This is one of the most gorgeous beaches in Tobago, and certainly one of the most secluded. It's a lovely beach for a swim or a picnic. If you're lucky you'll see one of Tobago's giant Leatherback turtles on the beach. These endangered sea turtles come ashore during the months of March, April and June to lay eggs that hatch within three months. Tobago is one of three islands in the Caribbean where the giant Leatherback nests on the beaches. Stone Haven Bay and Castara Bay are other popular nesting sights in Tobago.

This beach is literally two minutes' walk from Crown Point Airport and is favoured by visiting Trinidadians. Crown Point Beach Hotel (seen in the distance) is located right on Store Bay Beach. On the beach you can sign up for a tour on one of the glass-bottom boats of the Buccoo Reef and the Nylon Pool. The Nylon Pool is a natural shallow salt water pool with fine sand in the middle of Buccoo Bay. Local folklore promises that if you swim in the Nylon Pool, you'll look five years younger.

This is considered the most famous beach in Tobago and understandably so with its palm-fringed stretch of powder-fine white sand and translucent turquoise sea. Protected by the Buccoo Reef, the water here is the calmest on the island. The Buccoo Reef is a protected marine park located off Pigeon Point, which includes the Coral Gardens where fish and corals are untouched and abundant.

A common scene on the beaches of Tobago: a village of wiry fishermen and dark seine nets bringing in the catch of the day. Willing tourists and villagers can join in the action.

One of the main attractions in the village of Plymouth and a source of puzzlement to locals and visitors is the tombstone of a young woman who died in the 18^th century. The epitaph reads:

Within these walls are deposed the bodies of Mrs. Betty Stiven and her child. She was the beloved wife of Aley Stiven. To the end of his days will deplore her death which happened upon the 25^th day of Nov. 1783 in the 23^rd year of her age. What was remarkable of her, she was a mother without knowing it and a wife without letting her husband know it except by her kind indulgences to him.

This is how the Dave Dewitt and Mary Wilan (authors of a Trinbagonian cookbook called Callaloo, Calypso & Carnival) explain the riddle: Betty meets a guy and falls in love with him. He refuses to marry her, and she won't live in sin. She then gets him so drunk that he passes out, and a preacher with a good sense of humor marries them. Betty, being a wife without her husband's knowledge, kindly indulges his every whim, and the result is that Betty becomes pregnant. But before she realizes she is pregnant, she is struck down by brain fever and goes into a coma. Without regaining consciousness, Betty comes to term and delivers a baby, but she dies during birth, "a mother without knowing it." So much for that riddle.

This fort, Tobago's best-preserved historical monument, is located in the Scarborough area high on its hill overlooking Rockly Bay. Built by the British in the 1770s, the fort has changed hands many times. In 1789 French soldiers mutinied and burned most of Scarborough to the ground. A prison, belltank, several cannon, barracks and officers' mess are located in the well-manicured grounds.

The fort is also home to the Tobago Historical Museum and Centre of Fine Arts. The museum features an interesting collection of pre-Columbian artifacts as well as military relics, and maps and documents from the era of slavery. The most dramatic exhibit is an Amerindian dugout canoe. This art display was on the grounds of the fort when I visited a few years ago. The piece is called "Tobago Jig" and was created by a German sculptress, Luise Kimme, who settled in Tobago in 1979.

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