An Early Morning Adventure!
The Caves in the southern coastline of Tobago is not well known to the locals and even more so to the people who visit the island from Trinidad or other tourists on vacation. My family happens to be of the people who know about the small cave system that seemed at the time, quite hard to find. It is located in a not densely populated area of the small Caribbean island and there are no signs or directions of any sort to let anyone know that there is something amazing in the area. Even if you arrive there for some reason and decide to walk down the steps, you may not even see the case itself!
We start off early in the morning after a quick breakfast at the resort as we had a very long day ahead of us, the caves being one of the first stop offs. Tobago is an island that is very relaxed and serene which is why we love it so much, the roads would normally be so traffic jammed in Trinidad but here it was empty and quiet!
Here and there, we could see people heading to work on foot such as this lady here. Even her gait and speed of walk was that of calm and collectiveness and we quickly understood why Tobago always feels so relaxing when we arrive. The change of pace is phenomenal!
We were getting closer to our destination and passed through these amazing mangrove tree canopies that took the rising sun's rays and made them look so magical! We could not help but be in awe of the natural beauty!
We quickly stopped off at a beach on the way to get in some nice early morning sea bathing to feel refreshed for the events of the day. It was empty and we had the place all to ourselves! The waters were calm and relaxing but not too cold where you would feel uncomfortable.
Arriving at the stairway that takes you down to the caves that was just lower down from where we had just bathed, we saw two fisher men on the rocks below with wet suits and a lot of fishing gear like scuba and paddles as well as spearguns and lines.
We did not take much notice of them and descended the crude casted stairway made by the locals down to the sharp rocky shoreline. It was quite uneven and we had to walk down very carefully. We were wearing just mostly sippers and no shoes which we quickly regretted! If you are visiting here, wear shoes! The rocks are insanely sharp!
The was a view as we descended that I could not help but take a photo of with the ocean that was curtained by large rocks that were close together, forming a little space between them. It was quite the sight and the sounds of the waves crashing as well as the air being forced through the rocks resulted in such an exciting experience!
This was the view after we fully descended the roughly constructed stairway. You can get an idea of how sharp the rocks are just by looking at them here! One small misstep and a fall could result in a large amount of damage!
This is what it looked like on the left opposite the ocean. You can see my wife who decided to climb up the cliff face to get a better look at what the fishermen we mentioned earlier was doing. The entrance to the caves were just where she is standing in the photo above! But at this time, as you can see, she was much more interested in what the fishermen were up to!
I climbed up too to see what she was looking at and saw that they were both fiddling with a large branch of sorts. I then noticed with great surprise that there was a huge fish just to the left of them laid out on the rock they were standing on! If you look closely you can see it in the photo above!
I quickly zoomed in with my lens and saw the actual size of the fish properly and it was quite huge, almost as long as one of the guys themselves! No wonder they needed a huge branch to lug the thing out together out of the treacherous rocky shores back up the stairway! One of them could hardly carry it!
They managed to stick the branch through the mouth opening and out through the gill of the large fish and proceeded to begin struggling with it in and around the rocks that were so uneven in nature. The crashing waves in and around the rocks they were on did not at all help their situation but they were quite determined!
They began making progress and my father in law, the man with the striped T shirt and grey hair, decided to lend a hand as they were quite over encumbered at the time.
This gave the guys more free hands to see about they other fishes they had caught and were trying to hold on to and reposition themselves in a more leveraged way to get out more comfortably. You can see how the large fish makes those smaller fishes look even though the "Smaller" fish is larger and thicker than my father in law's leg and as long ad the dude's arm!
They eventually got a hold of all their stuff on the more stable and uniform pathway to the stairway that would take them and their prized catch back up! What an adventure! Knowing the Tobagonian people, this fish and the rest of their catch would be shared amongst their community!
After that whole debacle, the entrance of the cave was just behind us where we were standing to get a good view of the fishermen and the breath taking ocean. So we just turned around and began to cave exploration!
The blindingly bright Caribbean sun was still not bright enough to illuminate the cave entirely and it took our eyes a few minutes to adjust and dilate to see the details of the relatively small cave.
There were stalagmites and stalactites as one would expect but also very intricate rock formations that were probably formed by the rising and falling water that probably once filled the cave itself. There were also these peculiar colorations on all over walls and ceiling of red, green, orange and yellow hues! It was quite beautiful!
For what was supposed to be a quick visit to mostly unknown Tobagonian Caves, it was quite eventful with the fishermen and their monster catch! I had never seen such a huge fish in real life before! The caves were amazing and also was the first time I ever visited and walked in a real cave before! There is never a dull moment in Tobago, I guarantee it! Thanks a lot for coming along, cheers!