The Great Battle at Sea!!!

Tiny, peaceful Tobago was once the scene of one of the bloodiest sea battles ever fought – one that saw 20 ships destroyed and sunk to the bottom of the sea. The year was 1677, and over 2,000 people, including 250 French and Dutch women and children and 300 African slaves, met horrific deaths in the waters.

When the British admiral Sir John Harman encountered the combined fleets of France and Holland which had rendezvoused off a bay then called Anse Erasme or Rash House Bay, now known as Bloody Bay on the north-west or leeward side of the island. It is said that the British defeated them with such great slaughter that the sea ran red in the golden sunset, the cannon booming into the night. Today, giant immortelle trees bloom a brilliant scarlet red on the mountains above Bloody Bay.

The island was called “Bellaforma” by Christopher Columbus when he came upon it in 1498, because it was so beautiful. It came to be highly prized and changed hands more than 30 times as several European nations fought over the island. But little is said or known about the human toll of these military dramas.

The early Dutch maps give it the name 'Rasphuys Bay'. Rasphuis, according to English historian Simon Schama, was a 17th century workhouse in Amsterdam where brazilwood was powdered to produce dye. The timber was rasped by convicts, and hence the name 'rasp house'. Indeed, until 50 years ago Parlatuvier, the village in the next bay, still had a sawmill and one of the most important dyewoods from the district, called redwood, also known as 'bloodwood', for it red stained look. Was Bloody Bay a similar user of ' bloodwood'.

We will make you Fishers of Men - A catch of biblical proportions. Early April 2001 the Bloody Bay seine fishermen hauled in a record catch, probably Tobago's largest in living history. They ran out of vans to take the fish to Scarborough market. The villagers of Bloody Bay had their fill, one lady was carrying so much that she fell over. A number of local buses detoured to the beach where the drivers and passengers all helped themselves to the catch. Hugh quantities were salted for later use. Still many were buried to prevent pollution. Thanks was given to God for his blessings.

This is one of these places in Tobago where you don’t need to be a photographer. Any picture you take here is going to look good. This beach has everything including a nice surrounding with a river entering the sea, rocks, and an unspoilt background and so on. It’s a bit of a drive to reach located between Parlatuvier and Charlottesville, but even the trip itself is – as with most – already worth going. You can take the route over the north and the south side of Tobago to reach Bloody Bay. If you take the south side you can either make a circle through Charlottesville or make a short cut through the rainforest, which leads you straight to Bloody Bay.

Another fun fact !!!

Although little is said or known about the human toll of these military dramas. This will soon change, when the incredible story of two gut-wrenching battles comes to light in a movie docudrama called Tobago 1677. The team behind the local production company Oceans Discovery Tobago Ltd, German filmmaker Rick Haupt and photographer Sylvia Krueger, are architects of an ambitious, technically challenging movie that will raise the seventeenth-century ghosts from their watery grave and potentially put Tobago on the map for its unique archaeological heritage.

Follow the link for more info on the documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I3nMn3ACjI

Once your done dipping in the calm waters there is the lovely and newly built beach facilities, all painted in the beautiful vibrant colors, if you’d rather a fun filled family day, where you fire up the grill and load the coolers with your favorite drinks, bloody bay is the beach for you.