The rhythm of the Caribbean sea, Carnival in Tobago and a special flavor of West Indies wave sailing is on-the-cards on Trinidad’s twin island of Tobago.
(This feature originally appeared in the August 2013 issue of Windsurf Magazine. Print and digital subscriptions for readers worldwide are available HERE. If this gets you in a tropical mood, you can also read Part 1 of the Beach Culture Diaries that unveils Brian’s newly discovered wave spot in Barbados!)
TOBAGO CARNIVAL REGATTA I get a call from Nikki, the organizer of the Tobago Carnival Regatta. She wants me to bring my Beach Culture World Tour over for the event- yeah man! The Beach Culture World Tour goals are twofold, to entertain visitors to Barbados and to travel the world promoting the lifestyle. There’s nothing better than getting paid to play…
WordsBrian Talma Photos Kenny Hewitt
CARNIVAL TIME
I arrive in Tobago the weekend after Carnival in the neighboring island of Trinidad, one of the biggest processions in the world. I recruit Kenny my photographer. It’s time for another Caribbean adventure. I pack just my Naish freestyle board, a 5.8 and a 6.2, as I know the wind can be light and the only planes from Barbados to Tobago are small. I’m relaxing in my seat when the flight attend gets my attention – the windsurfing equipment can’t fit into the plane, my heart drops. The next minute I’m on the tarmac pushing and shoving my board bags into the aircraft, this is island-style traveling! I’m happy my equipment makes it safely to Tobago.
PIGEON POINT
We’re staying just five minutes drive from Pigeon Point at local Keith (better known as Electric’s) apartments. If you’ve never been to Tobago before, Pigeon Point is where the majority of windsurfing is done. It’s a huge play park. We enter through a maze of coconut trees, past the new windsurfing school – wow things have changed so much since the first time I visited in the 90s when this was only a small shack with just a few boards to rent, run by my cousin, John, the old-man-of-the-sea and the pioneer of windsurfing in Tobago. We reach the sandy beach, opening up to a huge lagoon, surrounded by the famous Bucco Reef. My brain is smiling. There’s a nice breeze blowing and the lagoon is flat and shallow, perfect for learning to waterstart or blast across or for freestyle, but all I’m interested in is the waves.
BUCCO REEF
My brain’s on a mission, I want action. I push off the beach with my gear, it’s perfect north wind so it’s a direct reach to the reef – a good thousand yards offshore. Cranking off the bottom of the wave, I mark a spot on the lip and smack it – action!
The freestyle board’s drawing lines that I never expected – what a first day in Tobago! Two hours later my brain is quenched and I’m at peace with the world.
The sun’s blasting rays across my body and I’m feeling the feeling.
I pull into my last waves and, as life has it, I get smacked onto the reef. Life upon earth, my mast is broken into three places. Wow this place has some power. I’m a happy man as the organization provided Kenny with a boat to take pictures from and they retrieve me and my gear. This is why it’s risky sailing the wave on Bucco reef, if you break a mast, or anything for that matter, you could spend a long time at sea.
That night Electric wants us to taste some of the lingering Carnival atmosphere. 15 minutes later I hear the pounding calypso music through the air. We abandon the car and moved towards the music. I see these mud-coated people staggering toward us, like zombies, dehydrated and half drunk The closer we get, the feeling is stronger and we’re soon absorbed by a sea of them. I can’t tell a lie, I wasn’t in the same mood as these revelers. There was a huge trailer truck carrying these stacks of speakers and a maze of people mesmerised by the music, in some sort of trance – this is The Tobago Carnival Regatta.
The special blends of carnival, music, food, people and windsurfing makes Tobago one the best windsurfing destinations and places to feel the pulse of the Caribbean sea.
