Speyside tide times

The manta ray cleaning stations are in the Little Tobago Channel and at Batteaux Bay reef near Speyside. Both sites are reached by 5 to 15 minute boat transfer from the Speyside jetty. Mantas visit the cleaning stations throughout the year but are most reliably encountered from December through May when the trade wind upwelling drives plankton concentrations and the mantas feed heavily. Sightings are not guaranteed on any given dive, but Speyside has one of the most consistent manta encounter records in the Caribbean. The dive is conducted at 10 to 20 metres depth. Book through one of the two dive operators in the village; both run 2-tank morning boat dives.

The snorkelling in the shallower reef sections near the jetty and at the inside of the Little Tobago Channel is productive — fish density and diversity is high, and occasional manta ray encounters in the shallower sections do occur, though they are less predictable than from a dive. The boat trip to Little Tobago Island for seabird watching is accessible to anyone comfortable on a small open boat; the island's forest trail and the seabird colonies are the draw. The village itself is quiet and the hillside walk above the bay gives a panoramic view of the coast. Speyside is not a beach resort — the local beach is small and the water is Atlantic-active.

The large brain coral colonies (Diploria labyrinthiformis and Colpophyllia natans) on the Speyside reef grow at approximately 3 to 7 millimetres per year. The largest individual colonies in the Speyside area measure 2 to 3 metres in diameter, implying ages of 300 to 600 years or more for the largest specimens. These colonies predate European settlement of Tobago and represent a continuous living record of Caribbean reef conditions across centuries. The brain coral heads are the dominant visual feature of the reef structure below 10 metres and provide shelter for a diverse fish community in the crevices of their surfaces.

The Main Ridge Forest Reserve was established by the British colonial government in 1776 as a protected watershed forest — the first such legislative protection of tropical forest in the Western Hemisphere. The reserve covers 3,958 hectares of the ridge spine of Tobago, from which streams drain to both the Caribbean and Atlantic coasts. The forest is humid montane in character: dense canopy, high epiphyte load, diverse bird life including hummingbirds, motmots, and the white-tailed sabrewing (a hummingbird with a restricted range). The Gilpin Trace trail from Roxborough is the main access point. The forest drains to the Speyside coast through the Speyside River and several smaller streams.

The drive from Crown Point to Speyside is approximately 40 kilometres by the main road through Scarborough and over the Roxborough-Bloody Bay mountain road (the direct trans-island route), or longer via the coastal road through Charlotteville. Driving time is 1 to 1.5 hours depending on the route and road conditions. The Roxborough-Bloody Bay road is steep and winding but paved and well maintained. Route taxis cover the route but with variable frequency; the most reliable service is from Scarborough rather than Crown Point. Several Crown Point operators offer Speyside dive day trips with transport included.