalline structure and lattices!
I decided to fly around past the lighthouse to the other side of galera point to see what else there was to see. The coastline was covered with more crystalline rock fringed with vegetation. I just loved how the clouds looked in the background, almost golden rays of light illumination them in a heavenly manner!
There were a few small bays or coves with rocks in them and this rocky spit caught my eye! It was so interesting and the golden hour lighting made the rocks and water look amazing. The spit, as it got closer to the mainland was flattened and seemed to be the meeting point of two bays, which looked so cool in my opinion!
The next thing that caught my eye was the small islet just off of point Galera. The many times I had been here before, I had not had a drone and I longed to fly over to it and check it out on this visit!
It used to look like just one huge island from the lighthouse and from the rocky outcrop but being able to fly up and over it showed that there were scattered smaller rocks around it. From the shot above, you can see the blue/green hues of the water that looked absolutely amazing with the green and orange of the islet!
The battery was getting quite low so I started the flight back to where I was parked outside the gate and while doing so, I took some magnificent shots of the setting sun with the clouds facing westards. You can see so many golden crepuscular rays filtering through the clouds also known as god rays! It was superb weather and the photography came out spectacularly!
Even though the compound was closed for renovations, I was so elated to still have been able to explore Galera point and its amazing views! I was quite happy with the shots I got of the three blow holes going off at once in such a violent manner as well as the breathtaking rays as they filtered through the clouds during a golden sunset! I hope you enjoyed the views and learned something about Trinidad's history! Thanks a lot for coming along, Cheers!