Tobago extends jet ski restrictions to Buccoo Reef, nearshore areas

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s Di­vi­sion of En­vi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Re­silience and En­er­gy yes­ter­day is­sued a pub­lic no­tice re­mind­ing op­er­a­tors that jet skis and per­son­al wa­ter­craft are not al­lowed in Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park, Buc­coo Reef Ma­rine Park, Buc­coo Beach and nearshore ar­eas.

The no­tice ex­pands on com­ments made on Thurs­day by Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, who said jet skis were not al­lowed in the ma­rine park fol­low­ing the death of sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Saydee Jo­gie.

The no­tice is the first for­mal pub­lic re­minder to specif­i­cal­ly in­clude Buc­coo Beach and near­by coastal ar­eas.

The re­stric­tion ap­plies to all op­er­a­tors, both com­mer­cial and pri­vate.

The no­tice al­so stat­ed that all ma­rine ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing reef tours, snorkelling, div­ing and glass-bot­tom boat op­er­a­tions, re­quire writ­ten ap­proval.

The an­nounce­ment came days af­ter An­gel­i­ca was struck by a jet ski while in­side a des­ig­nat­ed bathing area at Pi­geon Point, To­ba­go, where she had been spend­ing the East­er hol­i­days with her fam­i­ly.

Mean­while, tourism stake­hold­ers in To­ba­go have mo­bilised to sup­port the Jo­gie fam­i­ly.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, the Di­vi­sion of Tourism, An­tiq­ui­ties and Cre­ative In­dus­tries said in­dus­try part­ners moved quick­ly to pro­vide care and com­fort dur­ing the fam­i­ly’s stay.

Sup­port has in­clud­ed meals arranged through the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion, with con­tri­bu­tions from Tropik­ist Beach Ho­tel, Grafton Beach Re­sort’s Waves Restau­rant and Mount Irvine Bay Re­sort. Trans­porta­tion has been pro­vid­ed by Rat­tan’s Car Rentals, while ac­com­mo­da­tion was arranged at Blue Mar­lin Vil­la, with ad­di­tion­al sup­port from Vil­la Anan­da To­ba­go.

The Di­vi­sion said the ef­fort re­flects a shared com­mit­ment across the sec­tor, ex­tend­ing be­yond ser­vice in­to what it de­scribed as a gen­uine hu­man con­nec­tion.

Tourism Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett said, “We once again ex­tend our heart­felt con­do­lences to the Jo­gie fam­i­ly dur­ing this pro­found­ly dif­fi­cult time. Our stake­hold­ers did not hes­i­tate. They came to­geth­er in­stinc­tive­ly to sup­port the fam­i­ly, guid­ed by com­pas­sion, uni­ty and gen­uine care. This shared re­sponse is a true re­flec­tion of who we are, not just as a des­ti­na­tion, but as a deeply con­nect­ed com­mu­ni­ty that stands to­geth­er, even with our vis­i­tors, es­pe­cial­ly when it mat­ters most.”