TOBACCO BAY 2015

We have been to Tobacco Bay twice now and absolutely loved it here. I will include both reviews on this page.

We took the ferry over to St George and walked to where you get on the HoHo bus (Hop On, Hop Off).

I thought it would be a great value to be able to hop on and off as you desired all day long. This would be a better way to see any place you wanted to see along the route and save your legs.

 This is the route they take along with all the stops they make.

You will find bus stops along the way and they are clearly marked so you know you are waiting for one of these buses to come along.

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Of course like always, I had a back up plan. IF we were unable to find this bus and we had to walk, I printed off directions on how to do this. I had heard that it's a nice big hill at the beginning of the walk and then once past the Unfinished Church it would be a pleasant walk.

However, since we were able to find the Visitor Center and purchase the bus pass, we wouldn't be walking to Tobacco Bay at least.

You simply go inside to the counter and tell them you want to purchase the pass, pay them and they stamp your hand with a bright blue stamp and you are done.

Now I had heard that the bus stop is a little "difficult" or "confusing" to find. We didn't have a problem at all. You simply walk out of the visitor center and it's basically right beside it between that building and the red building. Not hard at all. There's a bench there and everything.

One of the buses pulled up the minute that we got there but we didn't quite have everyone together to get on yet...I bet you all can guess who's dragging behind...starts with K and ends with A. So that bus filled up and we waited on the next. The signs say the bus comes every 1/2 hour but I'm pretty darn sure they must have more than 1 running because we did not wait over 10-15 minutes before another pulled up.

Someone on another thread ask me how many seats and I was thinking around 13 or so, but I also forgot that these buses have the middle seat that also pulls down for a chair (that would block the isle) so quite a few people can get on. Looking at the picture, I'm thinking it might hold maybe 17 people??? I remember counting and I remember it being an odd number.

Away we went to Tobacco Bay. I had originally wanted to first stop at the Unfinished Church to take some pictures and then catch the next bus on to Tobacco Bay. When the driver got around what I thought was the Unfinished Church, he kinda slowed down but kept going. It felt almost like a sight seeing tour. I didn't know if we were to shout out that we wanted off or if the bus just automatically stopped at all the stops. I would later find out that the driver ask if anyone wanted off and no one replied so he kept going. I guess that's a problem with sitting in the back seat.

So, plans are once again thrown off and changed on day 2. Oh well. We were headed to Tobacco Bay.

I did see people walking along the road and once again, I don't think it's something I would have wanted to do. But of course, being my first time there it seemed like it took awhile.

We were let off at the street and told which way to walk to the entrance. It was a fairly easy decline down the road to the entrance.

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I took one look at the beach and thought "Man this beach is small". It's probably one of the smallest beaches I think I have been to.

The chairs were $15 each or 2 for $25. Kendra and I decided to get 2 and split the cost. I would not be in a chair today and knew the hubby would want one. Kendra and Billy the same. Chrissy got her just 1 chair to share with her daughter Shayla. So we had a total of 3 chairs lined up. Prime Real Estate was already claimed for this subdivision and we were forced to take the maids quarters this time around. Oh well. I didn't really care since I had no intention of being there at the camp anyhow.

The hubby quickly claimed his spot, sat down, ordered a drink and took this picture to post on his social media site with the caption "My wife is out there somewhere". LOL

Sakari was the first one into the water like always (we were still picking our not-so-prime location).

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​Brayden joined her shortly and they were both looking around at all the fish under the water.

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Just a little tour of the place: the concession stand deck/area and the drink and food prices, equipment rental, and bathrooms.

I have to say, Tobacco Bay is not what I had pictured. You google the words Tobacco Bay and you ALWAYS see the pictures of the tall rocks that are VERY distinctive when you see them.

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I looked out at the water and thought...where are they? This is not like the pictures I have seen online. Well, those tall stacks of skinny rocks are to the side of the beach/water area. It really threw me off. I always pictured them to be straight ahead. LOL

I immediately went to work snorkeling and taking pictures. Sakari wanted to come along with me so I told her she'd have to put her fins on so that she could go faster and swim better with the current.

I tell ya my pictures would be a hit or miss that day depending on where my location was and how stirred up the water was, to if the sun was shinning at the time I took the picture, to the depth of the water. Some turned out excellent, others not as good. I'm trying to share just the ones that are at least decent.

I have to say I was having a GREAT time snorkeling here. Well worth the visit for sure. I explored everywhere on the right side with the tall skinny tobacco stacks.

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The thing I thought that was neat was every time I have been snorkeling, I always see the bright purple sea fans. This time, I would see maroon sea fans. It was a pretty neat change.

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When Sakari got tired I swam back with her to make sure she got back safely to shore and she would continue to play and snorkel around that area with Brayden. Kendra and the girls joined me and we decided to go out straight ahead to see what was out there. It was a blast indeed.

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There wasn't a lot of hard coral in the area, but you did see some. There was a lot of soft coral.

A super HUGE, I mean HUGE fish that probably had a body on him the size of Kendra's torso went flying past me. I was on a mission to get a picture of it. It was fast. It weaved in and out of the rocks. I would sit and wait. Then I would get tired of waiting and move over and see it again dart into another area. It was toying with me for sure. I never did get the picture but I squealed with excitement every time it went past me. However I did find this big guy, who was pretty big too and he seem to be the big fishes side kick.

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I found more of that maroon looking sea fans but this one was so bright and beautiful. Are these only limited to Bermuda and not in the Caribbean? (Since I have only seen a light purple there).

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This place had the absolute BIGGEST soft corals I have ever seen...like ever. They were HUGE and everywhere. It was amazing. I only wish that you could tell how big they all are by looking at a picture.

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There were gigantic Parrot Fish everywhere you turned. I had never seen any this big before. Do they feed everything in Bermuda their Wheaties or what?

Now my birthday is in February. I'm a Pisces, which probably explains why I love the water and fish so much. I can talk to fish. They know I love photography. So, I talked this guy into striking a pose for me and told him to say "cheese" (or actually "coral") and he laughed at me and told me "no, under no circumstance will I say cheese."

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Coming along the left side the water seems to get more shallow than the other places.

Then I spotted about 8-10 squids swimming in a line. They were so cute. I have seen them before in the Caribbean.

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​I watched them forever and they were so cute but so scared and wouldn't let you get too close. Kendra came out (she had previously went it to change her snorkel mask to another one) and she seen them as well too. But she said they weren't running from her and they won't lift their mouths up every time she got near them. She called them "knife fish" because she said they looked like they were going to stab her every time. LOL

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Video of them:

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There were a lot of monster parrot fish! Man they were huge!!!

Grapes and Cherreos for breakfast anyone?

Beautiful anemone:

Now this is not the greatest picture, but I had to share and ask...

I have swam with a lot of parrot fish before and they are always busy chomping away at the coral and pay no attention to you. I was going along, swimming back toward the shore, taking pictures and these 2 parrot fish go past me. One of them, which I have NEVER seen before, had this huge "thing" (not sure if it was a fin or what) on the very top of his back. He turned toward me, raised his fin (you couldn't tell it was there unless it was raised and it was NOT the dorsal fin) and opened his mouth and just sat there. I was a little taken back by this. I turned around to take a picture and he did it again. It kinda freaked me out because I have never seen them do this before nor had I ever seen that fin on the top like that. Was this a male protecting his female? They finally turned to swim away and I snapped a picture. He was putting his "fin" down as I took the picture. As you can see, it's not the dorsal fin that runs along the back. It was in front of that and when it was raised, it was all the way up by his head.

I have looked and looked and hundreds of parrot fish pictures on the web and have been able to find NOTHING like this before. The only way I can describe it is by showing a different type of species fish that resembles what I seen when it was raised.

It was pointy like the front fin on this fish, but it was extremely long and high when raised.

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I felt I had done enough snorkeling, covered the entire area, seen some pretty neat things, and it was time to call it a day.

I headed back to the sand camp and found that the hubs had discovered that you could get 15 minutes of free wifi there. I do know this is one of the wifi places that is included in your $15 plan you buy at the dockyard. But, all you had to do is put in your email and you got 15 minutes of free time. How many people have more than 1 email? Because I have about 5 of them. You could stay online for awhile if you used them all. LOL I chose NOT to get online the entire time we were there. I was on vacation!

Meanwhile, Billy had managed to get free cups of ice to use for his alcohol and red bull all day long. LOL I'm not sure how that happened.

I think we were there around 2 or so hours and I decided I was ready to move on. I wanted to head to Achilles Bay and check it out. I was not going to let this day go the same way as yesterday and I want more bang for my buck. The lazy guys who probably hadn't moved from their seats all day reminded me that we had paid for the lounge chairs and umbrellas and I gave them that "look" and they quickly got up and started packing. LOL

I took a few pictures of the area and noticed you could see the ships at the dockyard in the distance.

A few more shots of the area and we started walking up the hill to the road that the bus had dropped us off at.

Beautiful place and I will be back!

I had ask one of the "chair guys" at Tobacco how to get to Achilles Bay. He said he had never heard of it (LOL) and when I explained it was supposed to be right next door and by the fort, he turned around and pointed to the fort off in the distance. Um, Oh yea, I see it now. LOL So, I didn't think there was any way of us getting lost that was for sure. I did ask him if there was a sign over there once you get there and another guy answered that there was.

We turned left at the street and started walking. I almost felt like we were walking into a private resort area instead of just a normal street. I wasn't really sure.

Along the way, we all picked out "which house would be ours if we lived here". Oh course I would have to be on the beach and with a view like Tobacco Bay here, I'm just going to go ahead and pick this one with the sea horses.

It didn't take but about 10 minutes and we came to the end of the street and seen this bus stop. Great, at least we know that we can catch a bus back if we are in the wrong place. LOL

You could see the beach straight ahead so we knew at least we had found a beach. I didn't see any signs however. So, we just headed on down that way and over to explore.

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It ended up being at St Catherine Beach.

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You can find that review located here....

ST CATHERINES BEACH

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Another trip to Tobacco Bay:

Within a few minutes of arriving back in St George (from St Davids and Coopers Island) the same driver from this morning (the guy) pulled up. Dude...take us to Tobacco Bay! (He looked like a true surfer dude...seriously, long blonde hair, no shoes and kinda awkward). He was very funny and had a great personality. He was eating his lunch and of course offered us some. We figured we could each get a bite out of it and it would be gone so we declined. We joked all the way there and he said our group was pretty big and glad he was able to fit us all in, even though there's a sign that says "Maximum is ____" and I think it said like 6 or 8, I can't remember. Once again, we were sitting on laps, but that was ok. We knew it was a short ride there.

We arrived at Tobacco Bay at 1:39, but this time the driver went all the way down the hill right to the building at Tobacco Bay. How nice! No far walk down the hill. We could get right to the food.

The deck area had chairs, tables and umbrellas to eat at and a nice view to the water. 

We decided to head down to the beach and claim our real estate for the rest of the day. For some reason, we decided not to rent chairs this time. Putting our towels and blankets down on the sun would be just fine this time.

Here's the beach area. As you can see, it's not a huge beach, but still well worth the visit. This also shows the chairs you can rent. They have the adjustable tops over them that you can move along with the sun to stay under the shade if you want. Of course it had been raining off and on all day, so...no need for that.

This would be our area we claimed. You can tell the kids kinda dropped their things, threw a blanket down and ran to the concession stand.

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You can rent boards there if you'd like. I don't think I have ever seen anyone in them either time I was there.

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​I found it odd that they had a pool table outside. I'm not sure if it stays out there all the time (I would assume it does). But would think that the weather and salt would not be too good on it.

Not many people were in the water today.

I headed out to the water and to the right with Sakari while the kids ordered their food.

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The fish came running...or swimming...

I believe someone was throwing food in the water for them to come the way they did. There were people standing up on the rocks above us.

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​As you can tell, the water was cloudy and stirred up and without the sun, I wasn't able to take good pictures.

Kendra came out to snorkel with us while the others were waiting on their food to come out.

The one and only parrotfish I would see that day.

Plenty of Chitons around this area too.

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As I said, the sun was not out and the water was churned up, so not very good snorkeling at all today. We were going to head out to the deeper area along the rock walls. But with the water being so cloudy, we decided it was a bad idea.

I do like that this place has a sign that shows the various fish in the area there at Tobacco Bay. This is very helpful.

Kenny doing some more climbing:

I'm off taking pictures again since snorkeling was going to be out of the question today.

The menu and pricing:

The kids food arrived and it really started to look yummy. I told the hubby to go ahead and order us something. It was making me hungry.

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We took the table next to theirs and waited on our food to come.

As soon as I got situated, it started to rain. Oh well, I was already wet...but wait, our beach bags and towels are still out on the beach. Eh, we decided that Kolin was the lucky person today...we'd just send him out there to grab everything while we ate. LOL

As soon as he got everything gathered up and brought to us on the deck, it stopped raining of course. :D

Now does anyone notice the basket of chicken fingers that Kendra has??? See how many she got? Well when mine came, once again, I only had 3. Kendra stated that they came with 4, but they somehow gave her an extra. This would be a repeat of our day at Horseshoe. I'm always getting the short end of the meal.

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After everyone was done eating, the family decided to go exploring. I decided to stay back and take pictures.

I'm not really sure what this "plank" is out here for. It look like a small ?maybe? boat dock area, but the water is too low for that.

They all headed down into the water and around the corner. Sakari actually followed this time. Yikes.

Another Titanic moment...only on land.

Kendra noticed they had all taken off without her (as they were returning) and wanted to come.

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She gave them the pouty face and ask how they got down there. It took her awhile to jump off this thing into the water. She didn't know how deep it was. Ok, hold your nose, one, two, three, go! Ok, it was only knee deep if that. LOL She's hilarious.

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So she decided to go in a different direction. That'll teach them to leave her...or would it?

Nope, they paid no attention to her going a different way so eventually she would turn around and crawl up on the rocks they were at. Only coming back down was the same as the first time. Should I jump?

Billy was the only one that decided he would sit this one out (other than me). I managed to get a picture of what he did instead.

There was a neat rock with a hole in it. I always manage to find weird things to take pictures in, but I just couldn't get the picture I wanted to capture.

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Kendra noticed what I was doing and said "Hey, take a picture of me and Billy in the hole. " Um Kendra, I don't think you guys can fit in the hole....

So then she said she'd sit in front of it and me get the picture. I took the picture and told her what good did it do to take a picture in front of a hole...when she's IN FRONT OF THE HOLE. ???? LOL, so she moved a little to the side. Still not the look I think she was trying to achieve either.

It was starting to look a little dark again and I figured it was about to rain. Although we had a decent time there, the rain and lack of sun just didn't make it the same experience it was the last time. The weather really does have an effect on your day. I don't care what others say.

There's our ship!!!

A few last pictures before we packed up to leave.

I had noticed a lot of people walking up the hill and to the intersection to come down to Tobacco Bay. I was really unsure what to do. I did see a bench up against the building at Tobacco Bay and there was a sign that said "Beach Bus" on it. Do they actually come down the driveway for pick up and drop off now? There was another "much older" couple there waiting for the Beach Bus.

We would watch taxi's come down the hill, ask if we needed a ride, then park there at the building...maybe until they found someone or hoped that someone would ask for a cab ride back.

We waited maybe 15 minutes for the Beach Bus to come back. We did see some people walk back down the hill after standing up there for awhile. I thought maybe they figured out that the bus stop was back here now and I just knew we were going to go for round 3 of fighting for the bus. Sigh. I remember making a comment that IF they were waiting on the same bus as us and IF that bus came and decided to pick them up at the road, I was going to be a little upset. They came down the road about half way and then just stood there. They never did come all the way to the bus stop. Thank goodness.

Mr Chiquita Banana:

Or maybe he was a snake charmer. I'm really not sure but he was doing a balancing act on his head trying not to be bored. This was taken at 4pm. So that tells you around what time we decided to leave.

This bus kept coming around Tobacco Bay while we were there. I think it's the tour bus. We seen it several times during our stay there, but they never had anyone get off of it.

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​It's like the choo choo at the dockyard, I just didn't snap the picture in time to see the "train" on the front.

The HOHO bus arrived with the same funny surfer driver guy. We knew all 10 of us would pile in, sitting on each others laps and getting really close and personal. BUT, remember this time there was the elderly couple waiting too...who would also need a ride...a ride with us...sitting on top of each other. After we all got in and told them "come on, you can do it, plenty of room still" they walked around to the other side and the gentleman sat in the bench seat next to me and said "hop on honey" and put his wife in his lap. Awww...we all cheered them on and we all laughed and joked about how lovey dovey they were and how much he was enjoying it. It was going to be a great ride back! :D

The driver did say that they decided to change the HOHO bus stop to down by the building at Tobacco Bay. It just didn't make any sense to have everyone having to walk up and down the hill to get there and they "want to make everyone feel as comfortable as possible...even when you have to sit on each others lap." wink wink. LOL He said they were still learning what works best for them and everyone using the system and still making "tweaks" to it and this was one of the improvements they had made. GOOD FOR THEM! Love this bus! We were off and headed back to town. But, instead of making the circle like they do, he headed right and back the way he came cutting off a lot of time. I mean after all, he did know we were all going to the ferry and it was pretty obvious there were no laps left to put anyone on.

Now, wait a minute...we just passed the street to where we get off at. He turned right, um... ok, I know this street of course, then a quick left off the main street...HE WAS TAKING US STRAIGHT TO THE FERRY DOCK!! Wow, even better service. He was the greatest! He went as far as he could to the gates and we all piled out like the circus clowns you see get out of the small bus...wondering how we all fit in there. He did make the comment that this was probably the most he ever had in there at one time. I'm not sure if this was also part of the "added service", but I sure liked it. We didn't have to walk all the way from the town center back to the ferry dock and that was perfectly fine with me since we had done just about all the walking we wanted to today.

In to the ferry dock building we went where they would have live music playing and people inside sitting in the chairs listening and waiting on the ferry. The rest of my family went ahead outside to get in line and a few of us went to the restroom one last time.

Once I made it outside, they were 2nd in line at the gates. It was 4:15pm