Taucherstammtisch

Hallo Taucher,

die Tauchbasis R&Sea divers aus Tobago, mit denen einige von uns 2004 getaucht sind, hat einen Newsletter rund um das aktuelle Geschehen auf Tobago geschrieben.

Viel Vergnügen beim lesen wünscht,
Stefan

Hello to you all.

We hope you are all well & that 2008 will be good to you.

So a New Year with new things to look forward to & it has got to be the time to think of holidays past & new. So a reminder of Tobago has to be part of it.

Before we go any further I must apologies if any of you have emailed us in the last 6 months & have not had a reply. We are having big problems with TSTT & the server. Not all emails are getting to us & not all our replies are being received. If you do not hear back from us within 24 hours then please take it that we have not received your note. This being the case please send another one by going through our website www.rseadivers.com as this is linked up to another email address. That way we will receive at least one of the notes. So sorry for this but we are doing constant battle with TSTT to get this resolved. Perhaps 2008 will be our year.

2007 was a very mixed year. The beginning of the year we had the world cup cricket that caused a lot of problems not only for the island but for some of you getting here. At least that problem has now gone away. We certainly were busy from June onwards which was really great.

It was good to see so many of you again & pleased to know that some of you have already booked to come back in 2008.

So what is new over here then?

We now have a Delta flight from Atlanta each Saturday. The inaugural flight arrived on 15^th December. So this should make it a lot easier for some of you to get here. You can also book on-line now if you have to fly in to Trinidad & get the island hopper over to Tobago. But don’t forget if you do have to stop in Trinidad for the night then we have a good B & B that we can put you in touch with. They will also pick you up from the airport & drop you back for your connecting flight in the morning.

Talking of airports – they have now started work on the airport here. This is long over due but now that it has started we hope that it will continue. This will eventually make coming in & out of Tobago a lot better & a lot more comfortable. I was in the arrivals building the other day & they have extended the conveyor belt. Still not perfect but a little better we hope.

Food wise we have another excellent restaurant in Crown Point called Latitude 11. Some of you have been there & believe you me the food is wonderful. It is all cooked fresh so you have to wait awhile but as you have been here already you will not be surprised at that. But it sure is worth the wait. There are not many places I have been where you order seafood pasta & it comes out with half a lobster, a piece of fish, prawns & scallops.

If like us you enjoyed meals at La Terrazza which was the Italian restaurant in the golf club at the Hilton you will be pleased to hear that all is not lost. Stefano & Keisha decided to scale down the business as they have another little baby. So they now have a pizza & wine bar at Crown Point called La Cantina. They have the only real Italian pizza oven on the island. The only problem we have is that we now eat pizza a lot more often than we used to.

Ru-B-Lu’s which is a favorite with a lot of you has also changed a little. Still the excellent food but they have a cocktail bar as well. So you can now call in for a drink & then go on if you don’t want a meal.

For those of you who remember & enjoyed The Shade night club which was burnt down earlier in the year will be pleased to hear that it has been rebuilt & is now open again.

So the big event for 2008 will be Jazz Festival. Just to follow the last three years we have a number of big names coming over. This year we have Rod Stewart, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Dione Warwick, Shakira, James Ingram, EnVogue, Steel Pulse & Peabo Bryson.

The event this year will be over five days instead of three. The first two days will be for local artists.

The dates for Jazz are 23^rd & 24^th local artists then 25^th, 26^th & 27^th for international stars.

So if you are wanting to come over then you need to book flights & accommodation very soon as a lot of the places are already full. There are currently plans to bring in a cruise liner for the last three days when the international artists will perform.

The Mall although not yet full is opening more shops which will please a lot of the ladies out there. We will also have a cinema finished fairly soon. Okay so we will be more pleased about that than you guys. Let’s face it not many of you have to take a flight to see a movie.

So on to our guys & the diving.

Jackie is doing well & the doctors seem to be pleased with him each time he goes for tests & a check up. I know he isn’t working for us any more but Jackie will always be one of our guys. Don’t forget if you are over & need a taxi he will love to run you around & have a chance to chat.

Terrol our young lad is great & he loves the job. It is hard to believe that he had been with us for a year in November. He is now a very good boat captain but then with Ricki to teach him he had to be. He has his open water & advance & is working on his rescue diver. He loves his diving & I am sure will go on to be an excellent instructor & in the not to distant future.

Hi everyone, Tracy here to let you know what has been going on under the water. I am actually not sure where to start there has been so much activity recently. Let’s start with the big stuff. Ricki had the best encounter with a Manta recently. In November he was leading a dive on Cove Reef for some divers from Coral Cay Conservation when towards the end of the dive when, just where the Fused Stag Horn coral is that I was telling you about in the last newsletter, he was buzzed by a very curious Manta. It hung around for quite awhile and certainly made it the best dive ever in Tobago for the divers from Coral Cay.

Tony had the most scariest encounter on Flying Reef in September when a loan Hammerhead shark came out of the green water, scooped the bottom and then disappeared back into the green water. Needless to say that there was no safety stop on that dive! But that has not been the last sighting of a Hammerhead on the south. Another shark was seen on Flying Reef again on its own only last week. More good news is that there has been sighting of Hammerheads up at Sisters as well this week, so they are there. And I have to say I am not surprised that we are seeing more Hammerheads this year, the water is cold enough!!! Ok I can hear you all groaning about us softies but it is certainly cooler than it has been for a couple of years.

We have been seeing a few more Turtles recently which are always good news and there are a couple that have been tagged. It’s good to know that people are watching out for this beautiful endangered creature.

Most of you that have dived with me know that Cove Ledge is one of my favorite dive sites and this past week it really came up trumps. On just the one dive we had Turtles, Sharks, Stingrays, Green Moray Eels and I thought that I had hit jackpot when I spotted a Hawksbill Turtle and a Nurse Shark under the same ledge but there was still more to come. Not 1, not 2 but 8 HUGE Barracudas some we got so close to we could actually see their teeth being cleaned and then the biggest of them all was circling with a group of 16 baby Barracudas. It was an amazing site and shows that even though you think you have seen it all the sea can still surprise you.

On a much smaller note the juveniles are turning up again, the first tiny High Hat was seen last week and on a Dive Site that we don’t do that often, Bopez, which is right in front of the Dive shop, a tiny seahorse was spotted.

So the waters around Tobago are still coming up trumps and there will always be something different for you to see when you return which I hope will be soon. Bye for now.

If you want to pamper yourself while you’re here then Kim is the lady.

Kim managed her own Beauty Consultancy for 15 years in the UK in Cobham, Surrey & Bournemouth in Dorset where she had a large American and English clientele. Kim originally trained in Beauty Therapy in Trinidad. She offers you ladies a wide range of treatments at very reasonable prices. We have contact details & more information in the office.

If you are planning on coming back & would still prefer to book through a travel agent rather than do the booking yourself then we can recommend a company that we have started working with. It is run by a brother & sister in the UK but they are from Trinidad & Tobago therefore has an added advantage of knowing the place. The company name is Mot Mot Travel. Website is www.motmottravel.com Email address is viv@motmottravel.com They will be only to pleased to help you & please tell them that we passed on their details.

Don’t forget that we can still book accommodation for you & would be pleased to do so. Just email me with details of dates & numbers & what type of accommodation you would prefer. Our website will give you some ideas.
We have just added Candles in the Wind to our website. This is in Bon Accord & is a good location for beaches etc. We have had a few people stay there & they have all been very pleased.
Well I think that is about all from us other than to wish you all a very happy New Year & please stay in touch. We want to know all about the new babies & pictures please.