Didn't rain all week in Tobago but this is the rainy season in South America
and the Oronoco Flow  constantly dumps brackish, nutrient rich waters onto
the reefs of Tobago.  Makes for great fish sightings, however, for photo
purposes we had to go fairly deep to get good viz.  Most of the dives that
we made last week in Tobago were deepish current dives.  On one incident,
while diving near a small rock island  (think two rocks breaking the
surface) at 100 feet the current picked up and pushed us rapidly out to the
open seas.  We tried to ascend the coral covered wall of the rock island but
ran into an equally very strong down current. IT was very hard work to break
through the down current. I had 1500 psi when I broke out of the lateral
current and started up the rock fighting the down current. Took most of my
air to go from 100 feet to 60 feet.  Once we had made out of both the cross
and down current, hit a wall of black water where the viz was about 5 feet.
Lost my partner immediately. Decompressed at 15 feet just barely able to see
my flippers at times.  Didn't matter much since we were all issued sausage
and everyone had a variety of other safety devices including horns, mirrors,
whistles and pony bottles.  People of different mass and shape drift
differently -- the two tender boats covered a wide range of open water
retrieving all the divers at the end of that dive.

This was the toughest dive.  Most of the drift dives were stress free but
not for novices. Proper weighting, good air consumption and the ability to
be aware of where the rest of the divers are (because the tender boat
follows the dive guide dragging a surface marker) are skills required at
this destination at this time of year.

A day later we returned to same rock to take pictures of some of the
spectacular looking coral beds.  Had virtually no current and viz was
perfect after about 20 feet.

Because of the Oronoco Flow the viz went from 3 feet to 100 feet in a
single dive. When swimming through the brackish water I had to fight a sense
of vertigo -- the brackish water refracted the light differently that salt
water, it seemed as though there was a layer of oil right on my mask. The
temperatures changed rapidly too -- even though Tobago is at 10 degrees,
there were several times when the temperature drop 8 degrees -- some people
dove only in t-shirts, but, I am glad I wore my suit.

The reefs of Tobago are very healthy. Dive the Caribbean side and there are
pretty coral beds. Dive the Atlantic and the coral beds are wild, the shapes
of the sponges have been strangely twisted by the cross currents.  The fish
are big and weren't spooked by divers in the water.  Night dives were
spectacular in terms of creature sightings.

This is only the third week that Peter Hughes has been diving the waters
around Tobago.  They are still in the process of identifying the best dive
sites. The service on the boat was excellent, the equipment was in good
shape, there was Nitrox available, the food was good and the dive guides
were unobtrusive.  I enjoyed the week and I would recommend Tobago for
people who don't mind current, varying viz and changing temperatures.