Coasteering Trinidad
Exploring Trinidad and Tobago's coastline has always intrigued me, long before I even knew that 'Coasteering' was actually a 'thing'. I dabbled a bit with this activity during my travels; this served only to feed my curiosity which eventually grew into a passion!
The Concept
Coasteering is essentially traversing a segment of coastline typically by rock scrambling, jogging, swimming, cliff-jumping, and rock climbing. This activity is growing in popularity in a lot of European holiday destinations.
Our Mission
As interest peaked and curiosity grew, the CoolBlue team decided to take on the intense task of coasteering the 420-odd km of Trinidad's coastline. As you can imagine, such a task would require a lot of logistical planning, and our intention to execute it as back-to-back legs quickly seems less and less feasible.
Despite this setback, we decided to tackle this initiative, leg by leg whenever the opportunity presented itself. We did it with a dedicated team of Curtis Harper (Man Machine), Riley Field (@Pinkstroyer64), Myself (Ice Man), and Danielle Espinet as key ground support. Over the different segments, we had some guest athletes in Javan Lynch, Zara Nichols, and Shaila Singh.
It took us just about 3 odd years and 25 legs to accomplish what no man has ever done before #wnmhgb; circumnavigate the coastline of Trinidad, by any means necessary. Legs were as much as 70 km and as short as 15 km.
Outstanding Wildlife Moments
This venture allowed us the pleasure of getting up close and personal with a variety of species, including Manta Rays, Cow Nose Rays, Dolphins, Tarpons, Red Brocket Deer, Scarlet Ibis, and Caribbean Flamingos, to name a few.
One outstanding moment that deserves a special mention was our swim/mud crawl with a huge school of Cow Nose Rays on the west coast of Trinidad. After traversing the swamp, we decided to do a mud crawl to an islet somewhere after Marabella. The plan was to make our way to the far side of the islet in order to get into deeper water so that we could swim across the next bay. As we did our mud crawl toward deeper water, we inevitably stirred up the sediment that is always ever-present in the Gulf of Paria.
This activity attracted Cow Nose Rays towards our disturbance by the hundreds. We were literally crawling through a dense school, and they were literally sliding over our backs.
Impressions
Well, what can be said here? Regardless of the distance covered, each leg was dynamic, beautiful, and grueling at the same time. Some legs were fully industrialized, while some were totally untouched by the infectious hands of man.
Our North coast is absolutely rugged with beauty that cannot be described. The topography of our East Coast was totally unexpected with very challenging rock scrambling segments.
All in all, Casteeering is a blast, with Trinidad's coast having magnificence to offer. Stay tuned for our adventure book depicting this venture: 'The Chronicles of Ice Man, Man Machine, and the Pinkstroyer'.
Author
Tian Watson
Founder @coolblue_evolution
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