Buccoo

From: Charlotteville, Tobago
To: Buccoo, Tobago

A few days after we arrived in Charlotteville, Hannah suddenly got a fever. Combined with sharp pains inside her lower back, they feared a kidney infection or kidney stones. They went to shore and that was the last we saw of them for a few days. Since none of us had sim cards, there was no way to contact each other, other than finding free wifi every now and then.

After an ultrasound, it turned out Hannah did have kidney stones. She went to the health care center in Charlotteville, then to the hospital in Roxborough, and finally to the hospital in Scarborough. When we found out after a few days, they were in a guesthouse in Buccoo, so we sailed south to pick them up.

With the wind at our back, it should have been an easy sail. But the wind shifted continuously around the island, so it turned out to be quite active sailing. Felt a bit like the Med all over again. Still we made good speed all the way down.

We arrived around in the afternoon and had a happy reunion with Hannah and Antoine. The Tobago public health care system is free but extremely slow. Days where they had to wait 6 or 7 hours before being seen were no exception.

Buccoo is a bit of a silly place. There’s a large reef in front of the bay. Brightly painted, toy-like glass bottom boats shuttle tourists to and from the reef, playing loud rasta music all the time. They have built a stadium for goat and crab races. Yes, you read that right. A whole stadium. For goat and crab races. And on Sunday night, as we discovered, they have an extremely loud town wide party until 4:00 like there’s no Monday morning. That kind of place.