Only two vessels scheduled for Tobago Carnival

Stephon Nicholas

Mas­quer­aders seek­ing to par­tic­i­pate in next month’s To­ba­go Car­ni­val are ques­tion­ing how they will get to the is­land fol­low­ing the re­lease of the fer­ry sched­ule yes­ter­day.

The an­nu­al fes­ti­val, a ma­jor event on To­ba­go’s tourism cal­en­dar, runs from Oc­to­ber 30 to No­vem­ber 1.

Close to 40,000 rev­ellers trav­elled to To­ba­go for last year’s fes­ti­val, with 22,000 trans­port­ed on the seabridge.

How­ev­er, Oc­to­ber’s sail­ing sched­ule has left many con­cerned, with just six ad­di­tion­al sail­ings list­ed com­pared with 22 in 2025.

The Buc­coo Reef fast fer­ry and Galleons Pas­sage are not on the Oc­to­ber sched­ule, leav­ing on­ly the APT James fast fer­ry and the Gold­en Car­ri­er car­go ves­sel list­ed for ser­vice.

The TT In­ter-Is­land Fer­ry Ser­vice said the APT James will make ad­di­tion­al sail­ings from Port of Spain to To­ba­go on Oc­to­ber 27 at 4pm, Oc­to­ber 28 at 4pm, Oc­to­ber 29 at 11am, Oc­to­ber 30 at 6.30am, No­vem­ber 2 at 11am and No­vem­ber 3 at 6.30am.

The ad­di­tion­al APT James sail­ings from Scar­bor­ough to Port of Spain are sched­uled for Oc­to­ber 27 at 6.30am, Oc­to­ber 28 at 6.30am, Oc­to­ber 29 at 6.30am, Oc­to­ber 30 at 11am, No­vem­ber 2 at 6.30am and No­vem­ber 3 at 11am.

A sail­ing sched­ule for the Galleons Pas­sage was on­ly re­leased for No­vem­ber 1 to 11.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to the Port Au­thor­i­ty about the sta­tus of the oth­er pas­sen­ger ves­sels, but there was no re­sponse up to pub­li­ca­tion. Ef­forts to con­tact Sec­re­tary of Tourism Zor­isha Hack­ett were al­so un­suc­cess­ful.